By JERRY MICCO
APSE President

Jerry Micco

As part of its mission, APSE is supposed to give feedback to members. Honest. It's right there in the bylaws in the back of the phone directory. The first line: "...to improve professional standards of newspaper sports departments..."

The mission may be clear, but getting to it isn't so clear. Or so easy.

Paul Bowker, a past president of this organization, has off-and-on been asked to set up critiques for our annual summer convention. This gave a chance for any newspaper that wanted to be critiqued to have it done while at the convention. When this is done, or the people asked to do the critiques do a thorough job, it's a great help to a sports editor. There's nothing more helpful to a sports editor than a good, honest, thorough critique.

But once a year, jammed into an already-crowded convention program, is a tough crawl for anyone. Paul's done a great job with it, but trying to set up 25 or so critiques in a short period of time is tough even for a hard worker like Paul. Besides, if you're not at the convention, you couldn't get a critique.

Improving every sports section around the country should be the task of every APSE member. Whether it's a call to answer a question or taking time to serve on a panel at a region or national convention, that's part of the package. I've always felt honored when anyone calls me for a critique or to serve on a panel. As many of you know, I'm not exactly the shy retiring type, so maybe it just fits my personality.

But we need a better vehicle than a once-a-year-at-the-convention approach to critiques. And I've asked Paul Bowker to lead this effort for our organization.

I've asked Paul to head a new APSE committee on feedback and critiques. It doesn't have a formal name yet, nor are there any committee members save for Paul, but I've asked him to form a committee to set up critiques the year round. These members may critique, or act as a broker to find someone to critique a section.

If you get a call from Paul — or one of his new committee folks — in the next few weeks, please make sure to return it. If you do, you'll find that he wants you to be on his team to critique papers for members. Better yet, contact Paul (269-388-8541 or bowkerpaul1@aol.com) and ask to be put on the team.

Paul is also going to work with our wizardly Web master Chuck Grimes to see if we can use our Web site for critique forms or information.

By providing a critique for any member paper who wants one during the course of a year, we allow members options on what type of critique they are seeking. For example, if you want an exhaustive critique you may have to work with the person doing the critique to get it done in stages or have one of the editor's assistant editors handle it.

We're all busy, so the more exhaustive the critique, the longer it will take.

But let's say you want tips or a critique of your agate page? Well, those won't take as long, and by going through Paul or a committee member, they'll be able to find some agate gurus or papers who do agate well, and get your page critiqued.

If you are concerned about why your centerpieces seem a bit flat, then Paul can find you someone who is a centerpiece wizard.

This should not be perceived as the larger papers critiquing and the smaller papers being critiqued, though that's how it normally works out. As you know, we have many excellent small newspapers in our organization and they have terrific ideas. I can remember doing the "Best Ideas" session twice at our summer convention, and using about a quarter of my 75 slides from papers under 40,000. Good design and story ideas abounded.

The goal here isn't to load up one person or one paper with all the duties, but to spread it around. As busy as we all are, it's going to be tough for one paper, or a couple of selected papers, to do a lot of critiques. That's why Paul is going to call many of you and ask for your help.

When you add it all up, that's going to make APSE a better organization. When we help one another any way we can, it makes our organization stronger and even more important to every sports editor in the country. If we're stronger and work together more, we'll get more members to join who hadn't in the past.

And remember, that's Job 1 for me and all of you — growing our membership.

I'm going to ask all of you to help Paul with this large endeavor. He's willing to take this on, but we should be willing to help him. Whether you want to serve on his committee or volunteer to do a critique, let Paul know.

It's something we can use to make us all a bit better and even more relevant to our readers.

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You can reach Jerry Micco of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via e-mail at jmicco@post-gazette.com.