Tony Paul of The Detroit News won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2020 contest in Category B Explanatory.

Paul will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2021 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas on Aug. 18.

Lane Kizziah of the Richmond Times-Dispatch finished second and Kyle Neddenriep of the Indianapolis Star was third.

An Explanatory story can include trends, issues, original ideas and it should explain something. It sheds new light on issues and personalities in the news. It is more than a feature story and less than a project. It goes beyond the “yesterday” of a breaking news story.

Sports editors in Category B submitted 40 stories. The contest is open to APSE members. 

Click here to join.

Contest chair and First Vice President Gary Potosky and fellow APSE officers President Lisa Wilson, Second Vice President Jorge Rojas and Third Vice President Steve Hemphill prepared the entries.

Because this year’s in-person APSE Winter Conference was canceled due to the pandemic, all judging was remote during three weeks in February. Each category had a set of judges examine all entries, choose a Top 10 as a group (in some cases, the ranking includes fewer or more than 10 entries), and each of those judges ranked the finalists individually. A second set of judges in each category then also ranked those finalists.

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 finishers will receive frameable certificates.

The top 10 is listed below with links to the winning entries, and voting results.

1. Tony Paul, The Detroit News, 50 points, 1 first-place vote

2. Lane Kizziah, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 47 points

3. Kyle Neddenriep, Indianapolis Star, 46 points, 2 first-place votes

4. Tony Plohetski, Austin American-Statesman, 42 points, 2 first-place votes

5. Andrew Carter, Charlotte Observer, 40 points, 1 first-place vote

6. Jason Wolf, The Buffalo News, 34 points

7. Joe Mussatto, The Oklahoman, 23 points

8. Zach Joachim, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 19 points

9. Aaron Kasinitz, PennLive/The Harrisburg Patriot-News, 15 points 

10. Yihyun Jeong, The Tennessean, 14 points

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