APSE winner: Haven't I read this before?

But the Holocaust documentary du jour always wins at the Oscars

 

Just to play a little Devil's Advocate:

What makes everyone here think the same eight judges (4 prelim, 4 final) read the same story in 2006 and 2007? Are we really expecting the judges to bone up on every winner before judging the next year?

Just askin'

 

Awards.

Never submit.

Never congratulate.

I'm a dick.

 

Irrelevant. This is an update story that quotes another publication for key facts. Fine for the readers of St. Paul. Not as APSE winner.

 

Dude, do you know how many stories they read each year? And who's to say the same judges read the same categories two years in a row.

You really expect them to know who won last year for what story? Jesus, dude, get a grip.

Maybe you can do a Scott Spezio story next year and clean up.

 

Sorry Bob, I'm going to agree with Hack here. The judges should at least know the topics of winning stories from the past three or four years. That would take about ten minutes to review -- we're not talking about cramming their memory banks or expecting them to read twenty extra stories (although I think if I were a judge, I would do that, just to see where the winning bar is usually set).

To me, this is like giving the Academy Award for Best Picture to "The Ship That Hit the Iceberg" the year after "Titanic." I wouldn't expect that to happen at the Oscars -- it shouldn't happen here.

 

Maybe, but because one writer wrote a really good story this year on the same subject fr a different paper, should that disqualify them from winning because someone won last year?

I haven't read the stories, I don't know if they're good or not.

Just sayin'. If I was a judge, I wouldn't penalize someone for something another person did. Now, if they wrote the exact same story, that would be poor. But how would you know unless you wentback and rad all of the winners from the year before. And really, who has time for all of that?

I don't, but then I would never want to judge APSE and deal with all of that.

 

OK, wait, hang on.

I must have read too quickly.

A Reardon story actually WON the category two years in a row? Same category? Didn't just place - but won?

 

That's how I'm understanding this -- each won the same award (Features) in the same circulation category. That's how I read the first post, at least.

 

I sort of agree with you. As an individual judge, it is a hard standard to live up to. Expecting to make a connection like that.

Besides, Frias' piece grabbed much of its meat from the RealSports story from three years ago.

Did someone say that quotes from the PBP were in the SPPP story? If I had seen THAT as a judge, that would have raised a huge red flag, but otherwise.... I don't think I could say I would have caught it with 100 percent confidence.

 

You wouldn't catch it, though, because he probably blacked out references to all newspaper names.

 

Jonesy, if you believe they do that much homework, I think that's your big mistake.

The only thing I get out of this is that the contestants believe the judges are somehow more worthy of judging a good story or a good section than any one of us. They're just newspaper employees, too.