Rachel George was speechless. Her work spoke for itself.
George, who covers high school sports for the Wilmington (N.C.) StarNews, had just been told she won first place in the 2009 APSE Writing Contest in the highly competitive Investigative category, which is open to newspapers of all circulations.
It then started to settle in along with the odds.
“When the list of the top 10 came out, I told my sports editor we’re the only one they had to list the state we’re from,” said George.
She was right.
Wilmington is a C division newspaper. The other writers finishing in the top five were from the Boston Globe, YahooSports, USA Today and New York Times. The Arizona Republic, Detroit Free Press, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News and Seattle Times were honorable mention.
Rachel
George
George’s series about the aging Jap Davis Field House was determined to be the top Investigative story by two judging groups during the APSE Winter Conference March 6-10 in Kissimmee, Fla.
It is the first APSE writing award for George and the first time the Star-News has received a first-place award.
The Jap Davis Field House had been shut down in late 2007, but officials assured the newspaper that repairs were made before students and coaches started using it again in spring 2008.
A year later, George took a closer look. She was taken into a restricted area of the building where a beam that supports the roof was sagging significantly. She had a number of safety questions and started her investigation.
The first part of the story was published Aug. 1, a day after football practice started.
“Clearly, it was a problem that the football players were going to be using an unsafe building,” George wrote in the cover letter. “The county inspections department condemned the building before the start of practice because of my reporting.
Alternate arrangements were made when the season started, and the players were kept out of danger.”
George said the story was built through a diligent investigation.
“In all, I waded through more than 700 pages of documents and e-mails and used more than 20 hours of interviews to build the story,” said George. “District officials omitted documents from my FOIA request that would have shown their mishandling of the situation and the poor state of the building. Initially, they also stopped me from speaking to everyone from the football coach to engineers. When I got those omitted documents, I was met with hostility in most cases and lies in others.”
George was told during the reporting that the board of education would need at least five years to get taxpayers to approve a bond referendum to replace the building.
“After my investigation, the district found more than $750,000 left over from the last bond to renovate the building in less than a year,” said George.
And as a result of George’s story, the director of facility planning is no longer with the district.
“While the district’s official response is that he resigned, when I tried to interview him at his home, he told me I had cost him his job,” said George.
“Most significantly, though, the building was condemned because of my reporting. It got players and coaches out of a dangerous situation, one which the engineers agreed could have ended in injury or death.”
The success in the APSE contest doesn’t end there.
Brian Hiro of North County Times in Escondido, Calif., and Chris Carlson of The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass., both finished first in two categories in the writing contest.
Hiro was first in Explanatory and Game Stories in the 40,000-100,000 division.
The coverage of the final stage of the Tour of California cycling race was Hiro’s entry in Game Stories. Hiro said sometimes offbeat stories catch people’s attention. He was right.
“It almost was a lark,” said Hiro who previously earned a second, a third and three honorable mentions in the writing contest.
Hiro’s enterprise piece was a look at the growing problem of head injuries in football, with an emphasis on a degenerative condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy and a Boston medical center that’s doing research on it.
Carlson won for the same two categories in the under-40,000 division.
“It’s very cool,” said Carlson, who was first in Features two years ago and his placed in the writing contest for four consecutive years. “It’s nice to be involved in the process and be part of this.”
Carlson’s entry in Game Stories was coverage of Ann Vella, a 72-year-old runner who finished first in her age division in what might have been the final road race of her life. She was running in between rounds of chemotherapy treatments for lung cancer.
The subject for Carlson’s Explanatory piece was Elaina Pullano, a 17-year-old who tore her right ACL this year after tearing the left ACL the year before. Her struggle to emotionally cope with the injuries, and her efforts to come back, illustrated the threat that ACL tears pose to female athletes.
Chris Carlson
YahooSports earned the most writing awards with six top-5 prizes, five in the over-250,000 and one in Investigative. Dan Wetzel played a role in five of them with a second in Game Stories, a second in Feature Stories with Charles Robinson, a fourth in Breaking News, a fifth in Projects with Josh Peter and a third in Investigative with Adrian Wojnarowski and King.
Jeff Passan of YahooSports was fifth in Game Stories.
This was the first year general interest sports Web sites like YahooSports were allowed to enter the writing contest.
In the over-250,000 division, The Washington Post had five top-5 writing awards with a first in Game Stories (Chico Harlan) and Feature Stories (Mike Wise), second in Projects (Steve Yanda and Eric Prisbell), fourth in Games Stories (Liz Clarke) and fifth in Feature Stories (Sally Jenkins).
