The Record – the student newspaper at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University – took home numerous honors at the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s Better Newspaper Contest Awards Gala held Jan. 30 at the Minneapolis Marriott Northwest in Brooklyn Center.
In all, the publication received 11 awards in the college division including first place for the second year in a row in general excellence – beating out The Reporter at Minnesota State-Mankato (second place) and The Mac Weekly at Macalester (third place).
“It’s a really big honor,” said CSB junior Kayla Anderson, this year’s editor-in-chief. “(CSB and SJU) are colleges that don’t have a journalism major per se. So to be able to succeed in the way we do against other colleges that have dedicated programs is a credit to our talented staff.
“These are students from a wide range of different majors who come together to do some outstanding journalistic work.”
Expert judges from Illinois reviewed the entrants in all categories and chose winners. In their comments, they praised The Record for its thoroughness and commitment to campus news.
The publication is put together by a student staff – assisted by advisor Kelly Smith, a CSB graduate and longtime reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune.
It comes out weekly throughout the school year.
“These are impressive papers,” the judge’s comments read. “The news writing is good, sports is strong, editorials, opinions, photos. I particularly liked the addition of security reports.
“They have it all and they do it well. The stories are campus-based and told well. These papers are really well done.”
In addition to the award for general excellence, staff members from The Record were honored in the following categories:
- Government/Public Affairs Reporting – Jacob Gathje (first place)
- Investigative Reporting – Eileen Otto (first place)
- Feature Photo – Molly Pults (first place)
- Local Breaking News Coverage – Summer Langva (second place)
- Arts and Entertainment Story – Meier (second place)
- Photo Story – Joel Makem-Razinger (second place)
- Business Story – T Meier (third place)
- Sports Story – Gathje (third place)
- Photo Story – Pults and Ella Carlson (third place)
- Editorial – Landon Peterson, Kelly Kieser and Ugbad Abdi (third place)
“We don’t do this for the glory,” Anderson said. “But it’s nice to be recognized for the work we’re doing. It motivates us to keep striving to improve, and to keep putting out a better and better paper each week.”