APSE looks at contest changes

All of these proposals make way too much sense for Hoppes and APSE to consider. Please brace for the doozy.

 

How about a special "weeper feature" category?

 

I think you've hit on something there, Omar. Newspapers have so many sob stories these days -- sports especially -- that they should have separate Violin Section. It's time for the APSE contest to acknowledge this. We could give an award each year, for instance, to the best story about:
* An Athlete Looking For His Birth Mother;
* A Birth Mother Who Keeps Tormenting An Athlete; or
* An Athlete Who Can't Find His Birth Mother And Has Decided To Have A Sex Change Operation So He Can Feel Closer To Her.
Oh, wait. We're already doing that.

 

There needs to be a special Amputee/Disease category.

 

The key is this: Do newspapers honestly think people are standing in bars talking about these stories? Do they honestly think these stories are provoking conversation -- and creating buzz for the paper? What sports fan greets his buddies the ESPN Sports Zone after work with: "Hey, did you see that great story in the Herald about the albino double amputee shot putter?"

 

Wow, it would be great if they do create the under 20K category.

 

I'd read a story about an albino double amputee shot putter.

 

I love this idea. I've always thought beat guys should be recognized not so much for individual stories (though by all means if they write a great one, it deserves recognition) but for their body of work through the grind of a season and beyond. Have them turn in four or five stories to show their range and depth.

At one of my previous stops, the state contest had an award for ``In depth coverage,'' in which you entered pretty much everything you wrote on an ongoing story during the year and they judged how well it was covered. Not sure if that's feasible, but I thought it was a cool idea (especially since I took second in that category behind some big government scandal).

 

This was the first year our state contest actually had a "beat reporting" category. Of course, it required a range of articles including columns, features, gamers and the such. It only had to be six total articles which I don't know how much depth shows through in six articles, but at least they're trying.