The Ithacan tops itself

It's taken me a while to actually get to this blog -- because every time I'd get started, Ithacan advisor Michael Serino would send me yet one more email announcing an award!




OK -- so let's start: The Ithacan Online was presented with an Online Gold Crown Award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association at the spring National College Media Convention in New York on March 14. Only five college Web sites in the country received the Gold Crown, which recognizes overall excellence. The other four were the Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University), the Iowa Daily Student (Iowa State University), OUDaily.com (University of Oklahoma) and The Daily Pennsylvanian (University of Pennsylvania). So we're in good company. This is only the second year the Online Crowns have been presented, and we've won the Gold both times.

In addition, The Ithacan received the Best in Show award (the "Apple Award") in its category at the closing ceremony of the convention. This is the fifth consecutive year the paper has won the Apple Award, and the seventh time in the nine years since the award was created. Editor-in-chief Linsdsey Hollenbaugh is shown above holding the award.

And while Michael Serino was sitting in the awards ceremony, he received an e-mail from the Society of Professional Journalists, announcing that The Ithacan is a finalist for the Mark of Excellence Award for Best Non-Daily Newspaper in the Northeast region. Winners from SPJ's 12 regions go on to compete for the national award. The paper is consistently ranked among the top three papers in the Northeast, and two years ago was ranked #2 in the country by SPJ. Student finalists in individual SPJ award categories include: Andy Swift ’09 (feature story), junior Allison Usagave (photo illustration) and Allison Wassink ”09 (sports photography).

Finally, Libby Sile has been awarded an American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) summer 2010 internship and has been named a winner of the Roy W. Howard National Collegiate Reporting Competition. The latter comes with a nine-day study tour of Japan. This is the second consecutive year an Ithacan staffer has won the competition: last year Tricia Nadolny '09 won and went on a study tour of Korea and Japan.

What can I say? Congratulations is not even close to the right word. Celebrations will follow.