enough about conflict of interest, let's see some APSE results!

Frank: The contest is for us and by us. Us being the members of APSE. According to the bylaws, I am still a member.

I can see your point about possible conflicts, but I respectively disagree that I will automatically have a conflict because of what is written about the league. Plus, in the judging system, there are three or more judges in a room, creating checks for any such conflicts.

That is my position and why I finished this judging session with the blessing of APSE. Now, it is now up to APSE to make a decision about the future. And, as I have said, I resigned my vote, so my voting voice will not be heard on that issue. As I have said to Mike Fannin and Lynn Hoppes, whatever is decided is fine by me.

 

Newspapers can elect to move up in a circulation category.

 

Man.... I LOVVVVVVE the pissed-off version of Frank Ridgeway.

 

If APSE is designed to help us, I'm waiting for an understanding of HOW.

Annual convention. Yeah, right. The attendees there seem to be, from my sources, a lot of the top papers. I can't sacrifice my family on limited vacation time for that and yes, I realize, that's my choice. But they argue they don't see me very much at all unless I'm on vacation. Given the choice between family health and APSE networking, there's no contest. Now, if we still had a week to attend something that only the executive level people do now, but we're at a point like many in that lower category where if you miss one person due to vacation or sickness, you barely can put out a paper.

A previous poster also said you can throw out most of the under 40K stuff to start. For all I know, that could be ours. How many eyes does a story on a 100,000 paper get? I can tell you that at ours, at times, we might get a non-sports person to look at it because everyone else must write. But anyone that's been through our department where I'm at wants to do well, wants to improve, and is proud of the very hard work we do, which is aimed sometimes more at customer service and pride in coverage than prize-winning articles. Nonetheless, it's nice to be recognized by your peers.

Since there are no critiques given, perhaps that can be the compromise. I'd LIKE to know what someone thought about our stuff -- good, bad or otherwise. But I'm told I can't do that, so I'm still looking at the enormous benefits to small papers through APSE. I'm still at zero.

To be blunt about it, I could get more out of SportsJournalists.com than APSE. Maybe I should petition to send our dues there.

 

To whomever counted the number of papers in the top two categories that didn't get at least a top 10 or an honorable mention, is there a way to provide a list. That would be some interesting reading.

 

I used the number of entries that Mile High provided and then counted the number of papers that made the Top 20 in the three section categories. But I don't know which papers of that size didn't enter or if any were disqualified on various technicalities, so it would be unfair and probably inaccurate to try to list which papers didn't win. If someone who judged those categories wanted to do it based on firsthand knowledge, that would be different.

 

Just did a quick circulation search and compared them with the 250k+ results. I did leave the Wall Street Journal out.

Don't know if all of these papers entered the section contest, but these eight papers are 250+ and didn't get top 20 in any of the categories:

NY Post
San Francisco Chronicle
Oregonian
St. Pete Times
Orange County Register
San Diego Union-Tribune
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Sac Bee


Several papers that are currently under 250k according to the list I saw that won in the big category:

Fort Worth
KC Star
Orlando
San Jose
Denver Post (just under 250)
Miami Herald (just under)
Ft. Lauderdale S-S

 

One year, at a small paper, our SE went to APSE to critique and try and get some valuable input on our stuff.

While most of the critiques were probably correct, I suspect that many of the people bleeding all over our stuff don't realize that our resources are limited, that we had no chance of putting that many pairs of eyes on copy, that we didn't possess graphic teams, photo teams, a fully-staffed copy desk and other luxuries that larger papers possess.

On one hand, it was good to get feedback while fully understanding that much of it wouldn't be positive or reinforcing. But I couldn't help thinking that some people who bleed all over the small-circ sections had no clue what goes on at some of those shops. Dare I say ... almost out of touch with journalistic reality.

And this was before JRC, Dean Singleton, Heartland, Paxton or Gannett were slashing and burning newsrooms.

 

I understand what you're saying, but the readers don't make those kind of allowances, either. The people who nicknamed my first paper "The Farmers' Almanac" didn't care that the staff was small, all they knew was that, although they bought it because we were at the time the only daily that gave a rat's ass about them, it was the sloppiest, ugliest, goofiest daily that could be found on local newsstands.

I think a real critique might have been helpful because in some ways we were worse than we needed to be, and having it pointed out in specifics would have had more impact than hearing "You guys blow!" and then a busy signal.

 

That's really the only complaint I have. Win, lose or draw, I'd like to get the red-lined paper sent back to us to see what they liked and what they didn't like. For the improvement of myself and our staff.

I thought that was going to happen last year, but I never saw it if we got it.

 

Precisely. What you have to understand is that APSE, its non-MLB.com wing at least, wants to see newspapers devote real resources to its sports departments, not dismiss it as the "toy department" and put you on a shoestring. The section awards belong as much to the paper's powers-that-be for putting its sports staffs in position to do great work. To give awards to papers that don't put resources into sports, or to go light on the critiques, would be to positively reinforce budget-slashing and corner-cutting. Is that what you want? Now you can take this back to your higher-ups and say, "Look, it's not just be bitching. This is where the industry thinks we should be."

Instead of griping about APSE, you should be thanking them for the take-no-prisoners critique.

 

All good points, gentlemen. For me to argue any of them would be foolish.

But when you're stuck at a sports desk where news brushes you aside, where you're regarded as, at best, third fiddle or where you cannot acquire more resources, that's the very definition of frustrating.

I'm not asking any critic from APSE to "go easy" on a paper. But some of the suggestions they made with our sections could not be done given the circumstances. Is that the critics' fault? No. But if APSE can't offer realistic solutions for the little guys, how can they get better?