Will there be blind judging this time around, or will the awards be rigged for the usual suspects to feign victory?

Maybe those suspects are the only people vain enough to pay the $85 fee per article.

No. In fact, the list of winners will be predetermined this year so that the thousands of volunteer hours people put in just to get slagged by people who do nothing but whine every year no matter who wins can be spent on something more fun. Like pulling out eyelashes one by one. If you really think the judging is so awful, why don't you get off yer butt and volunteer to judge? Oh right. Whiners never do.

The judging process, as outlined on the NMAF Web site for all to see, will be continue to be as transparent, professional and thorough as always. Jane, if you truly believe things are not on the up and up, I encourage you to volunteer for the judging committee for next year. Then you will see how much work goes into the process.

Rather than attacking those who question the validity of the award recipients, or perhaps the process in which the are detemined to be "winners", maybe it should be asked as to why they question the process. Is there any justiifcation to the comments? $ 85. per entry, not much to the big guys, but for the smaller shops.... ouch. Why so high? Or better yet, if we are trying to encourage growth in the magazine industry, and to encourage quality, why any cost!

Amused there is obviously a cost because if anyone could enter anything they had done judging would take days and hours to judge. Also the price tag stops people from putting crappy work in.

Nothing can stop crappy work from being entered, since most of the work produced is 'meh' at best. My question is, are names of authors and publications going to be blacked out to prevent a peer-effect on judging? Patrick, you knew this was a big issue last year (since you read all the comments on here). Have you chosen to address this matter or sweep it aside?

And this is what I meant. Patrick, meet Jane, Jane meet Patrick. Now why not talk, resolve the obvious concerns and questions, and come out the other end with an honest and unbiased awards.

A bit of background: blind judging was abolished a few years ago because it was in fact a fiction. Because the NMAF doesn't have the staff to hand-review each entry, some inevitably slipped through with either bylines or other author credits still attached. More to the point, though, judges often recognized pieces as being by particular authors, so judging panels were in the position where some judges were blind and others were not. As a result, the judging committee at the time (I was on the committee and board at the time) recommended that we do away with faulty blind judging. As well, we believed that if we didn't believe our judges to be honourable enough to judge the pieces on their merit, we shouldn't be recruiting them in the first place. And finally, the fact that judges now see a list of authors from the outset has increased the number of judges who declare conflicts of interest early in the judging process so that they can be either moved to another panel or simply withdraw from marking or commenting on that particular piece. As Patrick points out, those who disagree with the process have always been welcome to join the committee and work to improve it.

Thanks for that, Kim. And for the record, the judging committee did reopen the issue of blind judging this year; it was decided to continue with the practice of not removing the writers' names. And yes, the discussion was triggered by the online comments on this forum, as well as on DB Scott's Canadian Magazines. We are listening. And again, anyone who thinks there's a different, better way to handle this, please step up.

I think what could really help, at least in the visual categories is to have two different levels of awards. Awards for magazines whose budgets exceed $15,000 and those for budgets that are below $15,000. For instance magazines like Toronto Life, enRoute, etc. should really not be compared against magazines that have say a $3000 to $5000 visuals budget. Often the designers that work with these smaller budgets have to be far more creative and tend to do really good work but lets face it, it is hard to hire certain photographers and illustrators on a budget of that amount. Imagine what some of these designers could do with $15,000.

"More to the point, though, judges often recognized pieces as being by particular authors, so judging panels were in the position where some judges were blind and others were not." So what you're saying is, the NMA's were poorly organized in the past and entrants didn't follow the proper rules. Is that correct? As for some judges being more blind than the rest, I'm going to agree with that statement, although not in the way you intend. You're right, there's no fair system that would eliminate judging bias. As long as publishing is filled with professional jealousy, easily threatened personalities and even a few psycho editors and writers, there will always be unfairness. So because that's what magazines are about, I agree that the NMA does a good job reflecting the industry, albeit in an unflattering way.

Jane, Even if stories entered were completely blind � i.e., all author/photographer names erased � judges, many of whom are in the industry and read magazine for business and pleasure, would recognize the magazines by their design, fonts, display copy style and so forth. Hell, they may even have read the piece because they care about the industry and support it by reading mags all year, not just during awards season. I've been a judge in the past and a finalist several times (never won) and, sure, there is jealousy everywhere, but without a major injection of resources, NMA organizers are doing the best they can. Do I think Toronto Life and The Walrus have won awards they haven't deserved over the past few years. Yes. Have I lost to them? Yes. Do I lose any sleep over this? No.

Jane, I guess I take a somewhat more positive view. Is the industry perfect? No. Is the NMAF perfect? No. But the people with whom I volunteered for a decade or so were uniformly committed to producing the best program possible, not for their own gain, but because they actually thought rewarding good work was a laudable--and achievable--goal. I guess I'm surprised you care about the NMA's at all if you take such a dim view of the industry. Sure, I've met a viper or two, but most I've met in this business--within the NMAF and beyond--are actually pretty decent people.

This would solve a lot of issues that people have and maybe Jane will stop sending nasty messages. The only true way to get unbiased judging is to do what many other major awards competitions do and have judges come in from other countries or take the work to them. Most reputable awards competitions do this...trust me the walrus and toronto life wouldn't be winning all that much if the judging were done this way. Also fonts/design wouldn't be recognized (blind or not) as no one really reads Canadian magazines.

...it's the submission process that really skews what gets before the judges. Is there any chance of switching to a per magazine fee, prorated by circulation numbers, and an upper limit of submissions per magazine?