The Carmage Walls Commentary Award recognizes thoughtful, courageous and constructive editorial page leadership on issues specifically relevant to the newspaper’s primary readership.

Awards will be presented in each of two circulation categories — over 50,000 circulation and under 50,000 circulation.

In each circulation group, the first-place winner will receive a plaque and a cash award of $2,000. Second-place winners will receive a plaque and $1,000.

Years in the Industry: 5 years

Previous Experience: My background is in digital marketing advertising and agency-styled work. I came over to Gannett to help spearhead their digital marketing sales growth as a team leader and now am a regional sales manager for our Panhandle Florida markets.

What I like most about my job: I love working with both clients of diverse scale and industry in addition to my colleagues by helping elevate their digital acumen and strategy capabilities as strategic advertising consultants.

What's the greatest opportunity for newspapers in the future? Being able to capitalize on a myriad of channels more than ever before by tapping into digital and data capabilities that we may not have explored in traditional mediums, allowing us to have a much larger audience reach in order to scale our quality content distribution.

Years in the Industry: 24 years

Previous Experience: Ad director at The Morning Call (Tribune property) in Allentown, Pennsylvania; ad director at Dow Jones Local Media in Middletown, New York; and national/majors ad director at The Journal News (Gannett property) in White Plains, New York. This is where I started my career as a national/majors AE.

What I like most about my job: I love knowing that I work for an industry that makes a difference in society. I'm constantly amazed by what it takes to put out a unique quality product on a daily basis. As far as advertising is concerned, what I like the most is developing and implementing either a new strategy or product that ultimately yields results for our business and our business partners. There's a significant sense of accomplishment when an idea becomes a successful reality.

What's the greatest opportunity for newspapers in the future? For an industry as mature as ours, our ability to continue to innovate and engage the audience still surprises me. We may have a limited print future, but our overall future is very encouraging. There's probably no one product or platform that I would consider being our greatest opportunity for the future. However, I believe that we should continue to innovate and engage and not limit ourselves to print and digital. I believe there are great opportunities for the industry with events, OOH, podcasts and vodcasts where we can leverage our audience and our content.

Rockell Brown Burton, an experienced academic leader and accomplished researcher with a passion for cultivating impactful, mutually beneficial relationships, has been named associate dean of inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

How would you like to lead the sales staff of one of Oklahoma's top newspapers? The Lawton Constitution currently sits atop the state rankings for editorial excellence and is home to a strong local community. Situated at the foothills of the Wichita Mountains, if you are looking for a place to put down roots and grow your career and enjoy an outdoors-oriented work/life balance, this gem of an opportunity is for you.

Southern Newspapers is looking for a seriously good editor to lead one of the fastest-growing communities in Texas — New Braunfels. The current editor is being promoted (yes, we like to promote from within). Want to live near Austin but not in it? This is your opportunity.