APSE results

Heh-heh.

Thanks again, everybody. Sunday's a first, and nice validation for some people who really deserved it.

 

I think The Raspberries album put you over the top. Who doesn't love a suburban Cleveland singing sensation?

 

Carmen's always been a solid reporter. His writing's come along in the past year.

But he needs a hit record.

Yeah.

 

And it's all according to the judge. Multiple-time, multiple entry first place state and regional winners should get an occasional honorable mention sniff.

 

I have disagree with this. I've worked in three different states and seen wide, wide variance in the quality of state contests. Some of them just aren't worth anything, and the APSE field is so much larger and deeper. There's really no correlation, nor should there necessarily be one IMO.

 

State contests suck? That's a pompous attitude.

You're not encouraging me to battle my boss on this issue at all.

 

That's not quite what Jersey_Guy wrote.

 

Completely agree with Jersey. I once had a state contest judge mark me down for poor page design and a breakout box that wasn't informative enough. I know because I saw the critique. Keep in mind that the contest category was feature writing.

I don't think anyone would be surprised to hear how often those contests entries are traded between states and then end up on desks in janitorial services. Or worse, advertising.

 

I don't think that's what he meant at all. He meant SOME state contests suck!

But in reality, think about it. Let's say that you win your state contest, or place. That's three places probably, spread over 50 states. 150 stories. Now whittle that down to 10.

Those are the odds here. It should come as no great surprise that a state winner, even a big winner, doesn't hit APSE gold.

One think I've always felt about a lot of state contests is that you can win with a nice package, including art, graphic elements and play on the page. And I'm no angel - I've definitely gamed that system before. APSE tries its best to take that all of that out of the equation.

 

THe line will now form to kiss notepad's ring. Thank God he's around to protect investigative journalism as we know it.

 

What's not being said is why the national contests are better. And I'd like a rebuttal to the comment I made about the "hiding identity" rule. To do so completely is impossible unless you obliterate community names in stories.

Having said all that, I was pleased with the attempt toward a split of the 40,000 and under category. We were still in the upper half of that by 100 subscribers, which puts us at an even greater competitive disadvantage. Maybe we should find a way to alienate 100 more subscribers like some high school coaches get 100 kids moved to a neighboring school so they can drop a classification.

BTW, a 39,000 paper will have three times as many staff as we do. And we just had even more cuts and editing is at a crisis point now. At this point, with some really kick-ass stuff we've done in the past five years not making the cut, I can guarantee that 2009's work won't stand a chance.

 

It's not being said because it doesn't need to be said. The national contests have more entries and more qualified judges.