APSE contest

Have they announced the final two mandatory dates for the APSE contest? Thank you.

 

I'm not seeing that yet. I do see the web judging is done. Congrats to the winners. Interesting that all 60 mentions are newspaper websites -- not one non-newspaper site is named. Not sure what that means, and don't know what non-newspaper sites even entered.

http://apsportseditors.org/newsletter/winners-of-apses-2010-web-contest-announced

 

Yeah, in fact, ALL of the big category judges were non-newspaper. I'm not sure what I think about the fact that not a single big non-newspaper website -- not one -- even merited honorable mention. Although even with the judges, maybe not many of them entered or something.

 

FYI: Sports websites not connected newspapers were NOT judged in the APSE over-2,000,000 category -- or anywhere else.

 

It wouldn't be fair to judge Yahoo! Sports/ESPN.com/Fanhouse against WashingtonPost.com/sports. Totally different goals, audiences and decision making processes, whether or not that's a good thing.

 

How do you judge a website.

 

Two Sundays in the summer? WTF?

 

We're not entering this year, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it.

Our paper didn't come across for the membership, and I'm not in the position where I can pay the dues. I know there are people on my staff that really live through awards, but even with that, I didn't feel like it was right to ask them to pony up money so the whole staff could enter (as I understand that as long as the sports editor is a member, the rest can enter.)

There'll be other contests we can enter. State and national organizations the paper does belong to for writers and designers.

And honestly, I don't think the paper has ever cared when we did win. In the past 10 years, we've taken home Top 10s (writing and sections) and even a triple crown once, and they basically said, "Meh. Put it in your section somewhere."

However, when we've won awards in the other contests, they've blown it up and gushed for days.

So, in one way I'm sad. In others, I'm not.

 

I can happily say I didn't design the section on any of those days. My boss goes nuts about awards stuff and over thinks everything and stresses out and brings up old things. Once, he came back to a designer demanding to know "Why did you decide to box this centerpiece?" from a back issue about six months old. Turned out it was one of the required days for a contest.

Do these contests really achieve much? I don't think so. They just stress out management, which in turn stresses out the staff.