From Marriott SouthPark, Charlotte, N.C., Saturday, June 22, 2024
President Dan Spears calls the meeting to order at 3:03 p.m. and introduces First Vice President Paul Barrett, Second Vice President Perryn Keys, Third Vice President Tony Maluso, Executive Director Bill Eichenberger and Conference Coordinator Glen Crevier.
Past presidents in attendance
- Naila-Jean Meyers, Star Tribune (2023-24)
- Jorge Rojas, The Athletic (2022-23)
- Gary Potosky, The Philadelphia Inquirer (2021-22)
- Lisa Wilson, The Athletic (2020-21)
- John Bednarowski, Marietta Daily Journal (2018-19)
- Phil Kaplan, then Knoxville News-Sentinel (2010-11)
- Glen Crevier, then Star Tribune of Minneapolis (2005-06)
- Bill Eichenberger, then Newsday (2003-04)
Region representatives
Northeast: Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia. – Jim Pignatiello
Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. – Justin Pelletier
Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. – Erik Hall
West: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming – Iliana Limón Romero
Representing the Associated Press: Barry Bedlan, Oscar Dixon
Finances and budget update (Bill Eichenberger)
No update.
Conference update (Glen Crevier)
Feb. 23-27, 2025: Winter Conference and Contest Judging, DoubleTree Suites-Disney Springs, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
June 26-28, 2025: Summer Conference, Courtyard Minneapolis Downtown, Minneapolis
Revenue (Tommy Deas)
No update.
TIDES report (Dan)
We had a poor response to the TIDES survey we sent out in the spring. The last time we did this, in 2021, more than 100 newspapers and websites responded to the survey. At last count, we had only 47 surveys returned this time. Another round of emails is going out to sports editors who didn’t reply. But with so many of us gathered here this weekend, there are several of us here who can walk you through filling out the survey if you haven’t already. Those people include me, Jorge Rojas and Lisa Wilson. I will ask Sherrod to help when he gets here too.
APSE Foundation (Lisa Wilson)
Silent auction will close at 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Winners can take prizes with them or look into having them shipped.
Also, say hello to our 12th class of Fellows, and please stand if you’re here:
- Callie Lawson-Freeman
- Lauren Jennings
- Lauren Campbell
- Mallory Merda
- James Jackson
- Wilton Jackson
Other summer journalism conferences
AWSM: AWSM held its annual convention online and will be switching back to in person next year. Illiana thanks APSE for its ongoing support of the organization.
NAHJ: The NAHJ Sports Task Force is thrilled that the upcoming NAHJ convention July 9-13 in Hollywood, Calif., will feature more sports programming than ever before. We have at least three mixers planned, so please reach out to Iliana Limón Romero if you will be attending the convention so we can get you invitations to those events.
NABJ: National Association of Black Journalists convention is July 31-Aug. 4 at the Hilton Chicago. The early-bird deadline was June 1.
AAJA: The Asian American Journalists Association’s 2024 annual convention will be held Aug. 7-11 at the Hilton Austin. The early bird registration deadline was yesterday.
NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists convention is Sept. 5-8 at the Loews Hollywood. Early-bird rates are in effect until Aug. 12.
Committee reports
Diversity (from A. Sherrod Blakely)
No update.
Membership (Jason Murray)
No update. If you have a calendar item for the APSE calendar, send it to him.
Regions update (Gary Potosky)
No update.
Career advancement (Lisa Wilson)
We are still seeking mentorship pairings. If you’re interested in mentorship or being a mentee, please contact Lisa Wilson.
Scholarships (Phil Kaplan)
No update.
Commissioners (Hank Winnicki)
No update.
Legal affairs and ethics (Gerry Ahern and John Cherwa)
No update.
Olympics (Roxanna Scott)
No update.
Red Smith (Matt Pepin)
Matt Pepin of the Boston Globe will take over for Rachel Crader as the coordinator of Red Smith Award voting next year.
Congratulations to this year’s honoree, Bill Plaschke. The five journalists who finished behind him in the voting are automatically nominated for next year’s award. They are Tom Boswell, Mark Whicker, Hal Bodley, Garry D. Howard and Dan Shaughnessy.
