The Associated Collegiate Press is pleased to announce the 2008 Newspaper and Magazine Pacemaker winners and finalists. The Pacemaker contest has recognized outstanding student journalism for more than 80 years. This year’s finalists represent the top work being done by young journalists across the country. Many of them have experimented and broken new ground, while still maintaining journalistic ethics and standards.
The Pacemaker winners and finalists were recognized at the Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Advisers National College Media Convention in Kansas City on Nov. 1, 2008. Judges from the St. Petersburg Times selected the newspaper finalists, judges from The New York Times Magazine selected the feature magazine finalists and judges from The National Poetry Review selected the literary magazine finalists. The comments below reflect their enthusiasm and admiration for the winning entries. —Kathy Huting, ACP contests coordinator
2008 ACP ONLINE PACEMAKERS
View winners’ list and gallery
View March 2008 ACP press release with judges’ comments
2007 ACP YEARBOOK PACEMAKERS
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View February 2008 ACP/NSPA press release with judges’ comments
2008 ACP NEWSPAPER PACEMAKERS: JUDGES’ COMMENTS
View winners’ list and gallery
Four-year Daily newspapers
The Battalion, Texas A&M. Centerpiece feature on all fronts consistently worthy. Excellent writing in the piece about the coach who has been around 50 years. More consistently readable feature writing than most. Compelling feature story design.
Daily Iowan, University of Iowa. Consistently strong in writing, photography and design, this is a well-edited newspaper. Centerpieces are always well-executed and well-planned. Design is clean and inviting, not flashy. The paper shows tremendous range, from its quick and compete daily account of the deaths of a local family of six, to a nicely told profile of a 19-year-old with a stew of mysterious illnesses, to an enterprise piece on bars serving drunks. Nicely done from cover to cover.
Daily Northwestern, Northwestern University. Nice tabloid design. Edgy. Good mix of news/features. Nice feature about a professor’s experience in Teach America and how it shapes his teaching
Daily Tar Heel, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Strong paper all the way through, knows how to handle the obligatory news and how to take on a big story. We especially appreciated the presentation and care put into the coverage of a murdered student body president.
Harvard Crimson, Harvard University. It looks a bit old-fashioned, wide-webbed and with all cap headlines, but it did an especially impressive special tab section to mark the 5th year anniversary of the war with Iraq, collecting the stories and viewpoints of a wide variety of people with Harvard connections, most very well written. Reading the Crimson also gives one a definite sense of place.
Indiana Daily Student, Indiana University. An all-around solid newspaper with meaty daily coverage of a wide variety of news, including the basketball coach’s NCAA sanctions and the school’s decision to oust him. Shows editorial courage and leadership in the refusal to agree to keep an open speech off-the-record. Consistently solid writing, Great graphics and design. Creative: In an op-ed piece, four columnists make the case for why they should be president of the USA; readers vote online. Provides a definite sense of place. A paper that does this much so well might want to take on more large-scale enterprise.
Kentucky Kernel, University of Kentucky. A solid paper throughout. The most impressive examples of narrative enterprise we saw, with sophisticated writing and strong documentary photography. This paper sent a writer and photographer to Vietnam for 16 days and produced a 6-page special section from the trip. This paper is doing distinctive storytelling at the heart of what matters to its campus community. Enterprise journalism like this is extremely rare at the college level, and the paper is to be commended not only for trying it, but for excelling at it.
Northern Star, Northern Illinois University. A small paper tackled one of the biggest news stories in the country when a gunman open fire on campus. This little paper responded admirably, dumping its ads and producing a stocked edition for the next day. College papers rarely get opportunities to respond to breaking news but this one handled itself professionally. Reading the coverage of both the breaking story and the aftermath, you get a sense of just how much a newspaper like this comes to mean to a strained community. This paper became both a reflection of the chaos and grief and a voice of comfort and leadership.
The State News, Michigan State University. Very clean, well organized and inviting design. This paper excels at routine coverage and brings a flair to special reports. We liked the thought and presentation put into the story about Mugabe’s honorary degree. Graphics are well-done and used liberally without becoming busy (as in the lifestyle travel front and the housing guide.) This paper knows its audience and shows strong news judgment appropriate to the campus community.
Four-Year Non-daily newspapers
District, Savannah College of Art and Design. Clean and well organized. We love the artist profiles, which give a real sense of the campus and community. We also enjoyed the little surprises, like the comixextraviganza.
