The CPA awards are, like most industry awards, spread around so liberally as to ensure that everyone gets something, not unlike those youth sports leagues in which everyone gets a trophy, or professions like real estate agents, where everyone appears to be in the top 10 per cent.

There are dozens and dozens of CPA awards, given out in every conceivable category — first place, second place, third place and then honourable mentions. You will be pleased to know that The Compass of Green Bay, Wisconsin, won third place in the “best single ad originating with the publication — black and white”; not to be confused with “best single ad originating with the publication — colour,” in which the bronze was hauled in by the pride of Beaumont, the East Texas Catholic. Even prouder still would have been the Catholics of Fort Worth, where the North Texas Catholic won first place in the “best online content not published in print. And Catholics in western Texas were not left out, as the West Texas Angelus of San Angelo took not one, but two honourable mentions in the same category: “best news writing originating with the paper on a local or regional event.” And so it goes, on and on, a great gushing of mutual admiration...