Website/social (Paul Barrett)
We joined Instagram at @apsportseditors. We updated the membership directory to clean out some outdated entries. We added a resources page with links to style guides and other tools for sports journalists, and a scholarship page, which explains the kind of financial support we offer and recognizes the people those awards are named after. That may turn into a fundraising page in the future.
Jake Adams, with help from Damon Sayles, has been producing our newsletter, which has come out roughly quarterly. We are working with Andy Rhinehart to find a more efficient way to do sends and sign up.
Contest (Dan Spears/Paul Barrett)
The Billie Jean King Award honorable mentions and finalists will be announced at tonight’s awards dinner.
Paul is planning to form a group of people to discuss the contest from 2023 and any other contest thoughts people might have for 2024. If you’re interested in being part of this group, or if you just have some contest thoughts you’d like to share, email me at pbarrett@seattletimes.com.
Mandatory date drawing for Print Portfolio from first six months of 2024, using random.org. Dan Spears witnessed:
The week of May 27-June 2, 2024.
You can pick either the Sunday or daily from that week. Remember you’ll have to pick the opposite for the week in the second half of the year.
Date for the final six months of the year will be drawn in December.
Student contest (Iliana Limón Romero)
Winner will be announced at Saturday’s awards dinner and posted on the website. We had a lot of entries and it continues to grow. We didn’t need as many judges as we had volunteers. We will continue looking at how to expand the contest to one or two more slots people can compete for, which will help with student growth.
Old business
2026 Summer Conference (Dan Spears)
Again, the Summer Conference that year will run directly into the World Cup, which runs from June 11-26 prelims and June 27-July 15 knockouts.
Host cities are Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Please reach out to me, Paul or Perryn with thoughts on attendance, location, etc. We got another city pitch this weekend, so that’s great.
We had interest from Jason Murray for the conference to be held in Washington, D.C.
Bylaws (Dan Spears)
These bylaw changes were approved on first reading at the opening meeting and need to be voted on again at this meeting by officers and executive committee members.
These proposals by Naila involve membership, leadership positions and duties in order to bring our bylaws more in line with the current realities of our business and with how we have in practice been handling many of these decisions in recent years.
For full bylaw change language, please see below.
First on duties of officers, regarding contests.
Section D of Article 4 on Duties says that “The first vice president is responsible for making and amending rules for the APSE contest” and that “The president will administer off-site judging for the contest. The second vice president will assist the first vice president and the president in administering the contest, as needed.”
Proposed change: The first vice president is responsible for making and amending rules for APSE contests.
Proposed change: Strike the sentence on the president administering off-site judging, and adding the president to the following sentence: The president, second vice president and third vice president will assist the first vice president in administering the contest, as needed.
Reason for changes: APSE now offers more than one contest and may offer other contests in the future, and most of the judging is done remotely now, and the president has not administered remote judging for a few years now.
Executive Committee vote on by-law change: 14 yes, 0 opposed.
The second proposal involves regional leadership.
Section I of Article 4 says, “The method of election of vice chairs, which occurs every two years unless it is necessary sooner because of resignation, will be determined by regional membership with the approval of the APSE president.” It also says, “A regional chair or vice chair should be a working APSE member from the region.”
Proposed changes: Changing “method of election of vice chairs” to “method of selection of vice chairs.” And: A regional chair or vice chair should be an APSE member either working or living in the region.
Reason for changes: We have had many uncontested elections in recent years, and have had trouble recruiting candidates for regional positions. This small letter change would allow for the appointment of region vice chairs, which is already happening. Also, the realities of remote work mean that editors sometimes don’t live in the same region in which they work, or in the region their publication is based. We need flexibility in the bylaws to allow those interested in leadership to serve.
Executive Committee vote on by-law change: 14 yes, 0 opposed.
The last set of changes involve our membership guidelines. Many of them are out of date and do not accurately reflect the current realities of print journalism. APSE also has not always been following these membership bylaws to the letter in recent years, and the dues structure and membership bylaws don’t fully align.
