APSE judging thread

Who cares about awards when you're making big money?
Respect of your peers doesn't pay the bills, sadly.

 

Actually, I do have tabloid experience. The problem with this kind of discussion is that:

A.) tabloid people get their backs up because they take any criticism of the format as a diss, when in fact noting the format's inherent flaws does not necessarily imply a lack of appreciation for the skill and creativity it takes to produce a tabloid.

B.) non-tabloid people tend to over-romanticize the tabloids' sense of urgency and populism, and they perceive the work as being more fun and the product as being more accessible.

C.) the people who are touting the format as being the industry's future have extremely short memories.

The fact is that quite a few traditional papers dabbled in this during the late 1970s and 1980s, some going completely tabloid, some going completely tabloid on Saturdays or making the Monday sports and business sections tabloid, or even making the sports section tabloid every day. Almost all of them returned to the broadsheet format. Also during the early to mid-1980s, a few papers kept the broadsheet format but adopted a tabloid-like tone, most notably the Houston Post when it was owned by the Toronto Sun, and all of them returned to their traditional roots when they discovered, after the initial curiousity subsided, that they were repelling more readers than they were attracting.

One major problem we have in this business is a tendency to recycle failed panaceas. We have people in charge who never bothered to gain a sense of history for either the business in general or their newspaper specifically. I had to suggest to one editor a year ago that thing he was excited about had already been done at our paper 20 years earlier (when neither of us were working there), and that another "great idea" had already been tried at a now-defunct competitor around the same time. One definition of insanity to keep trying the same things while expecting different results. It amazes me to see things that seemed like our salvation early in my career that wound up crashing and burning, then seeing them proposed now as cutting edge. While I was fooled the first time, I am not now.

 

You start off with Best Overall Web Site (either judging the entire site, or one specific content area - preps, NFL, MLB, etc.), and have a separate Projects category that includes online content. Then in time, we can include the writing categories and individual content (podcasts, blogs, etc.).

 

I know of several SEs of papers in the bottom rung of the under 40,000s who have vowed they won't renew membership in APSE unless this division is split. There is a huge differerence between staffs of 35,000 circulation papers and staffs of 15,000. There are a lot of damn good writers in those smaller numbers who overloaded with both writing, editing and layout responsibilities and too much to cover and tight deadlines. Everyone has their issues, but let's be honest in our comparisons of apples and oranges. Didn't APSE send out a questionaire asking how they could be more relevant to smaller paper staffs? Are they really interested or is this like a lot of newspaper publishers who say they want relevance, who hear the readers say what they want, and then decide it's not worth the cost or effort to do what they want.

 

Ex-fuggin-actly....on the "skewed toward SEs who are involved in APSE." Has to be. And you think the smaller end of the under-40s can sacrifice time on their product to hang out with those guys? I've heard of networking - but again, it's a time thing. Let those who can, take advantage of the system. Meanwhile, five SEs of smaller papers have told me they won't renew. And ours is among them.

 

I'm not getting this thought process:
"I'm not getting my way, so I'm going home."

APSE, though not a perfect body, is functional. It looks like, as of now, that the 40k-and-under field will be split. Why not stay, make your voice heard, and promote change instead of stomping off?

You're sounding more like the athletes we cover than the journalists I admired growing up in this industry.

 

Print, I agree. I moved from an 11K circ paper with a three-man staff with all three having layout responsibilities. ME wouldn't spring for APSE membership. But even if we had it, we were way to overloaded with work to write the sort of copy that gets consideration for these awards. Plus, our copy editing sucked. I was terrible at it. We had one guy who was very good at it. We didn't really have time to work on tightening stories and what not.

Now at a paper closer to 40K, we have four full-time writers, a part-timer, a SE and two dedicated deskers. It's no coincidence my writing has gotten better since coming here. I actually have time to work at it.

Maybe 25K should be the cutoff instead of 40K? I don't know. Seems like that would be about right.

 

I dunno, I don't think APSE should add another division, but I think it would do if the 250's had to duke it out with some slightly smaller pubs who quite possibly could kick their ass (five triple crown winners in that division is just ridiculous):

--Under 35K
--35,001-80K
--80,001-140K
--140,001 and up

Just me

 

There really should not be a category where there's 2 1/2 times the circulation difference in the smaller classes like the 40-100K. How would this work?
* Under 25K
* 25-50K
* 50-100K
* 100-250K
* 250K above

 

Speaking as a former APSE member and small paper SE, I know APSE does care.
I will make sure the higher ups know how you feel.

 

That's a good start.
I went through the Daily and Sunday results for under 40,000 and of the 40 winners (top 10 and 10 HMs), only 4 papers were under 20,000 circ (I could not find circs for 7).
Two of those were within about 1,000 of 20,000.
So only 2 papers with circs under 17,000 placed, both were HMs, so none in the top 10.
I would rather see under 20,000 but would accept under 25,000.
If this year's contest was 25,000 and under, 34 of the 40 would not be eligible. That would definitely even the playing field.
But as for the 100,000-250,000 category, while that sounds like it would make sense, the papers under 125,000 would raise a ruckus of having to compete against the 200,000-250,000s.