It's As If We Don't Exist

Looking over the entry categories for this year's Best of the West contest for journalists from the western U.S., I note what I've noted pretty much every year since I started as an arts writer: There's no category remotely related to arts. Even the "special topic column writing" category lists only the following as examples of such "special topics": politics, sports, food, television, or business.

Last year as I recall, the Montana Newspaper Association awards application still had categories for agriculture and natural resource reporting; but no arts category. This despite the fact that, according to a 2005 report by the Center for Applied Economic Reseach in Billings, there are more artists making their living in Montana than people employed by Montana's mining industry, wood products manufacturing industry, and building materials retail trade market.

What are we, chopped liver?