Football Writers Association Awards reflecting the industry

The FWAA recently announced last year's contest winners (except for the writer of the year award), and two of the four categories were won by on-line writers. The column category was especially dominated by Internet submissions.

Of the 12 people to place in the top three of the various categories half were from newspapers and half were from websites, but the .coms were in the majority among the honorable mentions.

A year ago that division was 9-3. Five years ago newspaper writers dominated the contest.

I doubt anyone is really surprised by all this, but did we just experience a significant landmark regarding the state and future of the industry?

 

The awards, for those interested:

I would hazard a guess that very few places entered. Walsh is very good, but no one is that good. And almost every news organization listed has two entries or more.

 

From what I know, it is an individual entry, not an entry by organization. Believe you have to be a FWAA or USBWA member, too.

 

At the big paper I was with, we hardly ever did the big takeout projects anymore, the kind that would compete for awards. The staff and the budget had been cut too much for that kind of stuff.

 

There were four categories. Awards to the top three writers and honorable mention to three more (features had four honorable mentions so I guess there was a tie). So there were 25 possible winners. Walsh, Matter, Thamel, Maisel and Tomasson all received a top three or an honorable mention in two of the categories judged. So with all due respect to the multiple award winners I don't think there were a lot of entries.