Times’ Daily, Sunday Sections Rated Among Top 10 in Nation by APSE

The Times continued its three-year run as one of the nation’s most-honored sports sections, according to results announced Thursday in the annual Associated Press Sports Editors contest.

The Times, competing in the large-paper category for circulation 175,000 and above, was placed in the top 10 rankings for daily and Sunday sections and also had top-10 placings by eight writers with seven stories in five categories. The New York Times was second in the large-paper writing category with six stories in the top 10.

L.A. Times writers honored were: Tim Kawakami and Greg Sandoval for investigative reporting (UCLA drug testing); Steve Springer for news (Oscar De La Hoya’s drinking and partying problems); Sandoval for news (Mike Garrett yelling at USC football players); Mike Penner for event writing (men’s Olympic figure skating coverage); Chris Dufresne and Thomas Bonk for enterprise reporting (the athletes’ brain); Bill Plaschke for feature writing (Fargo, N.D., roots against Mark McGwire) and Bill Dwyre for feature writing (John Wooden profile).

Other Southern California papers honored with top 10 rankings were the San Diego Union-Tribune in large-paper daily sections and the Riverside Press-Enterprise in medium-paper (50,000-175,000) special sections.

Other Southern California writers honored included Jeff Miller of the Orange County Register in large-paper column writing; Billy Witz of the Long Beach Press Telegram in medium-paper feature writing; Stefanie Diaz of the Riverside Press Enterprise in medium-paper news writing, and Larry Bohannon of the Palm Springs Desert Sun in small-paper (50,000 and under) column writing.

Other large papers ranked in the top 10 for daily section: Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Detroit Free Press, New York Daily News, New York Times and Washington Post.

In the Sunday section category, the other large papers in the top 10 included: Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, New York Daily News, New York Times, Rocky Mountain News and St. Petersburg Times.

Section judging was final. Top-10 papers are not listed in order of judges’ preference. Writing finalists go through one more judging round and are eventually placed in one-through-five order, with the rest given honorable mention.

More than 80 sports editors from around the nation participated in the final section judging and preliminary writing judging, which began Sunday in Redondo Beach.