Gary Shelton of St. Petersburg Times won the overall column writing award in the over-250,000 category; Ian O’Connor of The Record in Woodland Park, N.J., won it in the 100-250,000 category; John Blanchette of the Spokane Spokesman-Review in the 40,000-1000,000 category; Rick S. Alvord of the Longview (Wash.) Daily News and Chuck Pollick of the Olean (N.Y.) Times Herald tied in under 40,000 category.
The New York Times received three top-5 writing awards, including first place in both Projects (Alan Schwarz) and Breaking News (Christopher Clarey and Gina Kolata) in 250-000 and over and a fifth in Investigative (Michael S. Schmidt.).
Also in 250,000 and over, the Los Angeles Times had three top-5, including two in Breaking News (second by Lance Pugmire and third by Bill Shaikin) and fourth in Explanatory (Kevin Baxter).
The San Diego Union-Tribune, winners of four writing awards a year ago, earned three more with a third in Feature Stories (Mark Zeigler), a fourth in Column Writing (Tim Sullivan) and a fifth in Explanatory (Brent Schrotenboer).
USA Today with a fourth in Investigative (Steve Berkowitz, Steve Wieberg, A.J. Perez, Jodi Upton, Michael McCarthy and Tom O’Toole) and third in Game Stories (Steve DiMeglio) and the Boston Globe with a second in Investigative (Bob Hohler) and third in Explanatory (Shira Springer) received two top-5 awards in writing.
Three writers were double-winners in the 100,000-250,000 division.
Tom Witosky of the Des Moines Register was first in Explanatory and third in Project Reporting with Dan Johnson and Bill Petroski.
Gordon Monson was third in Column Writing and Ross Siler was fifth in Game Stories and the two also helped the Salt Lake Tribune win a third award by joining Tony Jones, Kurt Kragthorpe, Michael C. Lewis, Steve Luhm, Martin Renzhofer and Lya Wodraska for first place in Project Reporting.
The Des Moines Register also was second in Breaking News for three top-5 awards.
In the same division, the Detroit News won three top-5 awards with a second in Game Stories (Chris McCosky), fourth in Breaking News (John Niyo) and fourth in Column Writing (Bob Wojnowski); and The Record, including O’Connor’s win in Column Writing, added a second in Column Writing (Bob Klapisch) and a third in Explanatory (Jeff Roberts).
Double winners included the Palm Beach Post for a first in Breaking News (Andrew Marra, Michael LaForgia and Jason Lieser) and a fourth in Game Stories (Joe Capozzi) along with the Austin American-Statesman with a second in Explanatory (John Maher and Eric Dexheimer) and a fifth in Feature Stories (Mike Leggett).
In the 40,000-100,000 division, Todd M. Adams and Dan Wiederer of the Fayetteville Observer were both top-5 double winners. Wiederer was first in Feature Stories and Adams was fifth in the same category and the two combined for fourth in Projects to give the newspaper three top-5 awards.
Hiro’s two first-place finishes plus a third in Breaking News (John Maffei) also gave North County Times a total of three top-5 awards.
George Schroeder was third in Explanatory and fourth in Column Writing to give The Register Guard in Eugene, Ore., two top-5 awards.
In that same division, the Free-Lance Star won two top-5 awards, with a second in Game Stories (Rich Campbell) and a fourth in Feature Stories (Adam Himmelsbach); and the Times of Northwest Indiana in Munster, Ind., won third for Game Stories (Matt Erickson) and fourth in Explanatory (Nate Ulrich).
Tim McManus of the Glens Falls (N.Y.) Post-Star had two top-5 writing awards in the under-40,000 division. McManus shared first in Project Reporting with Jackie Friedman and was fifth in Game Stories.
Along with Post-Star, two other newspapers won two top-5 writing awards in the division. The Antelope Valley Press in Palmdale, Calif., was fourth in Explanatory (Dan Goldberg) and fourth in Project Reporting (Eric Baca, Merisa Jensen, Alan Hendry, Eric Harding, Toby Carig and Brian Golden). The Altoona (Pa.) Mirror was second in Explanatory (Buck Frank) and fifth in Project Reporting (Cory Giger).
The top-5 writing award winners along with the previously announced top 10 sections for three categories (daily, Sunday and special) and top sports Web sites will be honored at the APSE convention in Salt Lake City. The awards banquet takes place June 26.
I want to personally thank APSE members for participating in the contest and showing everyone its value. Next year’s contest chairman, Michael Anastasi of the Salt Lake Tribune, already has some great ideas to continue improving the contest.
Congratulations to all the winners. See you in Salt Lake City.
