AAN voters have spoken and the results are in. The winner of the 2010 Editorial Panel competition is Bradley Zeve, CEO of Monterey County Weekly. Zeve’s proposal “Going Deep for a Baker’s Dozen: 12 Quick Investigative Story Ideas,” proposed a panel in which three experienced editors discuss how to continue producing hard-hiting investigative pieces even in this era of smaller newspaper staffs. The ultimate goal of the panel, according to the proposal, would be for the editors and attendees to generate 12 investigative pieces members can take home and implement, along with a 13th bonus project for AAN members to undertake together.

As the winner of the competition, Zeve is entitled to one free registration to the convention.

AAN also is offering a half-off registration to the second-place winner, Matt Kettmann, senior editor at Santa Barbara Independent, as well as the offer to transform his panel proposal, “Cultivating the Online Culture” into a roundtable discussion during Thursday’s editorial roundtables.

Finally, third place winner Jeff Lawrence, publisher of Boston’s Weekly Dig, has agreed to lead what is sure to be a lively roundtable discussion from his “Mister Publisher, Tear Down That Wall!” panel proposal that will explore whether, in this Web 2.0 world, the walls between departments, such as editorial and advertising, need to crumble a little more.

The editorial panel competition is a project of AAN’s Editorial Committee to generate new ideas and programming for AAN.