Awards season

This is the time of year when many awards are announced, and you may have entered something you think is terrific. Then the awards are bestowed, and you shake your head at the winners.

Sometimes you enter something that you think has no prayer of winning, and you get the blue ribbon.

Most people who have been in this business a while have a bunch of awards. In my case, the ones that are deserved are on the wall. The ones that were not are in a box.

Most young people have no idea how the process works. Well, actually, you have an idea. You probably think all the entries go to some ivory tower where a bunch of senior news veterans spend the day judging entries, ranking them on writing, editing, and content.

Uh, no.

For most contests, here's the deal. Stations in one state box up entries and are directed to send them to a station in another state. For instance, a Colorado station might send its entries to Vermont, while Vermont sends its tapes to Arizona.

Then the fun begins.

Sometimes the News Director judges the tapes alone. Sometimes the ND delegates the task. In many cases, the ND sticks his head out of the office and yells, "Anyone wanna judge some tapes?"

At one station the ND plopped the box down on my desk and said, "Get some people and judge these." So it was me, a reporter and a sports guy. At another station I joined a weatherman, an anchor, and a couple of sales people.

I will say that in all cases we tried to honestly judge the tapes. What happens at other stations? Who knows?

So if you think you got robbed during award season, consider the judging process. And if you get an award for something you know wasn't all that great, don't get heady with success.

Awards are subjective, just like resume tapes.