APSE contest rules?

[Ace]

As a former contest chair, I can speak to this under the past rules. Feature category entries have to come from one day. If the story ran over two days, it is two stories and would not be eligible.

That REALLY sucks. I wrote it as a single story and it was broken in half by the desk, strictly over space concerns.

The second half doesn't have a nut graph or anything that would lead anyone to believe it was actually a separate story. It's a Part 2 - and it was never intended to be.

So between the daily space crunch and a technicality in the judging rules, the story will get screwed out of a chance to compete!?! That's terrible. :'(

Maybe someone can look into changing these rules to allow stories that were broken up but are clearly single stories. We would compete in the sub-40,000 category, and I'm sure we're not the only paper our size that has to deal with space issues and the inability to run such a large story in only one edition.

Just turn in day one and cross your fingers.

 

[Wonderlic]

There's still three months left in the year ... surely there's enough time to cut through whatever red tape there might be to allow stories of this nature to compete.

I don't believe my story is strong enough to stand up in the project reporting category ... because that's not how it was written. But it's a damn fine feature, and there would be no issues if it weren't for a simple decision made by the desk, one that hardly affects the story at all, save for the reintroduction of a few characters by their whole names in the second part.

Space crunch is an issue we all have to deal with more and more each year. Aren't these awards meant to honor great newspaper writing? Shouldn't the rules be set up to consider how a story was written rather than how many editions of the paper it ran over? Isn't there clearly a difference between a single feature story by a single writer that was broken in half by the desk and run on back-to-back days and project reporting, where any number of writers can pen any number of stand-alone articles that fit the same theme?

Maybe Mr. Jenks, as a former APSE president, wouldn't mind pushing the issue a little bit, or at least looking into modifying this technicality. I'd like to think that we have enough time left before the contest to do whatever needs to be done, whether it be a vote or what, to allow journalists' best work to compete in an appropriate category.[/GettingDownOffSoapbox]

 

[Wonderlic]

As a former contest chair, I can speak to this under the past rules. Feature category entries have to come from one day. If the story ran over two days, it is two stories and would not be eligible.

That REALLY sucks. I wrote it as a single story and it was broken in half by the desk, strictly over space concerns.

The second half doesn't have a nut graph or anything that would lead anyone to believe it was actually a separate story. It's a Part 2 - and it was never intended to be.

So between the daily space crunch and a technicality in the judging rules, the story will get screwed out of a chance to compete!?! That's terrible. :'(

Maybe someone can look into changing these rules to allow stories that were broken up but are clearly single stories. We would compete in the sub-40,000 category, and I'm sure we're not the only paper our size that has to deal with space issues and the inability to run such a large story in only one edition.

Just turn in day one and cross your fingers.

That's just not going to cut it.

 

[Ace]

There's still three months left in the year ... surely there's enough time to cut through whatever red tape there might be to allow stories of this nature to compete.

I don't believe my story is strong enough to stand up in the project reporting category ... because that's not how it was written. But it's a damn fine feature, and there would be no issues if it weren't for a simple decision made by the desk, one that hardly affects the story at all, save for the reintroduction of a few characters by their whole names in the second part.

Space crunch is an issue we all have to deal with more and more each year. Aren't these awards meant to honor great newspaper writing? Shouldn't the rules be set up to consider how a story was written rather than how many editions of the paper it ran over? Isn't there clearly a difference between a single feature story by a single writer that was broken in half by the desk and run on back-to-back days and project reporting, where any number of writers can pen any number of stand-alone articles that fit the same theme?

Maybe Mr. Jenks, as a former APSE president, wouldn't mind pushing the issue a little bit, or at least looking into modifying this technicality. I'd like to think that we have enough time left before the contest to do whatever needs to be done, whether it be a vote or what, to allow journalists' best work to compete in an appropriate category.[/GettingDownOffSoapbox]

I'd feel for you, really, but my favorite story I wrote rather then being held or serialized was simply whacked in half because of a space crunch busy day.

I'm not talking 60 inches to 30, either.

I'm talking 32 to 16 inches.

Normally, you don't get feedback on your stories, but the next day it was always: "Liked the story. Why was it so short?"

 

[Wonderlic]

Well, I'm not looking for sympathy. I'd just like my feature story to be able to compete in the features category.

I'm a dues-paying APSE member, and for my best feature work of the year to be brushed aside by the contest committee and pigeonholed into an inappropriate category because my paper didn't have room to publish it on a single day is nonsense.

I know Mr. Hoppes has posted on this board before, so perhaps he has read this and would be kind enough to help cut through the APSE bureaucracy. Or at least post his thoughts.

 

[patchs]

I am no longer an APSE member but from my experience judging, it would take a change to the contest rules, which has to be voted on by the executive membership (region chairs and officers).
Next time that could happen is the contest next Feb.
I could be wrong but that's my understanding.