In our continued effort to make the APSE contest less print-centric and in response to a recent membership survey, the following changes will be instituted for the 2022 contest.
- Daily and Sunday sections will be combined into a print portfolio
- The portfolio should contain two dailies (1 mandatory + 1 optional), two Sunday/weekend editions (1 mandatory + 1 optional); and one wild card, which can be a daily or a Sunday.
- As before, live special sections and wraps can be entered with daily/Sunday material, but stand-alone planned special sections must be entered as special sections (see below).
- Complete rules for the print contest will be published later this month.
- Mandatory sections will be chosen from two weeks determined by random.org. You can choose any section from that week as long as you choose a daily from one week and a Sunday/weekend edition from the other.
- The first mandatory week, chosen by Naila-Jean Meyers and witnessed by APSE president Jorge Rojas, is Feb. 7-13. (Yes, that includes Super Bowl Sunday and the Winter Olympics.)
- Thus, if you choose to enter a Sunday, Feb. 13 section, your mandatory daily must come from the second mandatory week, which will be chosen on Dec. 31 from the six-month period of July 1-Dec. 31.
- Special sections will be a separate print category with two divisions: A/B and C/D.
- News organizations can submit only one special section. This category is for one-subject or one-theme sections issued one time as part of the regular newspaper run.
- The number of entries will determine whether a top 10 or a top 5 will be chosen.
- The rest of the entry rules for special sections will remain the same as previous years and will be published later this month.
- The print contest will continue to be entered and judged using PDFs, not hard copies.
This will reduce the number of print-only competitions in the contest from 10 last year to six.
If you have any questions or concerns, please email contest chair Naila-Jean Meyers at apsecontest@gmail.com. The goal of these changes is to, yes, reduce the number of print-only categories in the contest, but we also want to encourage more newspapers to enter the print contest and to allow you to enter your best work. If these changes are an impediment for you, please let Naila know.
The complete rules for the 2022 contest will be announced later this month.
