Explain Awards to Me. Seriously.

So far, the closest I've ever come to winning an award is when I was named outstanding member of my community college rag. And that was the editor telling me, "put your name down" when I filled in the awards list.

 

Does any industry give out more awards to itself than journalism? I don't think so.

I've never entered a contest; I've won some where my stuff has been entered by editors (Including one that came with a $300 check! Huzzah!)

I've also judged a handful of state contests. Like everyone's saying, most times there is no rhyme or reason to why someone won/lost. As a judge, you feel lucky if there are two or three contestants that stand out.

 

Disagree. Mitch Albom sure as hell can. He'd beat the bushes for a couple sick or dead prep athlete columns a year and win like clockwork.

 

Until I won my first award, they meant A LOT to me. When the awards would come out and I wasn't on the list, I'd be devastated for a day or two. Yeah, I knew it's about day-to-day effort and work ethic, and that awards aren't necessarily a reflection of how good you are ... but to me, it was all blah blah blah. Maybe it's because I wanted to move from my job at the time to another paper that I felt I needed to win.

A few years ago, I won my first (and, to date, only) APSE top-10. Now, in all honesty, awards don't mean as much to me. Maybe it's because I'm happy in my shop now and am not actively looking to move on. Maybe it's because I realized that I was the same reporter the day after I won that I was before.

It's been four years since I won my last writing award. I like to think I've done good stuff in that time and that it just didn't get picked in a contest. Such is life. But for those who haven't won, I understand why it means so much.

 

One reason I like to win contests: Because I'm a competitive S.O.B. Hard to turn that off.

 

Here's an anecdote y'all might find interesting as far as the subjectivity of awards: I was once having a conversation with a boss about our state's "Sportswriter of the Year" award. He suggested that if I wanted to win it, he could pretty much arrange it. That right there told me all I needed to know about the validity of these things.

 

I worked one place that had weekly headline awards, $25 each, and I think there were six or eight per week for the newsroom. A handful of times I won two and once I got three. I must admit that I kind of knew what the judges thought was a good headline (puns!), and although I didn't agree with them, well, it was money and you only had to wait at most a week for judging and another week or two for the cash.

 

Some of it is validation. Even though we know it's often b.s., and that there are politics and luck and 1,000 other variables involved, it's still, sometimes, deep down, validation that we are good at this. That the path we chose in life wasn't the wrong one. I'm a decent writer. I am not as good as some of my peers, nor am I nearly as good as some of my idols, but I'm not bad. It's a living. If I were this good at business or law, I would easily be able to triple my salary, but I suspect I would feel somewhat empty. I think no matter who you are -- whether you're Gary Smith or a reporter working at the Hungry Horse News -- you want to earn the respect of your peers and feel like you're good at what you do. Ideally awards, despite the nonsense that so often clouds their selection process, are almost like acknowledging that, hey, smart people do get this. They understand how difficult it is to construct and arrange words on a piece of paper in a way that moves you, and here is confirmation of that.

There is something to be said for those who make art simply for the sake of art. But not all of us can be Emily Dickinson. There is an ego to this, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. If you look at it at the most basic level, it's a pretty arrogant exercise to believe YOU can summarize or encapsulate a person's experience (or their existence) based on YOUR observations and YOUR reporting. But that arrogance, that belief that YOU CAN, is precisely what allows you to do it in many cases. And that confidence needs to be fed somehow, whether it's through awards or compliments or simply the acknowledgement from your subject that, yes, I do see myself laid bare in the columns of your newspaper or magazine. I may not like the portrait you have painted, but I do concede, that is my existence.

I have a couple of APSE awards in one of the largest categories. They're fine. They're getting a bit dusty on my desk, and drowning in books and nexis printouts at the moment. I would trade both of them, in a heartbeat, for a private compliment if it came from one of the people on this board whose work I admire greatly. Many years ago, I received an email from a member of this board congratulating me on having a piece of mine anthologized. His piece was also selected, and since we had traded emails in the past, he wanted to celebrate our good fortune. To me, this was like Dylan nodding his head and mumbling "Hey, good stuff..." backstage after I finished my set in some smoky concert hall in 1966, right before he was about to go on. I'm not Dylan. I could bleed into my art for the next 20 years, and still not be him. On some level, that's heartbreaking, but it's also ok. Because in that moment, we occupied the same universe.

I think the award culture does do us harm sometimes in this business, because editors occasionally seem afraid to make a hire without the splash to go with it. And young writers, at least from my experience, obsess a bit too much about who is winning awards, who is moving up, who is getting that next job, who is interviewing and playing this paper against that one for a better salary and better gig (I've done it too; this board contributes to it). But as Frank_Ridgeway pointed out on one of the David Simon threads, awards can mean good things for newspapers too. When a paper wins a Pulitzer, it's an acknowledgement that that publication will give reporters the time and resources to do good journalism, and that can, and will, attract other good journalists. That can foster a culture of creativity. It can build morale. It can make you feel like the crummy salary and long hours are worth it if you're producing art that makes a difference.

In closing, I hereby award myself the "Long-Winded Backslapping Post Award" in for my performance in the category of Threads about Awards and Ego.

I believe the orchestra is now attempting to bully me off stage.

 

Here's why I like the APSEs ... if I win, I get a free trip to a four-day drink fest.

If I don't win ... oh well.

Also, I'm a little curious ... I've seen several people here saying they tried to "write" for an award. How does that work? I just write. What's the difference? Honest question here ... I'm not judging or condemning.

 

No, the orchestra was trying to keep you on stage a few minutes longer. You don't wear out your welcome when you write like that.

You said what I was too lazy to write, and I doubt I could have written it nearly as eloquently.

 

I won APSE for columns when I was 21, in 1977. Back then, you only entered a single column, and yes, I had a dead athlete, a cross-country runner.

Right or wrong, it absolutely changed my life. Because of it, I got a job offer covering pro football in Florida, and I haven't left warm climates since.

And competing with and beating people I really respected in state contests was gratifying.

I'm very much in the "nice if you win them, but means nothing if you don't" school. But there's no denying that winning one altered my career path forever.

 

Not surprised at all. You should see a couple schmucks that have won one of those "High School Writer of the Year" awards in my state. One guy has been fired from three papers in the last four years. That's hard to do.