F Newsmagazine, Art Institute of Chicago. Elegant, sophisticated design. Writing goes beyond reacitve news reports and predictable editorials, incorporating voice and perspective throughout the paper. A professional publication with personality.
GW Hatchet, George Washington University. Newsy, thorough campus coverage, nice use of photos, gives a good sense of place. Editorials are focused, relevant, to the point. Strong sports coverage.
The Hoya, Georgetown University. Traditional, professional design with a nice balance of stories and a fun weekly magazine. (The writing overall needs some work). The paper reflects the diversity of the community.
The Ithacan, Ithaca College. Thorough campus coverage, good use of graphics, strong sports preview section. Clean, well organized design.
Mars Hill, Trinity Western University. Artistic, eye-popping design. Combines thoughtful enterprise and solid news coverage. Has a voice but pushes no agenda. Beautiful covers and center spreads. Has a refreshing capacity for surprise.
Nevada Sagebrush, University of Nevada at Reno. This paper shows strong news judgment and is not afraid to take risks. Its clever feature on sperm and egg donation merged nice graphics and strong writing (but would have been stronger with full names.)
News-Letter, Johns Hopkins University. Meaty and ambitious, with strong writing througout. Design is a bit old fashioned. We appreciated the series on development in the campus neighborhoods.
NW Missourian, Northwest Missouri State University. Meaty, newsy paper with nice photo play. News judgment is relevant and balanced.
The Volante, University of South Dakota. Eye-catching, clean design. Nice use of graphics, photos and maps. Well-written overall, with fun regular features throughout and a lively feature section. We liked seeing snowboarding on the sports page.
Two-Year college newspapers
The Advocate, Contra Costa College. Digs into community violence with multiple story approaches, from graphic treatment to breaking news photography. Paper shows ambition, enterprise and leadership.
The Campus Ledger, Johnson County Community College. Makes the most of its photography, even in less than ideal situations. Takes advantage of the tabloid format with lots of center spreads. Writing and design are clean and clear.
News-Register, North Lake College. Newsy paper thoroughly reflects campus concerns, both at the very local level and through appropriate coverage of state and national issues.
The Sun, Southwestern College. Sophisticated design, well-packaged elements make the paper easy to navigate. Shows enterprise and provides a clear sense of place and community.
The Sentinel, North Idaho College. Compelling stories, clean design, nice use of graphics. Lively and well-designed Extra section.
2008 ACP FEATURE MAGAZINE PACEMAKERS: JUDGES’ COMMENTS
View winners’ list and gallery
Buzz, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. A weekly arts magazine, with this issue the annual roundup called the Best of C.U. Newspaper tabloid style on newsprint, so not as visually impressive as some of the others, but I found it a fun and useful guide, and a good read. Based on a reader survey (carried out by the magazine, presumably) the winners were then written up in a snappy and sometimes cheeky fashion, giving the survey the stamp of the editorial staff. Nicely organized, nice table of contents, admirable corrections column. Very impressive that this is a weekly publication.
CURJ (Caltech Undergraduate Research Journal). This is out and out a science magazine, publishing student research papers which for the most part will be incomprehensible to the lay reader. The subject areas include atmospheric science, combinatronics and applied physics. But the design of this magazine is classy and elegant, really downright beautiful. The headlines and first paragraphs are fun and inviting, and layouts, graphics and illustrations are inventive and in some cases very complicated. Some of the professional science journals, with their gray layouts and technical headlines, might take a lesson from CURJ.
Detours, Truman State University. A travel magazine to the Midwest. True to theme throughout, nice photos, varied ideas about things to do in the Midwest. I couldn’t tell if it was a regular magazine or if this was a one-shot. But it’s nicely done.
Drake Magazine, Drake University School of Journalism. This one had a sophistication and comprehension of magazine structure and design that were not equaled elsewhere. The cover, a simple but elegant graphic based on words and a geometric background, was inviting and clear. The index, on a two page spread, echoed the cover graphic, and elegantly presented the total contents — front of the book, well, and back of the book — in clear and size-appropriate order, with the four well stories visually predominant but the other elements quickly grasped, and easily found in the magazine itself. At least one of the well stories was a new and surprising subject to me: diabulemia, in which diabetics forgo insulin injections in order to lose weight. A fashion/cultural comment feature called Girls Gone Mild (a bit of a cliché in a headline these days) was fun and interesting. A piece on on-line universities was informative. And the fourth well piece, on video games, took a sharp look at their impact on study habits. I was especially impressed by the attention given to the front and back of the book sections, and by the elegant transitions between these sections. Bits & Pieces offered cultural observations, a brief book review, news snippets (a story about how hedgehog safety resulted in a safer McFlurry container) and other short items. The back of the book, like the front, featured a number of clever short items under catchy rubrics: Spare Change (stories about personal finance), Folks, Say What (an article about students experimenting with a robot baby, as a family planning exercise). Photographs throughout were fine, though this was not the magazine’s strongest element. But altogether a really impressive effort, beautifully designed, with a coherent clear editorial mission.
