Brian Miller of Tallahassee Democrat won first place in The Associated Press Sports Editors 2019 contest in Breaking News in the C Division.
Miller will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2020 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at The Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis on June 27. Douglass Dowty and Sarah Moses Buckshot of Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard finished second. Michelle Breidenbach and Nolan Weidner, also of Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard, placed third.
Sports editors in the C Division submitted 56 breaking news entries. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair Lisa Wilson and fellow APSE officers Todd M. Adams, Gary Potosky and Dan Spears prepared the entries.
In February, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference in St. Petersburg, Fla., and off-site around the country, selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10 on a separate ballot. Entries were given 10 points for a first-place vote, nine points for second and so on down to one point for a 10th-place vote. The final 10 were given to a second judging group, which ranked the entries 1-10 in the same fashion.
The winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The winner in each category will receive a plaque at the summer conference. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive certificates.
Judges, using their discretion, weighed the various elements of a breaking news story: timeliness, thoroughness, exclusivity and significance.
The top 10 is listed below with links to the winning entries.
- Brian Miller, Tallahassee Democrat, 49 points, two first-place votes
2. Douglass Dowty and Sarah Moses Buckshot, Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard, 47 points, three first-place votes
3. Michelle Breidenbach and Nolan Weidner, Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard, 42 points, one first-place vote
4. Sean Hammond, Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, Ill.), 39 points
T-5. Ryan Wood, Green Bay Press-Gazette, 38 points
T-5. Michael Lycklama, Idaho Statesman (Boise), 38 points
7. Kellis Robinett, The Wichita Eagle, 26 points
8. Adam Fisher, The News-Press (Fort Myers, Fla.), 22 points
9. Adam Regan, The News-Press (Fort Myers, Fla.), 19 points
10. Jordan Guskey, The Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), 10 points
