President Gary Potosky calls the meeting to order at 2 p.m., Aug. 18, at the Flamingo Las Vegas El Dorado Room. He introduces first vice president Jorge Rojas, second vice president Naila Meyers, third vice president Ed Reed, executive director Bill Eichenbeger and conference coordinator Glen Crevier.
Past presidents present
Lisa Wilson, The Athletic
Bill Eichenberger, now Las Vegas Review-Journal then Newsday (2003-04)
Glen Crevier, then The Star Tribune of Minneapolis (2005-06)
Phil Kaplan, then Knoxville News-Sentinel, now South Region Assistant Sports Editor of USA TODAY (2010-11)
Michael Anastasi, then Salt Lake Tribune, now Region Editor of USA TODAY network South (2011-12)
Gerry Ahern, then USA TODAY Sports Media Group, now the Detroit News (2012-13)
Tommy Deas, then Tuscaloosa News now The Tennessean (2017)
John Bednarowski, Marietta Daily Journal (2019)
Region representatives
Northeast: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. (Jane Allison Havsy)
Atlantic Coast: North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, West Virginia (Justin Pelletier)
Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virgin Islands. (Erik Hall)
Great Lakes: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin. (Rachel Crader)
Great Plains: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma. (No one in attendance)
Southwest: New Mexico, Texas. (Maria McIlwain)
Northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming. (not present)
West: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah. (Bill Bradley)
Representing the Associated Press: Barry Bedlan, Oscar Dixon, Michael Giarusso
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Committee reports
Finances and budget update (Bill Eichenberger)
No update
Conference update (Glen Crevier)
UPDATE: 86 people checked in during the week. If you have any comments on what to do differently/better, please reach out.
Alumni (Jim Jenks)
No update
Contest (Jorge Rojas)
UPDATE: Jorge thanked Gary for tightening up the contest, but it’s an ongoing situation. We will have a committee and take questions and figure out the moving parts. We are going to try everything we can to have the hybrid model with some judging in Orlando and some remote. PDFs for the section contest are probably here to stay, but hard copies will be an option next year. All section judging would be in person only. Jorge is mulling a “best in show” category for an overall winner for the contest, so winners in smaller categories and compete against the biggest papers.
Erik Hall: Looking at PDFs was miserable for judging daily sections for Category A.
Michael Anastasi: Suggested thinking about ways to better honor the best in digital journalism. Do we do away with print all together in contest?
Jorge Rojas: We need more entries in digital categories. Special sections category may be condensed, but would need to be replaced in Triple Crown/Grand Slam. Do we apply it to the number of wins in writing categories? Do we put Projects in Triple Crown/Grand Slam?
Gary Potosky: Redefining Triple Crown is something we can explore.
Erik Hall: Do we add a category on a specific topic each year? To increase coverage of diversity. Add an “event coverage” category for all classifications instead of just game stories.
Bill Bradley: Need to still honor team work, game coverage.
Perryn Keys: Changes to digital contest were great. Should we split off part of it into its own category? Something audience based?
Gary Potosky: Expect adjustments to the digital contest to continue.
Justin Pelletier: We have to keep in mind that our membership is skewing smaller. They don’t have a big media company feeding them. That’s why entries are down.
Gary Potosky: We have dipped our toe into having different rules for bigger/smaller categories. We can’t be seen as a print outfit.
Lisa Wilson: Ed Reed should have a Zoom with smaller outlets to find out what they want out of the contest.
Ed Reed: Smaller papers can still be print centric, but they aren’t on the same footing as bigger papers and between themselves as their print size decreases and deadlines are moved earlier.
Naila Meyers: We need to think about the next frontier: substacks and newsletters and how to involve those in the contest.
Commissioners (Jeff Rosen)
No update
Diversity (A. Sherrod Blakely)
No update.
Futures (Mike Sherman)
No update.
Grassroots/Outreach (Chris Fickett and Ed Reed)
No update.
Legal affairs and ethics (Gerry Ahern and John Cherwa)
UPDATE: The committee is putting together a list of officers in writers’ organizations. If any issues come up with protocols, reach out to Gerry and John. We advocate getting more people in APSE involved in the writers’ organizations, like having an APSE rep/liaison in those orgs. Who in APSE is also a member of any writers’ organizations?.
Olympics (Roxanna Scott)
UPDATE: Beijing/Olympics report
Editors should have heard from the USOPC if they’ve been approved for credentials for the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Due to the pandemic and the delayed Tokyo Games, we didn’t have a committee meeting to allocate credentials as we normally would. The credentials were distributed by the USOPC in 2020. For outlets that received credentials, names and headshots are due by Aug. 27. The USOPC expects the Beijing organizing committee to release a playbook on COVID protocols early this fall.
