Call to order (5:04 p.m.): Lynn Hoppes, APSE president, Orlando Sentinel.
Past Presidents present:
Jerry Micco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Glen Crevier, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Officers present:
Garry D. Howard, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, first vice president
Tim Wheatley, Baltimore Sun, second vice president
Toby Carrig, Southeast Missourian, third vice president
Jack Berninger, Executive Director
Region Representatives:
Northeast, Joe Sullivan, Boston Globe
Atlantic Coast, Jim Cnockaert, Bristol Herald Courier
Mid-Atlantic, Jim Carlson, Harrisburg, Pa.
Southeast, Phil Kaplan, Knoxville News Sentinel
Great Lakes, Ruben Luna, Detroit News
Great Plains, Mike Sherman, The Oklahoman
Southwest, Wade Baker, Valley Freedom Newspapers
Northwest, Steve Maher, Wenatchee (Wash.) World
West, Michael Anastasi, Salt Lake Tribune
Canada, no representative
Financial Report: We have a $13,000 shortfall. Dues are down by nearly $9,000, job postings are down, dividends are down. We looking at 10,000 shortfall for winter meetings because of unused rooms that we have to pay for because of the contract We are offering boxed lunches for the judges so we are getting something for the money. Membership is 568, down from 677 last year and down 744 from two years ago when it was at its peak.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Commissioners meetings: Michael Anastasi says the hotel is set and he’ll post a story for the website soon. Same hotel as last year (Courtyard Marriott) $285 a night, April 23-24. First session starts at 11 a.m. Thursday. Everyone welcome to attend. Friday and Saturday nights are available at the $285 rate for anyone who wants to enjoy the weekend in New York.
Convention: Host Jerry Micco says Pittsburgh is set, hotel is the Sheraton. The convention program is on the website. Opening night reception is on the Gateway Clipper, a two-hour riverboat. Pirates game will be available Friday night. Pittsburgh is not an expensive city, the hotel is $145 night, working with hotel on parking and cabs. There’s a lot to do for families. See previous story on convention.
Lynn Hoppes says that he’ll set up a craigslist style for when people are coming in flying so they can share cabs, share cars, etc., to help with expenses. He says we’ll use the website to communicate this. APSE will try to pay for small newspaper winners to come to the Pittsburgh convention.
Futures: Joe Sullivan says that his committee recommends that we need to start judging the web, including our own websites. He says it’s about sharing knowledge, measuring technique and learning from it. He wants to do this for the next contest. Newspapers would submit one multimedia project entry. He says we need to judge the best web pages, instead of just discussing, just do it. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll change it. All of our jobs are moving toward the web and we need to start doing it, Sullivan says.
For this year’s contest APSE created a web division for our web only members, but we only received three entries so we won’t be able to judge that. Sullivan also recommended that web-only members should be included in the over 250 category for writing entries with the newspapers.
In addressing newspapers using the same staff and sharing content, the recommendation was that they are entered in their own newspaper category and content stands for itself.
For writing entries with newspapers that share content, they would enter in the newspaper category where they pick up their check.
The Futures committee was also asked to explore whether the APSE President should serve more than a one-year term Sullivan said that while there were a lot of benefits to that, it’s not practical because of the time commitment.
Hoppes suggested that it could be a paid position.
Micco suggested that someone needs to hold the officers’ to their agenda. He said we need a city manager type person and suggested that could be Jack Berninger.
Hoppes also said that we need to leave Vegas with a web contest established.
Diversity/SJI: Leon Carter of the New York Daily News reports that the Sports Journalism Institute program had a record number of applications. The bad news is that they couldn’t get 12 newspapers to commit, so they’ll only have nine interns. Four newspapers that have been there from the beginning can’t afford it this year. Carter is working on funding for next year and is hoping for support from the Tribune Foundation. APSE will continue its annual support.
OTHER UPDATES
APSE Hampton: APSE had a Diversity Day at Hampton University sponsored by Scripps Howard. Phil Kaplan organized the successful event. Phil says they’re looking for ideas in Midwest and West. The program placed two Hampton students as interns at APSE newspapers, Baltimore and Riverside. Kaplan said there’s a possibility that they will do a diversity program at Vanderbilt University through the Freedom Foundation and that he still might be able to do the intern program in 2010 through Scripps.
Olympics: Roy Hewitt of the Plain Dealer says if you find you’re not going to use your credential for 2010, turn it in. Let Bob Condron know ASAP.
Newsletter/website: Wheatley would like more people to send interesting links that affect our business to him at tim.wheatley@baltsun.com so we can help populate the website. And if you have story ideas or examples of good work, send them as well and we’ll get them posted.
Facebook and APSE: Kaplan has created a Facebook page for APSE members.
APSE and AWSM: We had discussions with AWSM about possibly doing a joint convention. That was shelved but we are going to work toward partnering at the Regional level. Jenni Carlson, AWSM president, and Tim Wheatley are working to make this happen. Carlson is contacting Region chairs and will appoint Region Coordinators in AWSM so that they can attend our regional meetings and help with programs, speakers, etc.
