Marcel Louis-Jacques of the Charlotte Observer won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2018 contest in Breaking News Story for the B Division.
Louis-Jacques will be presented with a first-place plaque at the 2019 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at the Omni CNN Center in Atlanta on June 19.
He edged runner-up Jabari Young of the San Antonio News-Express.
Sports editors in the B Division submitted 81 breaking news story entries. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair Todd M. Adams and fellow APSE officers John Bednarowski, Lisa Wilson and Dan Spears prepared entries, which included online links to stories for the first time this year.
In February, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Orlando, Fla., and off-site around the country, selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10 separately on a secret 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 writers will receive frameable certificates.
Breaking news entries were judged on their timeliness, thoroughness, exclusivity and significance. Editors were allowed to submit a cover letter to explain who broke the story, how quickly the information was published and how it might have been expanded upon for print or later news cycles.
The top 10 is listed below with links to the winning entries.
- Marcel Louis-Jacques, Charlotte Observer, 42 points, one first-place vote
- Jabari Young, San Antonio Express-News, 41 points, one first-place vote
T-3. Erica Breunlin, Knoxville News Sentinel, 40 points, one first-place vote
T-3. Justin Sayers, Jake Lourim, Courier Journal (Louisville, Ky.), 40 points, one first-place vote
5. Kyle Rowland, The Blade (Toledo, Ohio), 38.5 points, one first-place vote
6. Theo Lawson, The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.), 37 points, one first-place vote
7. Chris Carlson, Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard, 34 points
8. Marisa Kwiatkowski and Zach Osterman, IndyStar (Indianapolis, Ind.), 25 points
9. Michael Phillips, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 20 points
10. Kellis Robinett, The Wichita Eagle, 18 points
