The Southerner and Nexus magazine have captured several first-place national honors this semester.
The Southerner staff captured the most recent of these on Saturday Nov. 8 when it learned that it had received a 2014 Newspaper Pacemaker Award from the National Scholastic Press Association. NSPA officials announced the award at the annual NSPA/Journalism Educations Association Fall National High School Journalism Convention in Washington, D.C.
Widely considered the most prestigious award that scholastic newspaper staffs can win, the NSPA Newspaper Pacemaker Award has recognized general excellence in scholastic newspapers for 87 years. The 2014 Newspaper Pacemaker contest yielded approximately 300 entries.
The 2014 award marked the ninth time that The Southerner has won a Newspaper Pacemaker Award. At the same convention, 2014 graduate Quinn Mulholland earned first place in the NSPA Multimedia Story of the Year competition. Mulholland earned the only first-place recognition awarded for his multimedia package, “A Two-Tiered System,” which documented the socioeconomic achievement gap in America’s public schools and explored possible reforms that could ameliorate it. You can see his award-winning work by visiting the Southerner website at https://thesoutherneronline.com/frontpage/?p=9314.
The recent good news continues a semester in which Grady has earned first-place honors in several national scholastic journalism competitions.
Nexus magazine captured three first-place awards in the 2014 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Award competition. The staff won first place for general-interest magazine design, and senior Colin Bray (sports page design portfolio) and 2014 graduate Declan Farrisee (information graphic design) also captured first-place honors. Senior Margo Stockdale of The Southerner also won first place in the entertainment review category.
The four first-place winners were the sole national winners announced in their respective categories in a competition that elicited more than 11,000 entries from across the nation. The staffs combined to earn a total of 13 print media Gold Circles this semester to go with the 17 digital media Gold Circle Awards that Grady won last spring. To see the complete list of winning entries, please visit http://cspa.columbia.edu/recepient-lists/2014-awards-student-work-gold-circle-awards-scholastic-recipients.
The Southerner also earned a clean sweep of the writing and design categories in the Ball State Journalism Workshops Monthly Contest for May 2014. Winners included Ryan Bolton (Best Feature Story), Archie Kinnane and Josh Weinstock (Best News Story), Mary Condolora and Ben Simonds-Malamud (Best Op/Ed Story), Brandon Kleber (Best Sports Story), Ansley Marks and Rebecca Martin (Best Page, Spread or Infographic Design), Eli Mansbarch (Best Page, Spread or Infographic Design) and Jennifer Steckl (Best Multimedia Story). To find out what entries earned recognition, please visit http://blend.bsujournalismworkshops.com/2014/06/04/may-monthly-contest-winners/.
Two Grady journalism graduates—James Moy (Nexus) and Carson Shadwell (The Southerner)—had their designs published this semester in the 19th volume of the annual NSPA publication, Best of the High School Press. Moy’s Nexus cover design, “Covering Atlanta,” was included among the Best of Newspaper Page One and Cover Designs while Shadwell’s Southerner centerspread, “The Dropout Dilemma,” was included among the Best of Newspaper Infographics.
In addition to winning a 2014 Pacemaker Award in November, The Southerner also earned a 2014 George H. Gallup Award, the highest award bestowed by the Quill and Scroll International Journalism Honor Society this August. Along with the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Crown Award, the Pacemaker and Gallup awards represent the triple crown of scholastic journalism. No Grady publication has ever won all three in the same calendar year. CSPA judges will determine the 2013-2014 Crown Award finalists Dec. 13-16. Gold and Silver Crown winners will be announced at the annual CSPA national convention in New York in March.