APSE scholarships: Sullivan reports that we will do that again this year.
BYLAW CHANGES
Two proposals where voted on:
To change Jack Berninger’s title to Executive Director. Bylaw change passes unanimously with 13 votes.
To allow student membership in APSE for those working toward the sports journalism profession. The student members can’t vote, can’t enter the contest. They are associate members and can come to the convention. Bylaw change passes with 10 yes votes, 1 abstain.
The exact wording can be read on this link:
apse.dallasnews.com/2009/judging/022209bylaws.html
NEW BUSINESS
Indiana University proposal: The APSE officers will hear a proposal from Tim Franklin, the director of the Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University, on Sunday. Franklin would like to house APSE at IU. The members were receptive to the idea, but wanted to start making queries to other universities. Jerry Micco said he will approach Penn State and Malcom Moran.
Contest future: Hoppes proposes getting rid of the winter judging convention. He says it doesn’t make sense in the current newspaper crisis. We’re doing it in cities that are expensive and it’s hard to convince our bosses to go. We also don’t have time to do critiques and that’s what small – and large – papers really need. Hoppes talked about using the catchers/Region meetings to judge the contest. For example, George Rojas is a catcher in Miami and gathers judges from Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and other smaller papers in the area. They can spend a week doing it on their own schedule and then send it back to the contest chair. We currently spend a lot of money to fly small newspaper judges to the winter judging and Hoppes wants to shift that money toward the national convention, which we need to make sure is our focal point and succeeds. Ruben and Scott Monserud agree that we do other contests that way. Lee Nessel suggests judging on the web, password protected.
There will be plenty more discussion on this and we are locked into judging in Orlando in 2010 because we have a contract. We do not have a contract for 2011.
There was discussion about merging the newspaper and web contests, the positive aspects of judging (getting good ideas, developing professional relationships), changing contest rules to allow PDFs and library printouts. Jerry Micco proposed a middle ground where we would pass the writing entries around (like most state contests are done now) and gather to do section judging.
Nominations for Second Vice President: Phil Kaplan and Ruben Luna of the Detroit News are automatically nominated because they are outgoing region chairs. Garry D. Howard nominated Michael Anastasi from the Salt Lake Tribune.
Content sharing: Roy Hewitt has a survey, wants to know if you want to do it nationally. He has a handout on how it’s done in Ohio and a survey attached. We will post it on the website.
Contest report: Contest maestro Garry D. Howard passes out contest assignments and the meeting adjourns at 6:51 p.m. Micco motions to close, Luna seconds.
Members attending opening meeting:
Joe Rayos, USA Today
Deborah Barrington, USA Today
Scott Zucker, USA Today
Matt Cimento, USA Today
Leon Carter, New York Daily News
Joe Sullivan, Boston Globe
Holly Lawton, Kansas City Star
Jerry Micco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Mary Byrne, Associated Press
Paul Skrbina, Sauk Valley (Ill.) Newspapers
Mike Sansone, Chicago Tribune
Patrick Obley, Charlotte (Fla.) Sun
John Bednarowski, Marietta Daily Journal
Chris Morris, Lynchburg News & Advocate
Jim Cnockaert, Bristol Herald Courier
Chuck Bausman, Philadelphia Daily News
Steve Maher, Wenatchee (Wash.) World
Jennifer Iannone, Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald
Lee Nessel, Florida Today
Jim Cohen, Philadelphia Inquirer
Todd M. Adams, Fayettville Observer
Nick Mathews, Newport News (Va.) Daily Press
Wade Baker, Monitor-Valley Freedom Newspapers
Mike Sherman, Oklahoman
Glen Crevier, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Roy Hewitt, Cleveland Plain Dealer
Alexa Steele, Washington Post
Jorge Rojas, Miami Herald
Dave Tepps, Palm Beach Post
Reid Laymance, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Jim Luttrell, New York Times
Tom Jolly, New York Times
Charlie Crixell, Houston Chronicle
Bob Berghaus, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times
Steve Troskey, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, Washington Post
Todd Harmonson, Orange County Register
Chuck Scott, San Diego Union-Tribune
Melissa Geivler, Yahoo! Sports
Loren Nelson, North County Times
Scott Monserud, Denver Post
Joe Baird, Salt Lake Tribune
Eric Walden, Salt Lake Tribune
Julie Jag, Santa Cruz Sentinel
Jennifer Osieczanek, Boulder Camera
Tom Renner, Stamford Advocate
Mark Faller, Arizona Republic
Jim Carlson, Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot News
Michael Anastasi, Salt Lake Tribune
Dennis Rudner, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Kevin Spain, The Times Picayune
Phil Kaplan, Knoxville News Sentinel
Bill Callen, Albany Times Union
Frank Corse, Blade of Toledo
Ruben Luna, Detroit News
Chris Iott, Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot
Dave Ammenheuser, Press Enterprise, Riverside, Calif.
Mike James, Los Angeles Times
