Distinguished Sites season is right around the corner!

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Ready to earn some badges?

It’s October! How did that happen?

The SNO team has been busy answering hundreds of support tickets and providing dozens of online training sessions as everyone gets back into the swing of the school year. In addition to that, Best of SNO opened on Sept. 15, and we’ve already had over 1,000 stories submitted this year!

Next Monday, Oct. 6, we’ll open up submissions for the other part of our recognition program – the Distinguished Sites badges! If you’re unfamiliar with them, badges are aligned with different areas of online journalism and require sites to meet a series of guidelines that the SNO committee has determined excellent producers of online news should be meeting. They include:

  • Best of SNO (Writing)

  • Audience Engagement

  • Multimedia

  • Story Page Excellence

  • Continuous Coverage

  • Site Excellence

We recently posted several videos that outline the guidelines and explain how to submit for each of these badges. You can view those videos in this playlist.

If you submit for one of the badges and don’t earn it on your first try, you will receive some written feedback from our reviewers letting you know what improvements need to be made in order to earn the badge. The exception to that is Best of SNO.

In order to earn the writing badge, your site must be selected for publication on Best of SNO at least once during the school year. Keep in mind that Best of SNO is very competitive, with only around 10-15% of submissions being selected each day. Make sure your submissions meet all of the guidelines, and check out these publication tips to help you better select which stories you might want to submit. You can also read through BestofSNO.com to see what pieces have been published so far this year.

If you earn all six badges, we’ll recognize you as a SNO Distinguished Site next summer and through the entire 2026-2027 school year on our Award Winners page, but you’ll also receive several recognition materials that you can highlight in your newsroom and school community. They include:

  • A wood mounted plaque with your Distinguished Site certificate

  • A letter to your principal informing them about your achievement

  • A press release you can share with local media outlets

We hope that your staff takes a look at those guidelines on the SNO Badges tab on your dashboard. Whether you go on to earn all six badges or just try to submit to one or two for the first time, we thank you for participating in SNO’s recognition program! Have a great October!