APSE VOTES NO TO CONTEST CHANGES (shocccckerrr!)

What, you want us to have to keep digging through pages and pages to find where you called APSE "a bunch of pompous pricks?" It's easier this way.

 

APSE, as an organization, barely has a pulse of relevancy these days.

They haven't done one iota to support, foster or complement newspapers' urgent and necessary migration to the Internet.

They are a dinosaur supported by the newspaper world's most-endangered dinosaurs.

 

As someone who works at an under-25,000 newspaper and an APSE region chair who voted in favor of the contest changes, I was disappointed that the proposal did not pass.
I have judged both under-40,000 sections and over-250,000 sections and I have seen discrepancies in resources (staff, space, material) at both levels. No proposal can address that.
I wanted to see more opportunities for the 122 member newspapers under 25,000 to gain some recognition in the contest. While I was pleased with the work Jerry Micco did in coming up with a proposal, I didn’t particularly want to see the upper divisions of the contest blown up, and I can understand the reasons why the six officers voted against it. I do also agree, however, that the vote sends a tough message to the smaller papers that are members and the ones we hope to someday gain as members.
Just 38 sections were entered in daily contest for 250,000 and above. (Some papers moved up to compete in the larger-circulation category.) I worked on a panel with two judges who work at papers in the 175,000 to 250,000 range that have been successful in the contest. I took their respect for the work of those larger papers as an indication that even though there were just 38 entries, that top group included some of the best people in our industry combined with those better resources — larger staffs and more space.
I hope that by the end of the year, we are able to come to some compromise. My opinion is that the judging panels for under-40,000 sections — since they apparently no longer are doing critiques — should put together additional lists of 10 notable papers at a circulation level to be determined (whether it’s under 25,000 or 20,000 or 15,000, whichever works). This should not be used to knock out top-10 and top-20 papers from the smaller levels, such as the Lawrence Journal-World, from making the under-40,000 lists but merely add recognition for the many papers that may lack the resources of the papers in the larger end of this division.
Also, in the Great Plains, we will introduce a regional writing contest this year with a division for under-15,000 papers, both APSE and non-APSE members.

 

That's hyperbole at its hyperbole-ist.

At the last APSE national, there were multiple sessions devoted to the Internet. Heck, I think I attended more sessions devoted to the Web than print. Same at the one before that.

 

Truer words have never been spoken...

 

Damn that Toby Carrig, always making sense.

 

Toby,
Thanks for weighing in. You remember I tried to get a change 2 years ago and it didn't go anywhere.
I'm glad that APSE realizes smaller papers need better representation in the contest.
I hope the efforts will eventually be successful.
I would like to know the vote breakdown, since it was 6-6.

 

You know what would be really cool?
If you'd let the rest of us reading the thread have some idea what you're beefing about.

 

Oh, I think it's pretty clear what he's beefing about.

I don't know if we all feel as strong about it, but yeah, he's bitching about the unevenness of the judging categories. And taking the opportunity to make it political ... which is why F_B stopped in, I'm sure.

 

Shotty, I don't.
Some of us don't know what the proposed rules changes were, only that most folks in this thread were in favor. I'd say a little info or a link wouldn't be too much to ask.

 

No matter the breakdown, someone, somewhere will be screwed. As a 60ish shop now, we compete nicely in the 40-100 breakdown. But we would be stuck at the bottom of the stick in a 60-175 group. I see the merits of passing it for the little guys, and I see the merits of it staying the same for folks like us.

My idea a year or so back, that I heard others throw around too, was a strict numbers breakdown based on entries. So, rather than break it up before entries come in, just divide all the entries that come in into four equal sized groups. So, this year it would have made for four groups of 102 papers or so. It's not perfect or anything, but it's an idea. That way you don't go in worrying about who you are competing against, but just that you're competing. Ironically, with that breakdown, it ends up pretty similar to how the proposed split that was voted down would be.