Bill Powell is a December graduate of the University of Missouri, where he covered sports for the Missourian and worked as copy editor and news editor. Add in his Dow Jones internship at The New York Times, and the judges believe Powell comes especially well-prepared to represent the field of copy editing. His advisers and mentors describe him in glowing terms.
“Bill has strong, and developing, editing skills, but we no longer evaluate talent solely on traditional talents,” said Tom Connelly, his mentor on the NYT sports desk. “Editors today are also expected to master the Web, posting blog items, monitoring reader comments, contributing to the development of standards and best practices, and keeping abreast of evolving technology and social networking opportunities. Bill proved particularly adept in this area, and I, for one, learned a lot from him.”
