The Florida Press Club contest results are streaming in. Check out the results here. Lots of categories to go, but plenty of winners there already. Congratulations to all of them.
Myself, I pulled two first place finishes already, in the commentary and sports column categories. So I should be pretty pleased with myself right about now, huh?
Hell no.
It was decent back in 2004 when
I took the commentary award and pulled second in the Frances DeVore thing. But that was in Category A, you know, the big boys (if there is such a thing in Florida journalism). This year they inexplicably put NT in Category D. That means that, to win the commentary award, I had to beat Solares Hill and something called the Florida Fishing Report. For sports column, the Florida Fishing Report showed again, along with a "Capt. Will Geraghty" from the Naples Sun Times.
I'm not dissing those publications. I really can't, since I have no idea what the hell they are. (That's not true, I've linked Solares Hill, a fine newspaper, since damn near the inception of this blog and I'm sure FFR, as I like to call it, is top-notch). But seriously, isn't Class D sort of the Special Olympics of newspaper competitions? Suddenly I feel like I should be irresistably attracted to shiny objects and drooling a little bit on my shirt.
Well, that sounds not only horribly ungrateful, but ridiculously insensitive. Of course, I really don't mean it (yes, I do). But I want to put in this standing request to the Florida Press Club (and I'm confident my editor Tony Ortega will back me 100 percent): For the love of William Randolph Hearst, please put NT back in Category A.