Small Texas Newspapers

Yesterday I sat for eight hours reading newspapers.
I was judging a competition for small Texas publications, and I left wondering how half these newspapers stay in business.
Never mind Associated Press Style guidelines, some of these "reporters" didn't get past elementary school grammar.
One newspaper from the Gulf Coast area had a front page story about the nearby discovery of a sunken ship, filled with treasures and booty galore.
Then the story jumped to another page and there was a colorful artist's rendering of the newly surfaced ship and what treasures were thought to be aboard.
On the third jump page was a funny face saying, "April Fool's!"
That was not ridiculous enough.
On the entry, someone added a note saying the piece had generated hundreds of calls, people bought metal detectors, and some came from hundreds of miles away to explore the so-called wreckage area.
The newspaper publisher should have been sued rather than entering that crap in a competition.
The other judge and I gave them a 1 out of 10 points and two stern lectures.
Another entry was by this reporter who wrote about his small town's reaction to 9/11.
He called the villain "Osama bin Satan," which may be true, but it's not the jerk's name.
By far the worst category to judge was "color photography."
Imagine 80 pages of out of focus American flags, kids with Easter eggs, kids with American Flags, kids with sand pails, kids with back to school apples, kids in pumpkin patches, kids in kitten and bunny rabbit costumes and kids opening Christmas gifts.
Gag.
I awarded top prize to an enormously large high school football player, crying after a huge loss. Now that's photojournalism.