Got a third and two fourths at the most recent Texas Press Association Better Newspapers Contest.
And, while it's not that I think I should get firsts in everything, it's not the first time I've had questions for judges.
Column writing seems the most fraught category. Submit humor columns and not every judge may like your sense of humor. Submit serious ones, and who's to say a judge's POV isn't enough different, and deeply enough held, from yours as to undercut you? (One of my two column submissions this year was about Confederate monument removal. Al Cross liked it when he saw a copy. But, if a more conservative contest judge was in on the reviewing? I might have been screwed.)
As for notes on two of my three "places"?
A commenter on my feature stories said he didn't like one of them being placed at bottom right. Sir or madam, perhaps you didn't notice that I had two feature stories in the same issue, and the one at top left went there because it had a better photo. And, last I checked, this was the "feature story" category, not "page design."
On feature photography, a judge said "crop closer." Now, while my photos as submitted weren't airgap-tight, they weren't loose, and I had good reasons IMO to crop every one as I did. This isn't obit mugshots.
AND, I've won a few TPA awards. Never a first in feature writing, but I've won first in page design more than once, re the feature story judge's comments.
So, suggestions duly noted.
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