Under Section A, of Article 2 on Membership, the bylaws currently say this about who is eligible to become member organizations:
1. Newspapers that print no fewer than three days a week, and their associated websites.
Proposed change: I am proposing that we remove the frequency of print publication as a requirement of full membership. We have had organizations who print only weekly apply for, gain membership, and enter the contest. Making this change now would also mean we don’t have to adjust this again in the future.
Under “The following are eligible to become individual members of APSE,” it says this regarding alumni:
2. Former members of APSE who were members under 2 (A), but are no longer working in a sports-related job. This includes retired journalists who shall be considered alumni members.
I am proposing this change: Former members of APSE who were members under 2 (A), but are no longer working in a sports-related job or moved to a non-member organization. This includes retired journalists who shall be considered alumni members.
Regarding students, it says:
3. Full-time students who write for college newspapers or their websites.
I am proposing this change: Full-time students who are interested in a career in sports journalism. …
Regarding “national sports publications,” it says:
6. Writers and editors employed by national sports publications that publish in print on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, or publish daily or regularly within a week on an affiliated website.
I am proposing we strike this bylaw because it no longer applies. “National sports publications” like ESPN, Sports Illustrated and The Athletic have been full members for years through their websites. From my research, this bylaw originated in 2011, when there was “no consensus” that national sports publications like SI and TSN being member organizations was a “good thing.” It appears there were concerns about national publications entering the contest, but we have largely dealt with those concerns through contest rules rather than bylaws.
Regarding newspapers that publish less than three days a week, it says:
7. Writers and editors who work for newspapers that publish any number of times a week.
I propose striking this.
The bylaws do not have anything about writers for non-member organizations eligible for membership, even though we technically have a writers wing and have category of membership for that. So we need to decide whether we want writers to create eligibility for writers (and editors?) for non-member organizations to join as individuals. Such a bylaw could say this:
6. Writers for non-member organizations that apply generally accepted newsgathering practices, as defined by the executive committee, and are not operated by professional or amateur sports organizations.
Executive Committee vote on by-law change: 15 yes, 0 opposed.
New business
Erik Hall: To put this on the record, regarding the 2026 APSE Summer Conference, between Atlanta or D.C., I suggest D.C. would be more friendly to LGBTQ+ journalists.
Gary Potosky: I recommend anyone with suggestions for the contest, make suggestions now to Paul and his committee. Most important to get ideas coming out of the national conference.
Motion to adjourn: John Bednarowski
Second: Naila-Jean Meyers
Meeting ends at 3:23 p.m.
Attendance
Hank Winnicki, Newsday
Meredith Perri, Masslive
Ed Reed, USA Today Network Florida
Jim Pignatiello, Masslive
Nalia-Jean Meyers, Star Tribune
Erik Hall, The Telegraph Alton
John Bednarowski, Marietta Daily Journal
Jason Murray, Washington Post
Iliana Limón Romero, Los Angeles Times
Oskar Garcia, The Athletic
Zach Cavanagh, formerly of Picket Fence Media
Jane Allison Havsy, Daily Record (Rockaway, NJ)
Jeffrey Perkins, San Antonio Express-News
Maria Mcilwain, Philadelphia Inquirer
Andrew Abadie, Pine Belt News
Evan Gerike, Asheville Citizen Times
Aaron Ferguson, Wisconsin State Journal
Oscar Dixon, Associated Press
Barry Bedlan, Associated Press
Glen Crevier, APSE
Bill Eichenberger, APSE
Justin Pelletier, McClatchy Southeast
Gary Potosky, Philadelphia Inquirer
Wilton Jackson, Freelance Journalist
James Jackson, The Athletic
Jorge Rojas, The Athletic
Nate Mink, Syracuse Post-Standard
Callie Lawson-Freeman, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Lisa Wilson, The Athletic
Mallory Merda, Unaffiliated
Lauren Campbell, Masslive
Lauren Jennings, CCJ/Gannnett
Phil Kaplan, USA Today South Region
