The Star Tribune staff won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2019 contest in Projects for the A Division.
The Star Tribune will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2020 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at The Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis on June 27.
The Star Tribune edged runner-up Ken Belson, Joe Drape, Bill Pennington, Michael Powell and Quoctrung Bui of The New York Times. Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times finished third.
Sports editors in the A Division submitted 28 projects. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair Lisa Wilson and fellow APSE officers Todd M. Adams, Gary Potosky and Dan Spears prepared the entries.
In February, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference in St. Petersburg, 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.
Projects shed new light on personalities and issues in the news, including trends and original ideas. It is pre-planned content that is conceived and executed as a larger body of work.
The top 10 is listed below with links to the winning entries.
1. Staff, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 1 2 3 4 5 6 — 50 points, 1 first-place vote
2. Ken Belson, Joe Drape, Bill Pennington, Michael Powell, Quoctrung Bui, The New York Times 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 — 48 points, 3 first-place votes
3. Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times 1 2 3 4 5 6 — 40 points, 1 first-place vote
4. Rick Maese, The Washington Post 1 2 3 4 — 34 points
5. Jeremy Hayes, Gordon Mack, Cliff Bogart and Jennifer Zahn, FloSports 1 2 3 4 5 — 33 points, 1 first-place vote
6. Staff, Chicago Tribune 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 — 30 points
7. Staff, The Athletic 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 — 28 points
T8. Vahe Gregorian, Sam Mellinger, Sam McDowell and Brooke Pryor, The Kansas City Star 1 2 3 4 5 — 23 points
T8. Marc Topkin, John Romano, Martin Fennelly, Thomas Bassinger, Tampa Bay Times 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 — 23 points
10. Jarrett Bell, Christine Brennan, Nate Davis, Jim Reineking and staff, USA Today Sports 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 — 21 points
