Newspaper of the Year. General excellence. Investigative reporting.

When it comes to prizes that are available at annual newspaper award competitions, it doesn't get much better than that.

These were among the 17 awards — eight for first place – that The Telegraph was honored to receive at the New England Press Association's annual awards banquet last Saturday night at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston. (See the original story here.)

It marked the third consecutive year that we were honored by this organization with the general excellence award and the first time we earned its Newspaper of the Year designation since 2004.

Now those of you who regularly read my blog know how I feel about newspaper awards: they should never be a goal but rather an after-the-fact recognition of serving your readers well. (See a previous blog entry on Telegraph awards here.)

Still, I know what some of you skeptics are thinking: Well, how many newspapers did you actually compete against?

How do I know that's what some of you are thinking?

Easy. Because I was thinking the same thing.

So, here's a list of 19 other newspapers in the under-30,000 circulation category that we competed against this year. There may have been more, but these are the ones that were recognized with at least one award in the program book:

• The Portsmouth Herald of Portsmouth.
• Foster's Daily Democrat of Dover. 
• The Keene Sentinel of Keene. 
• The Eagle Times of Claremont. 
• The Milford Daily News of Milford, Mass.
• The Gloucester Times of Gloucester, Mass.
• The Salem News of Salem, Mass.
• The Daily News of Newburyport, Mass.
• The Daily News Tribune of Waltham, Mass.
• The Recorder of Greenfield, Mass.
• The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass.
• The North Adams Transcript of North Adams, Mass.
• The Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, Mass. 
• The Taunton Daily Gazette of Taunton, Mass.
• The Gardner News of Gardner, Mass.
• The Herald News of Fall River, Mass.
• The Times Record of Brunswick, Maine
• The Call of Woonsocket, R.I.
• The St. Albans Daily Messenger of St. Albans, Vt.

The association's Better Newspaper Contest was judged this year by individuals associated with the American Press Institute, a center based in Reston, Va., that provides training and development to journalists and journalism educators. 

And while I don't want to divulge too much at this point of what the judges had to say about us — I'm planning to share that information at a newsroom staff meeting next week – here's what the judges wrote about our coverage of the Julia Earl story, which earned first-place among all daily newspapers regardless of circulation size in the investigative reporting category:

"The initial story in this package documents a pattern of potential abuses of public trust by the city's school superintendent. It is extensively reported and meticulously documented. The remarkable stories follow the developments the original piece helped set in motion, as well as adding significant new facts. It is quite possible that the superintendent would have left the city for another job without these circumstances ever having been revealed were it not for the enterprise and diligence of this newspaper. Public service of the best rank."

Now don't get me wrong. I'm particularly proud of all the awards we received this year, Newspaper of the Year prime among them.

But for an editor who believes a community newspaper has no higher calling than fulfilling its role as a community watchdog, the investigative reporting award was the proverbial frosting on the cake.