The SNO Distinguished Sites Application Season Is Now Open!

Starting today and ending on April 30, 2020, you can (and really should) apply for any (or all) of the SNO Distinguished Sites badges representing six key components of a modern news website:

  • Continuous Coverage

  • Site Excellence

  • Story Page Excellence

  • Best of SNO Excellence in Writing

  • Multimedia

  • Audience Engagement

Exclusively for SNO customers, the SNO Distinguished Sites is not a contest with winners or losers; rather it recognizes those sites that meet the standards in each of these core areas, and it aims to help all member programs excel online. News staffs are welcome to tackle the badges in any order, striving to earn as many as makes sense for their publication.

A program that earns all six badges will be awarded the honor of being a SNO Distinguished Site for the calendar year. In addition, Distinguished Sites will receive a plaque, a press release, and a letter will be sent to the school’s principal or PR department.

Last year, SNO recognized a record 49 student publications as distinguished sites and awarded a total of 219 publications at least one badge.

If you’re a new program and just starting out, you can use these standards to chart your course. If you’re an experienced program already doing these things, then what are you waiting for? Apply for badges right in your SNO Sites dashboard.