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

Can't speak for Michelle (I ain't bright enough), but I believe her point was that not all reporting/writing positions are created equal. Some folks are afforded the time and resources to write takeouts, etc., that have a better chance of earning an award. But in most shops, beat writers are required to do so much daily work that they don't get the same opportunity.

That's not the case in every situation -- I once worked for a great editor who worked out a wonderful system where reporters would cover each other's beats systematically so that each could take some extra time to work on enterprise stuff.

But the vast majority of beat reporters I know don't get that luxury ... though their work is often the backbone of the paper.

 

I must admit, I'm a lot less impressed with the big-paper winners now that I've learned there are only 34 that qualify in that category.

A top 10 finish means you're in the 71 percentile, possibly an A student but possibly a C student.

And if there are only 34 eligible papers, then I do believe that the judges have a good chance of identifying the writers, even without bylines, head shots and other furniture. If you get a column in the big paper category writing about a Detroit subject or a Miami subject, you've got a good start on guessing who the columnist is. Factor in a few style characteristics, and you're there.

At the very least, it would be interesting to see if APSE did like the dog contests and had a "Best In Show" competition. Take all the winners in each category, throw them together, make sure to have a separate and crackerjack judging panel, and then let the toy poodles compete with the Great Danes for Best In Show column, Best In Show feature, etc. The resources-and-time issue cited above could undermine this, but if this was done over a period of about 10 years, I wonder how often writers from the smaller-paper ranks might rise up and snag the ultimate prizes. (Seems only logical that the very best column, some years, comes from a writer at a 60K circulation shop. But no one knows that.)

Other than that, congrats to all!

 

I think what'd be a great idea - and a real help for writers anywhere - is analyze the winning stories once they're posted on the APSE site. Make it a learning tool.

Because, while I agree that Posnanski, for example, is a terrific writer, there are reasons why he is, and knowing those reasons help us understand the difference between great and good. It's gift, and also a craft, and I think too often people get wrapped up in the winners, and not why they won, when the "why" is far more pertinent to everybody here.

It's also helps us understand how judging works. I'll be honest: Some of the winners in past years were only fairly written stories. Merely average. Their subject matter, however, is predisposed meat for a hungry judge.

 

I do think the top two circulation classes are a joke -- picking a top 20 from 34 is completely absurd, and in the second-largest class you have some papers that circulate in some of the nation's largest media markets yet are too chickenshit to move up in class and compete against the very best because it might hurt their chances at an award. And you have the little papers bitching that more of them deserve awards, and really, if you're a 20K and you're afraid to compete against a 40K, you get no sympathy from me because it's not like the bar is set very high. There is this sense of entitlement about the awards that's kind of disgusting.

You really want to make it a fair fight, go by staff size rather than circulation size. It won't be entirely fair because papers in the New York, L.A., San Fran and Chicago markets have more pro teams to cover, which consumes some of the space and energy that papers in other cities can devote to enterprise. But it would be less of a joke than it is now:

35-plus FTE

20-plus FTE

10-plus FTE

Under 10 FTE

 

I love this idea. You'll have the "Writing is a Mystic Art" crowd jump in and act like we're destroying the writing by talking about it or breaking it down into its components. But I am completely on the opposite side of that debate. If books can be written about what makes Raymond Carver or Emily Dickinson great, surely we can explore how Joe Fucking Posnanski or Bill Plaschke organize their lyric little sports tales, right?

 

As usual, Frank is on the money.
We're a 15K shop, and I don't have a problem competing with a 40K. I will say, though, that many of the under-40s who do win are in college towns, and have the staff/resources to act bigger. How difficult is to judge sections, when one has five full-time writers, three full-time deskers and an SE and the other has an SE and three full-time writers/designers? So often, the details (number of 20-second boxes, graphics, etc...) make the section and the staff with three full-time deskers has a distinct advantage over the section carrying an SE doing 3/5 of the design, plus a couple of writers slamming together agate and nation pages after finishing up their gamer.

 

Along those same lines, the college town papers have a distinct advantage in the Sunday section by virtue of the fact they have something big to cover every Saturday. Also provides a couple of built-in special sections a year.

But we hold our own against the somewhat bigger boys, so I'm not complaining.

 

This is the exact reason why I think someone from SportsJournalists.com should be doing the kind of interviews that The Big Fozzie Bear and Sports Media Guide do, because someone who cares about the craft and understands it could ask Pos how he contructed a story as opposed to what he thinks of the Royals chances to rebuild, where his favorite restaurant is, or how well he gets along with Whitlock. I floated this idea awhile back and was shouted down by a few posters who said they wanted SportsJournalists.com to stay away from that kind of establishment stuff.

I'll be happy to email Mr. Posnanski and see if he'll discuss how he put together some of his pieces. If not me, certainly someone like Frank, or SF Express, or jgmacg, or fishwrapper, or even you, Alma, could persuade him to discuss his work.

 

I'd love to see something like that.

 

Make it happen

 

Go right ahead.

I sure don't need any more stuff from journalists about where they eat, industry gossip, etc.

One of the things that bothered me so much about Whitlock's posting is that he rarely, if ever, wanted to talk about the content of his work. Behind his persona is a method, and he wanted to pretend his material sprang from him like the vision of a reformed pimp, which it did not.

 

You know another place we could start?

With the section editors/main writers of the four triple crown papers. What makes a good section? A Sunday? A special? I mean, these places - I don't know any of these papers very well, if at all - couldn't have just been lucky.