APSE judging thread

Frank, I hate to ask. But, I missed No. 419, 556 and 664.

 

You speak of ambition. The entries I saw, were quite ambitious. Especially the breadth of coverage.
As far as staff, I'm not sure where they stand. I can guess, but I'm sure someone could help more than I.
If I can recollect, under Dave Smith, they were 60+.

 

They were more than 100 at their peak.

 

I'm guessing that counts local bureaus?

 

And after Colorado Springs does well in the APSEs again, it has a bunch of layoffs paperwide, including the elimination of a non-Broncos Denver writer and a sports copy editor. Good timing there.

 

Good morning,
As the name suggests, this is David Sell, sports editor at the Colorado Springs Gazette.
I wanted to clarify and elaborate on Editude's post of a few hours ago.
The reductions in our newsroom did include sports.
Two part-time copy editing positions were eliminated. One of our full-time copy editors is moving home to Ohio to be closer to friends and family and because she would rather not work nights and weekends. I try very hard to solve problems, but I can't move Ohio here and we need copy editors at night and on weekends. However, she will be replaced by a woman from our news desk. The newcomer started as a part-time sports copy editor before moving into a full-time news desk role. (We try to help the people grow, gain full-time employment wherever it may be and add good journalists throughout the newsroom.)
On the reporting side, Meri-Jo Borzilleri will not return from a leave of absence. Meri-Jo is a cool person and did wonderful work for The Gazette. The other day she won the latest in her string of APSE writing awards for a piece that explained what happens to all those jerseys presented to presidents by championship teams when they visit the White House. If Meri-Jo had wanted to return to The Gazette, there would have been a spot for her. But her book project requires some more time and good things in her personal life meant she was going to depart anyway. By making the choice to leave now, she saved somebody else's job.
Brian Gomez was doing well covering non-Broncos events and issues in Denver. (We have a full-timer on Broncos.) Brian will return to Colorado Springs and succeed Meri-Jo as our Olympics reporter. With the USOC and Olympic Training Center here, we do more Olympic-oriented things than most papers of any size. After that shift, we do lose the Denver GA position, so we'll have to cover the other Denver issues as best we can. Columnist Milo Bryant and David Ramsey, both of whom have won APSE awards, will still offer opinions on those topics.
We try very hard and aim very high. None of that will change, regardless of staff size. Folks have left here for jobs at bigger papers. I spent time at a big, famous newspaper, so I understand the lure. When other sports editors call to ask about our top performers, I'm more than happy to tell them that So-and-So was great, and then I try to talk So-and-So into staying. Sometimes it works. If not, we buy her/him lunch and wish her/him luck.
I'm sure that scenario will be repeated with the talented folks still on our staff. So if you, too, aim high and like to work hard while living in a fabulously beautiful place, send me your resume, clips, headlines, designed pages, blogs, etc. As we're reminded every day, the journalism world changes quickly.

 

They had a staff of 110 in sports two years ago, right?

 

Mr. Sell's post got me to thinking: I wonder if the day is coming -- perhaps very soon -- when newspaper copy editors, like reporters, can work from their homes. Do they really have to be there? I've had magazine and online stories, and a manuscript edited by people working from home.

The copy editor from Ohio didn't want to work nights and weekends, but suppose she did. Could she have worked from Ohio? I mean, there is e-mail, IM and the good, old phone.

 

David Sell.... One of the best. His folks won a Triple Crown last year, and he has turned that paper into an excellent one. He covered the Redskins for the Washington Post, so he has proved he can do many things. I've met him, too. Very smart man and a true gentleman.

 

On a good desk, there is heavy interaction among the editors, bouncing ideas off each other, diving in to help someone who is swamped, getting second opinions on whether the writing needs major surgery. I don't think the same thing could be achieved electronically.

As for outsourcing Colorado copy editing jobs to Ohio, sure, let's start that. The next step will be India. Really, for the first time in my life I am living outside my newspaper's home-delivery area, although I can buy the paper here just about anywhere, and it takes extra effort to keep up. It is a bad thing when staffers are removed from the area they cover -- it is difficult to maintain that connection. And I believe that connection is very necessary.

 

I could care less about the bigger paper comparisons. The facts are that I will put my staff up against anyone's, anywhere, in terms of people working their ASSES off and because the demands are unreasonable for a paper our size and meeting the readers' needs remains customer service priority No. 1 in our paper, we suffer in contests. I've had upper-level journalists critique our columns, features, etc., and put them in award-winning classes, and we've won many state awards. But in APSE, not a sniff. I think the preparation procedures smack of a paranoia to make sure the good ol boy network can't detect identities. We took a vote and we will not be participating, though we also said we'd revote in a few weeks when we've had time to cool off. But considering the discussion tone, I think it is very unlikely we'll be taking part anymore.