The Southern Accent won the Best Student Newspaper award for the 2022-2023 school year at the Society of Adventist Communicators (SAC) 34th annual convention in Springfield, Massachusetts, last weekend.
Eleven students and four faculty members from the School of Journalism and Communication (SJC) attended the event, which included a media tour, workshops, presentations and an awards banquet.
At the award ceremony, the SAC presented awards to communication professionals and students from across the country. Students and alumni from the SJC were among those who received recognition for their work.
While presenting the award to the Accent, Bryant Taylor, communication director for the Southern Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, explained the judges’ reasons for selecting the student-led publication for the top honor.
“The jury said this newspaper was a winner because of the combination of style of writing, diverse article categories and exceptional use of visuals,” said Taylor, who emceed the program.
Alana Crosby, last year’s editor-in-chief, did not attend the conference. However, she shared her excitement with the Accent after receiving texts from attendees notifying her of the award.
“It’s wonderful to receive recognition after the late nights, stressful stories and hard work that goes into the Accent,” said Crosby, who led the winning newspaper staff of about 20 students. “I know to some students it may seem like a small thing, seeing the stack of newspapers sitting around campus, but we make a lot of sacrifices for the Accent.”
Alva James-Johnson, professor in the School of Journalism and Communication and staff sponsor for the Accent, shared her thoughts on the newspaper’s accomplishment.
“I am so proud of the student editors, reporters, photographers, graphic designers, copyeditors, social media and web managers who contributed to the newspaper winning this award,” she said.“The recognition is well-deserved, and we look forward to the Accent’s continued success as we aim for excellence as we serve our reading audience not only on campus but also in the greater Collegedale and Adventist communities.”
According to James-Johnson, the newspaper is now part of a national initiative through the Center for Community News (CCN), located at the University of Vermont. The program aims to enhance local news coverage in “news deserts” across the country through the work of student journalists. As part of that effort, the Accent added two pages dedicated to Collegedale news to five issues of the Accent this semester.
According to a report prepared by Meg Ermer, senior computer science and Spanish major and the web manager for the Accent, the Southern Accent’s website saw a 54 percent increase in views and 57 percent increase in visitors between 2021 and 2022. Already for 2023, the newspaper has received nearly 42,000 views and over 22,000 visitors and has drawn hundreds of views from foreign countries, such as Austria (252), Canada (247), Uruguay (191) and the United Kingdom (144).
In addition to the Accent, SJC students and alumni received the following awards and honorable mentions at the SAC conference:
- Amanda Blake, senior journalism major and editor-in-chief of the 2023-2024 Accent, received honorable mention for Feature Writing.
- Ignite won honorable mention for Best Student Broadcast Project.
- SJC project “Media Minutes” won for Best Student Video.
- Public Relations majors Sierra Ureta, Genesis Ventura and Lizbeth Rodriguez-Diep received honorable mention for a PR campaign developed for Child Impact.
- 2022 SJC grad Xander Ordinola, media specialist for Kentucky-Tennessee Conference, won the top award in photojournalism.
- 2021 SJC grad Paola Mora Zepeda, director of Media Ministry for the Kentucky-Tennessee Conference, won for Best Microcopy and honorable mentions for photography and writing.
