Chess Arguers of America

Atomic Patzer -- who, despite two recent losses, is having one heck of a good US Open -- inadvertently reports on a meeting of the Chess Journalists of America:

Yesterday morning I saw a flyer for a Chess Journalist meeting so I went hoping to get some tips. It was just a business meeting and a comical one at that. The three officers really hated each other and spent most of the time arguing and accusing each other of miss [sic] conduct. Nothing was said about chess journalism at all. I went away thinking it was a nutty organization.

Now, remind me again why I'm supposed to send $15/year to the CJA.

More CJA fun, politics, dissent

It couldn't be happening to a nicer group of guys...

Here is a website advocating a Paris Hilton write-in campaign against Jerry Hanken for the presidency of the Chess Journalists of America.

By the way, it just occurred to me that this post will probably drive a lot of traffic to the blog from those searching Google for "Paris Hilton playing chess" or "Learn to play chess with Paris Hilton." I can't wait to watch the visitor counts roll in!

Financial Mismanagement at the CJA?

The following "Policy Statements" (accusations?) are posted on Daren Dillinger's campaign website for Secretary/Treasurer of the Chess Journalists of America (CJA):

Our Treasurer should be the custodian of our financial records. His duty is to preserve them, so other officers (and regular members too, should be okay) can look at them and verify what has made money and what has not.

The entire CJA Executive Board should have year round access to the records as they plan throughout the year.

The Treasurer should NOT seek to hide the records from all officers and all members. . . as is being done now. . . with the support of the CJA President.

Having this hidden records policy, just after the current Treasurer going EIGHT YEARS without any financial statements, is an additional black mark. Proof of this violation of our Constitution and By-laws is contained in the PDF files of the Chess Journalist magazine posted at the CJA website. www.chessjournalism.org

You will note only an annual balance, no financial statement of any kind. Thankfully after eight years, statements were started up in 2006. . . although with a lot of errors!

Let us improve and move forward!

Daren Dillinger

Not being a member of the CJA, I have no idea about the veracity of any of Daren's statements. Perhaps some of our readers, who are also CJA members, can shed some light on these matters.

Of course, what I'm really wondering about, is what role the lady in the red dress played in all of this?

Hat Tip: Paid Advertisement in The Chessville Weekly Newsletter, Volume 6, Issue 22

The new and improved CJA Awards?

Long time readers will recall that we've previously addressed the annual Chess Journalists of America (CJA) Awards with both seriousness and fun. As the 2007 Awards season gets underway, our friend Howard Goldowsky reports on his efforts to reform the organization from within (he sits on the CJA Awards committee) and on this year's changes to the awards program:

This year's CJA Awards Call for Entries should now be published in the April Chess Life. My guess is that people have begun to receive the April Chess Life, because I have begun to receive entries for the Mainstream category (I am the contact address for this category), Category 24. Here are some notes about this year's awards...

Over the last decade or so, the CJA awards have received much notoriety in the chess media. People (including myself) have complained about the high rate of self-nominations and the general absence of quality entries; in general, the CJA awards have not been taken seriously for some time. Probably the most ruthless attack on the awards came a number of years ago when Edward Winter publicly denounced the CJA as "a dazzlingly undemanding body with a track-record of dispensing hundreds of awards, often to self nominees [sic] with no realistic hope of winning an accolade from elsewhere. The winners read like a Who’s Who of who deserve nothing."

During the past three-plus years, I've been lobbying the CJA to reform its awards system. This year will employ the first major attempt to bolster the awards' prestige. There are two major changes. The first is that the CJA has reduced the number of categories from 39 to 24. This creates more competition per category. Done away with are categories that have historically received little or no entries and redundant categories. The second major change is the addition of Category 24, the Mainstream Media category. This category is open to free nominations by CJA members, and the CJA will accept nominations from any mainstream article (see the official rules for more details).

Here are the official rules and new categories for 2007.

Now my interest, of course, is in the chess blogosphere and I'm sorry to see that none of the changes reflect the new realities of chess journalism which have been established through the growth of our medium. Certainly, Howard has his own agenda for change which he has been pursuing for many years (finally, with at least some small measure of success); nevertheless, I might have hoped that his familiarity and experience with chess blogs could have bled over into the CJA reform process. Not this year obviously, though I'm sure Howard will tell us that this is likely to be a multi-year process and there will be more opportunities for change and improvement in the future.

So where does this leave chess bloggers in 2007? While it is a plausible option for bloggers to submit their sites to the Best General Website Category, I'd be surprised if a blog would ever win. While blogs, I suppose, are technically websites, a chess blog is as different from a traditional chess website as that website is from an offline chess publication. Quite simply, it's not an apples to apples comparison and I don't see the judges abandoning the traditional criteria for what makes a good chess website in order to give the award to a blog.

The alternative is to submit a single post or series of posts to one of the media independent categories. From my reading of the rules these might include: Best Tournament Report, Any Media; Best Human Interest Story; Best Historical Article; Best Interview; Best Editorial; Best Review; Best Analysis; Best Instruction; and Best Humorous Contribution. I can certainly think of blog posts I've read this year that fit into each of these categories; however, I wonder whether the judges will consider a post to be equivalent to an article or a story. Also, I'm not sure if they will consider a series of related posts (e.g., The Chess Mind's series on "Something Different vs. the French") as a single journalistic piece.

