What does "excellence" mean in journalism? The literature reveals no universally agreed set of standards, and awards guidelines are often unclear. We interviewed judges in two leading Canadian print journalism awards programs, using a sequence of open-ended and ranking questions to probe their criteria of excellence in a way calculated to elicit not just the standards they felt should be applied but the standards they actually did apply. Judges mentioned a wide variety of criteria, including the social importance and impact of works of journalism. But only two values were affirmed consistently: writing style and reporting rigour.Résumé : Comment définit-on un « excellent » journalisme ? Un parcours de la bibliographie à ce sujet révèle que les règlements relatifs aux prix décernés aux journalistes sont souvent vagues et qu'il n'y a pas de standards d'évaluation unanimement établis. Pour ce projet de recherche, nous avons interviewé des juges de deux programmes de remise des prix dans le domaine du journalisme écrit au Canada. Nous avons posé des questions ouvertes et des questions fermées dans le but de recueillir non seulement les critères qui devraient être appliqués, mais aussi ceux que les juges ont déjà appliqués dans leur pratique. Les juges ont mentionné un vaste éventail de critères, y compris l'impact social des oeuvres journalistiques. Toutefois, seulement deux valeurs se sont imposées invariablement : le style d'écriture et la rigueur du reportage.

What does “excellence” mean in journalism? The literature reveals no universally agreed set of standards, and awards guidelines are often unclear. We interviewed judges in two leading Canadian print journalism awards programs, using a sequence of open-ended and ranking questions to probe their criteria of excellence in a way calculated to elicit not just the standards they felt should be applied but the standards they actually did apply. Judges mentioned a wide variety of criteria, including the social importance and impact of works of journalism. But only two values were affirmed consistently: writing style and reporting rigour.

What does “excellence” mean in journalism? The literature reveals no universally agreed set of standards, and awards guidelines are often unclear. We interviewed judges in two leading Canadian print journalism awards programs, using a sequence of open-ended and ranking questions to probe their criteria of excellence in a way calculated to elicit not just the standards they felt should be applied but the standards they actually did apply. Judges mentioned a wide variety of criteria, including the social importance and impact of works of journalism. But only two values were affirmed consistently: writing style and reporting rigour.