Should you and your organization choose to not utilize your full allotment of credentials and return them to the USOPC by the Aug. 27 deadline, please know it will not impact your future Games accreditation allocations, according to the USOPC. For questions regarding credentials, please reach out to Accreditation@usopc.org.
Red Smith (Rachel Crader)
UPDATE: Leon Carter, Tom Boswell, Bill Plaschke, Bill Lyon and Mark Whicker finished 2-6 and are automatically on the next ballot. Other people nominated last year need to be renominated if they didn’t finish 2-6. Information will go out early next year.
Regions (Mike Kates)
No update
Revenue (Tommy Deas)
UPDATE: The Tennessean also made a donation to support the summer conference as a sponsor. I am working on physical thank you notes for sponsors. By the end of October, we plan to have fliers distributed to past and potential sponsors. The Big Ten was going to be a sponsor for 2020 in Indy and we hope to get them back.
Scholarship (Phil Kaplan)
No update.
Student liaison/contest (Nicole Saavedra, Jenni Carlson and Erik Hall)
UPDATE: Got three new judges. Anyone interested should reach out to Erik.
Website/social (Naila Meyers)
No update.
Writers/mentorship (Joey Chandler and Mike Harris)
No update.
Old business: None
New business:
Phil Kaplan: The way we accept membership makes no sense. Papers have no scrutiny, but websites have a whole process. We are still discriminating against websites. ESPN/Yahoo/etc could never win a Triple Crown. Need to make it more inviting to join.
Tommy Deas: Hardest battle I fought was that websites couldn’t enter the digital contest. We don’t need to fight for a year over this. We shouldn’t treat websites as suspicious of journalistic standards. Need to make APSE (contest/conferences/etc) accessible to majority of our members. More grants/scholarships/subsidies for diverse journalists, students and small papers.
Gerry Ahearn: Level of editorial oversight was criteria for NCAA credentialing.
Justin Pelletier: There’s got to be a way to make the conference more accessible. Make certain sessions available to people can’t attend. Tier conference dues. Gives value for membership beyond the contest. Smaller members can’t even make regional meetings, let alone national conference.
Emily Horos: Important to give people from small papers opportunity to come to the conference in person for networking. Need to make sure people can afford to come back.
Erik Hall: NLGJA uses a digital platform for its conference that requires a log in for its virtual conference, so there are no worries about sharing links. [AAJA does too]
Maria McIlwain: The hotel was the most expensive part of coming to the conference. Could we reduce costs by getting a room block at a cheaper hotel?
Glen Crevier: We need to plan two years in advance so room blocks are difficult to arrange. And live streaming would have cost an additional $20,000.
Jane Havsy: Room sharing is a way to save money on lodging. I was able to find a better room rate by booking outside our reserved block.
No other new business
Random drawing for mandatory contest dates
Conducted by president Gary Potosky
Daily mandatory: Jan. 25-30
Sunday mandatory: Jan. 10
Motion to adjourn: Justin Pelletier. Second: Steve Trosky
Meeting ends at 3:13 p.m.
Attendance:
Lisa Wilson, past president
Gary Potosky, APSE president
Jorge Rojas, APSE first Vice President
Naila-Jean Meyers, APSE second Vice President
Ed Reed, APSE third Vice President
Bill Eichenberger, APSE executive director
Bill Bradley, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Glen Crevier, APSE conference coordinator
Gerry Ahern, Detroit News
Michael Kates, Gambling.com
Steve Trosky, Buffalo News
Marcus Vanderberg, ESPN
Emily Horos, Arizona Republic
Tommy Deas, The Tennessean
Justin Pelletier, Raleigh News & Observer
Malcolm Moran, Sports Capital Journalism Program, IUPUI
Maria McIlwain, Houston Chronicle / Diversity Fellow
Jeffrey Perkins, Patch.com
Elaine Sung, Daily Memphian
John Bednarowki, Marieta Daily Journal
Lila Bromberg, Sports Illustrated
Michael Giarrusso, Associated Press
Oscar Dixon, Associated Press
Phil Kaplan, USA Today Network South Region
Erik Hall, USA Today Network
Rachel Crader, Lee Enterprises
Christopher Boan, Gambling.com
Jane Allison Havsy, Daily Record (N.J.)
Michael Anastasi, Tennessean / USA Today Network
Berry Bedlan / Associated Press
James Williams, SoCal News Group
