The Top 10 Best Sections are:

The Charlotte Observer

Chicago Tribune

Houston Chronicle

The Los Angeles Times

The Kansas City Star

The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)

The State (Columbia, S.C.)

USA Today

The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)

The Wilmington Star-News (North Carolina)

 
Here's what the judges had to say about each of these winning sections:

The Charlotte Observer
The Charlotte Observer tells the local story well, creating a sense of community within their pages through a diverse range of story forms including narratives, user-generated photo contests and profiles on hairstylists and chefs. The voice and the diversity of the audience are captured and displayed prominently in the section. Even with content that tends to lack local flavor such as travel, they take an innovative and personal approach by highlighting photos their readers took of their summer vacations and promoting their Web site for additional features. These sections provide the reader with a delightful surprise each day. Excellent work!

Chicago Tribune
These sections stand out as solid and consistent in design and content, with a variety of story forms and entry points that help draw-in the reader. Clever story packaging and headline writing as in “Spa Faux Pas” helps to segment the story and retain the reader’s interest.  For a large market, the Tribune’s sections do a great job featuring local faces and voices in their pages.  In addition, they look for interesting story angles on tired but popular content, such as straying from the Thursday night entertainment feature on the cast and plot of Grey’s Anatomy, to instead run an article discussing the use of music in the operation room and referencing a local surgeon. They also do an excellent job breaking down complicated, process-oriented stories into appealing graphics in the “Trump pump” article on how skyscrapers are built. Their magazine featured good Sunday reads with fun sidebars and their daily content gave strong placement to their metromix.com Web site for more calendar and entertainment listings. All in all, Chicago Tribune presents a strong and consistent features package that reflects their community.

Houston Chronicle
This entry possesses a sense of fun and style that reflects Houston to a “T.” It has a distinctive look that is executed well, with lots of clever entry points and navigational tools that provide a nice roadmap through the pages. Highlights are strong headlines, attention-grabbing leads, a witty storytelling style, good use of images, and inside pages that look authoritative. It’s nice to see local names and faces given such prominence.

The Los Angeles Times
A sharp, smart, sophisticated package from beginning to end! This entry captures the high style and sprawling urban landscape of L.A. perfectly. Well written, expertly designed and easy to navigate. It’s not just “eye candy” (though it looks fabulous!) but deep and broad in its coverage of the arts, culture and design. There’s a definite “wow factor” here.

The Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Star is in a class by itself. Its risk-taking, Web-inspired design points to the future, with multiple story styles and plenty of entry points to draw the reader into the section, which stakes a strong claim on local people and local stories. Break-out boxes, Web references and refers are well used and placed throughout the section.

The News & Observer
This section stood out from its eye-catching, active and fun magazine-style front covers and illustrations. The design incorporates the use of white space well and balances the scale of photos and typography of the page. In addition, there is a strong local focus and use of diversity in the content featured and the headlines draw the reader into the story.  The inside pages exhibit a sense of control, pacing and authority with consistency throughout the sections. 

The State
There’s lots to like in this entry that makes excellent use of local and wire stories. The layout is a bit over decorated, but cover stories are lively, local and fun. Quick reads and helpful reader service sections like health & fitness, of a certain age and gardening strive for reader engagement - and succeed. There’s something for everyone here!

USA TODAY
The LIFE section is always in the know, the smart, go-to place for the latest in popular culture.  This entry stands out as consistently providing headlines and photographs that draw the reader into the story. In fact, they’ve perfected the use of clever headlines that really tell what the story is about. Listings, charts and graphics all allow the reader to digest the content quickly. The front page highlights inside content for readers, pulling them further into the section. This entry also does a great job of pushing the reader to the Web for more information.

 
The Virginian-Pilot
This is a solid entry with good local coverage and a variety of story forms and topics. Editors are not afraid to take a risk with some fun stories like “Encyclopedia Shatnerica.” Reader service and local coverage are evident throughout. There’s a nice, easy feel to the section. It’s well paced and nicely formatted.

Wilmington Star-News
This entry incorporates local content with local, diverse voices. Good use of boxes to quickly give the reader the where and when, and the Web to give the reader more information. Multiple story forms are evident, from the short article “Crowning Touch” with large, interesting photos and quotes, to the long article on Blue Velvet that also featured a trivia quiz.