2016 CJA Awards Announcement

The more things change the more they stay the same? At this time last year we had 2015 CJA Awards Announcement, Offline, where the Chess Journalists of America (CJA) announced their annual award categories in the May Chess Life (CL). The list of categories for the 2016 awards also appeared in the May CL and is reproduced on the left.

The same list still hasn't appeared on the CJA Home Page, and it's anyone's guess if it will appear before the submission deadline of 15 June. The 26 award categories this year compare with 21 last year, so it will likely take longer for the list to get itself organized and make the trek to cja.org.

Last year's 'THE TOP FIVE' has been reduced to 'THE TOP FOUR' and a side-by-side comparison reveals that 'Best Book' has been split off to a new super-category with three of its own categories: 'Best Book — Instructional', 'Best Book — Other', and 'Best Electronic Book' (in contrast to paper copies for the first two).

The biggest news is that 'Best Chess Blog' is no longer last on the list of categories! That dubious distinction now belongs to 'Best State Newsletter (Electronic Issue Only)', which has been split off from the TOP-FOUR's 'Best State Magazine/Newsletter'.

If you're interested in the CJA's activities -- isn't everyone? -- the CJA home page lists a couple of important recent announcements:-

• 2 September 2015: Unofficial "Minutes" of CJA Meeting
  
• 5 January 2016: 'Directory of Officials' updated

That 'Minutes' link explains the disarray on the CJA's own site.

Ryan Velez spoke on what he expects to do upon taking over the website. He will be migrating us to a webs.com site. There is much to move and I assume Ryan will do it over a matter of weeks.

Last year I posted on the 2015 CJA Awards in August and expect to do the same this year. [NB: I'm not a CJA member, but have long been interested in the group's activities.]