Sunshine State Awards Committee Meeting

Sunshine State Awards Committee meeting via conference call
Dec. 13, 2010, 8:30 a.m.
SPJ South Florida PRO chapter

Called to order at 8:32 a.m.
In attendance: Lucy Reed, Dori Zinn, Michael Koretzky and Tim Dodson

ACTION: Voted to leave the category divisions unchanged for this year:
Large for publications 100,000 and over; Small for publications less
than 100,000.

We discussed at length a change in the circulation number, but there
are 10 newspapers in Florida over 100,000 — all of them the metro
dailies we envision competing in this category (plus a couple others).
Lowering the number to 90,000 would only add two more newspapers,
neither of which is a metro daily. Lowering it to 60,000 would add
several more metro dailies (Florida Today, Sarasota Herald Tribune)
but might also serve to steer those papers away from entering if they
have to compete with the Herald and St. Pete Times.

We discussed at length changing the names of the divisions to Metro
and Community as a first step in a more comprehensive change next
year, but agreed that we haven’t done enough outreach nor gotten
enough feedback from entrants to merit the change. The change of words
could cost us entries, so we played it safe and decided not to change.

We also agreed in concept that we will take a much more aggressive
approach to interacting with winners and entrants both at the awards
ceremony and after to get feedback before making any more changes to
the contest.

Meeting adjourned at 8:54 a.m.