APTRA AWARD ENTRIES JUDGED!
WINNERS TO BE ANNOUNCED THIS WEEK!
By Rachel Ambrose, AP California-Nevada Broadcast Supervisor

This is it! The week we announce this year's APTRA Awards. But, first here's what happened after you sent your entries in. You had to be there. Packages everywhere and many of them arriving just in time. Nothing like just making a deadline? But, that's why overnight delivery was created. For APTRA's 50th annual news competition. The Radio and TV entries, which were piled up in an office at AP/Los Angeles, arrived in envelopes, padded packets and boxes--the bulk of them on deadline day -- January 17th. They wereprocessed, Friday, Jan. 25, at Disneyland Resort offices in Anaheim. That's a new location for our processing. The judges were flown in from Portland and Phoenix the next day to listen and view the entries at the place. The APTRA board decided it would be easier to attract sorters and judges if they knew they could slip out to Disneyland and stay until the park closed once their work was done. The judges made the usual considerations: content and presentation. But there are specific criteria for the new categories of Lifetime Achievement and Community Impact.

The Lifetime Achievement award is intended to honor a broadcaster who has shown continual excellence during the course of his or her career. APTRA wants to honor broadcasters who have not only contributed to the industry,
but to the community as well, through their off-camera involvement. The
"APTRA Impact" Award will honor a television OR radio station in both classes
for impacts each has had on its community. Winners will demonstrate their
ongoing commitment to community causes or a single cause adopted in the wake
of a news story.

Our bilingual judges considered entries that include broadcasts, editorials,
community references and/or letters of praise along with special reports on
the cause from their

own or other media outlets. A written summary is required to help the
bilingual judges determine the "Impact" of a station's efforts.

All the winners except Best News Broadcast will be announced this week.
You'll be able to find a list of them on the AP Newswire, at www.aptra.org
and right here at HalEisner.com. Finalists in the Best News Broadcast
categories will be posted as well, with those winners to be announced at the
awards banquet the evening of March 2.

Also, look at www.aptra.org for details on the 55th annual APTRA convention
at Paradise Pier at Disneyland Resorts in Anaheim. Those staying at the hotel
will receive tickets for California Adventure. Why the 50th awards and the
55th convention? It took APTRA, then CAPTRA, five years to come up with an
awards program.

See you there!