The Epoch, St. John’s College. This is a serious issue oriented publication that examines in every article the methodology undertaken in order to get an “unbiased” report. This is an interesting journalistic exercise, though it does get in the way of the reading experience, giving each piece a kind of academic plodding feel, with a few too many references to the writer and his efforts. But the stories are quite interesting, notably the ambitious cover story on the Earth Liberation Front. Nice photos and design.
Legacy, Louisiana State University. I found this magazine varied, energetic and responsible. I liked the design, especially a very nice Table of Contents page with a vertical design. Good use of black and white photography, good articles about LSU matters, including a profile of photographer Thomas Neff, illustrated with his own photos of Katrina. The whole magazine has an impressively coherent voice.
The Point, Biola University. Contents for the most part reflect the religious orientation of the school (an article on a social group that is also a ministry, on depression (with a large-type reference to “our own sinful tendencies” as one of the causes of depression), the intersection of faith and art — but also on dorm room culture, the deaf community at Biola, and national politics. Design is adequate, as are the photos. But the issues addressed are substantive, and the neat, tidy and somewhat modest images feel in keeping with the subject matter.
Scholastic, University of Notre Dame. As a student run bi-weekly, Scholastic is quite an achievement. This issue, dated 27 September 2007, featured a serious cover story on the deteriorating music facilities at Notre Dame, illustrated on the cover with a lovely photo of a violin student, and inside with interesting photo illustrations and a photo graphic. The index is straightforward and informative, with an interesting mix of stories. An editorial on Notre Dame football and its poor season start ended up by acknowledging that although N.D. football is a dynasty, “it’s just a game.” Good, varied and readable, and especially impressive for its frequency.
Think. Drake University. There were three good entries from Drake, but I was impressed by the unabashed advocacy in this one. The issue includes a surprisingly opinionated editorial letter on the need for America to get back in touch with the world. This viewpoint is carried out in the articles, book reviews, short takes on consumer buying and global responsibility. It’s not to everyone’s political taste, but I admired the forthrightness of it.
Tuesday Magazine, Harvard College. I ranked this as low as #7 because it’s a literary magazine and thus didn’t seem quite right in a college journalism contest. But it’s a very classy publication, beautifully produced. The digital photo on the cover (repeated inside) is striking, and there are many impressive essays, short stories, collages, poetry and photographs throughout.
2008 ACP LITERARY MAGAZINE PACEMAKERS: JUDGES’ COMMENTS
View winners’ list and gallery
In The Bridge, Despina Cunningham, Derrick J Zellmon, Davide George Jr., Adrienne Berklend and Nicole Fontenaulf brought it home visually, aided by David Bevens Jr.s’ Linda Brewer “20/20″ stylized “scarred” (nonfiction) and Leah VanVaerenewyck’s imagistic beginning to “Sense” (nonfiction).
In Catch, visual artists Angelo Kozonis and Katie Bell are assisted by writers who show future potential (e.g. Olivia Engel, Mark Imielski, Hillary Grimes, Lucas Street, Stefen Showers, Adam Soto and Laura Miller).
I especially admired Todd Cook’s “Possum” (Revel), Suzanne Devan’s “Swin Cap” (Phoenix), Rob Byrd’s ?”The Vagrant” (Archarios) and Anne Torlekson’s stunning sculpture “Fragile” (Kiosk). There were some written moments, especially in Kiosk, but again, I would encourage more rigor there. Poetry, like literature in general after all, is an art form first! Thank you to the visual artists, especially for making tangible poetry.
In Owen Wister Review, Hillary Haulik, Clay DeVilbiss, Jeff Hubbell, Mary Williams, etc. (visual artists) get their best support from Jones Doyle and T.C. Rothson (poetry, fiction).
There were nice written moments in these magazines, but I longed for more strength in the poetry sections. Why not follow the same rigors in teaching writing that we do in other arts?
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