For my part, I'm considering testing these concerns by submitting the complete BCC Weblog coverage of the Boston Blitz's 2006 US Chess League season to the Best Tournament Report category. How do you suppose it might fair against current CJA President Jerry Hanken's most recent edition of his endless annual reports on US and National Opens? For amusement, I could submit my post on the Pete Tamburro chess journalism awards to the Best Humorous Contribution category. Do you suppose the judges will find it funny?

The CJA Best Chess Blog Award ... we're just going to have to wait.

Pete Tamburro chess journalism awards announced

Thanks to About Chess for pointing us to the announcement of the 2006 Chess Journalists of America (CJA) awards. Here's a small sampling:

• Chess Journalist of the Year: Peter Tamburro


• Best Review: Peter Tamburro (Honorable Mention)


• Best Analysis: Peter Tamburro (1st)

Oh by the way, it just so happens that the Chief Judge of the CJA and Chairman of the Awards Committee is none other than Pete Tamburro. Draw your own conclusions.

Our friend, Howard Goldowsky, won again (for Best Interview) but as he has pointed out in the past, it is getting harder and harder to take these things seriously.

[In the spirit of full disclosure, I should point out that I received an Honorable Mention in 2005. Now, if I could just remember what I did with that certificate.]

So I was thinking, if Pete can create an awards committee and hand out accolades to himself and his friends, then so can I. Presto! The 2006 Chess Bloggies.
The entire awards committee (that's me) met in my shower this morning and are now prepared to announce the winners:

• Best Scholastic Chess Blog focusing on the Midwestern U.S.: The 64 Square Jungle


• Best Chess Blog based in a former republic of Yugoslavia and authored by an internet playing site admin: Chess News and Events


• Best Chess Improvement Blog by a maniacal Dutchman on a quest to solve over 70,000 chess problems on CTS: Temposchlucker


• The Don Q award for most humorous Chess Improvement Blog based in a tornado prone region: J'adoube


• Best coverage of fishing in a Chess Blog: Pale Morning Dun (1st), Central Oregon Chess Journal (Honorable Mention)
  


• Best Canadian Chess Blog by someone named C.: C's Chess


• Best Canadian Chess Blog by someone not named C.: Online Chess.ca


• Best coverage of otherwise unremarkable female chessplayers brought to world attention through the actions of boorish Englishmen: The Closet Grandmaster for Arianne Caoili (1st), BCM Blog for Jessie Gilbert (Honorable Mention)
  


• Best coverage of Dennis Monokroussos' shows on Playchess.com: The Chess Mind


• Best Chess Improvement Blog with a rotating Jared from Subway looking head on the banner: Blue Devil Knight


• Best Chess Blog representing a club in Somerville, Massachusetts: It was a close vote, but BCC Weblog squeaked it out. A recount has been demanded.

Think an award is missing? No problem, just list your own categories and award recipients in the comments. Don't feel shy about awarding yourself -- Pete didn't.

Put the champagne back in the fridge

The Chess Journalists of America (CJA) announced their 2005 prize winners on August 10th at the U. S. Open Chess Championships in Phoenix, Arizona during the annual CJA meeting.

My acceptance speech -- well, it's going to have to wait.

Chess Horizons Editor Mark Donlan submitted my article "2004 Boylston Chess Club Championship" (based on content from my blog of the same name) in the Best Magazine Tournament Report category. The bad news is that I was beat out by articles written by Mig and Tim Redman; the good news is that I received an Honorable Mention (see category 14).

I can imagine the judges reviewing the submissions: "Mig, Redman, Heisman, uh huh; Kavalek, Shabazz, Nunn, sure; DG...who the heck is this guy?"

Further down the list, you'll see that our occasional Guest Blogger Howard Goldowsky won the award for Best Editorial. Congratulations!

This leads me to a bit of editorializing of my own. Two years ago the CJA finally caught up with the new media trend by introducing internet-based award categories. This was certainly a major step forward in recognizing the role the web is playing in communicating chess-related information. In fact, I would be inclined to argue that web-based chess journalism far exceeds print at this point in time (at least in quantity, if not quality).

Yet, the current CJA internet categories are rather limiting given the broad range of web-based chess content being produced. For example, Michael Goeller had no better choice than to submit The Kenilworth Chess Club site under the Best General Website category. While he had little chance of winning in that category, I suspect he would have been a very strong contender in the unavailable Best Chess Club site category.

More importantly (and I'm sure you saw this coming from a hundred miles away), there are no categories for chess blogs. In fact, had 2004 Boylston Chess Club Championship not been adapted into a print article, there would have been no logical category to submit the site to (they don't even have a Web-Based Tournament Report category). Surely sites like Mandelamaza and The Chess Mind deserve the opportunity to receive recognition for the quality chess journalism they represent.

As a start, I would like to encourage the CJA to reevaluate the web-based award categories. Specifically, I believe -- at a minimum -- a Best Chess Blog category should be added. Should we be lucky enough to achieve this objective, in the future they might even consider sub-Blog categories, e.g. Best Chess Improvement Blog, Best Chess Analysis Blog, etc.

What do you think?