Corsair Wins 16 Awards in State Competition – Including General Excellence

The Santa Monica College student newspaper Corsair has won 16 awards – including General Excellence – at the 57th annual state convention of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges held recently in Burbank.

The annual event brings together journalism students from Southern California community colleges for a three-day convention featuring on-the-spot writing and photography contests and professional workshops. The results of mail-in contests recognizing top work from last year were also announced at the convention, held from March 22-24. More than 550 students from almost 50 community college journalism programs participated in the event.

Both the print and online Corsair news site were honored by JACC with General Excellence awards.

First-place awards were given to Michael Yanow for Sports Photo, Patricia de Borba for Video Journalism, Chris Alves for Feature Photo, and Paul Alvarez for News Photo. In addition, Andy Riesmeyer won the Wayne Overbeck Free Speech Video contest and was awarded a $200 prize.

The Corsair print and online news site are produced by SMC students from two journalism classes that are advised by Saul Rubin and Gerard Burkhart.

The complete list of SMC awards at the 2012 JACC state Convention:

On-the-spot awards:

First place, Sports Photo: Michael Yanow

Third place, Feature Photo: Asta Karalis

Fourth Place, News Judgment/Layout: Nathalyd Meza

Honorable Mention, Team Feature: Paul Alvarez, Nathan Gawronsky, Andy Riesmeyer

Bring-in Categories

First Place, Free Speech Video: Andy Riesmeyer

Third Place, News Photo: Jeff Cote

Third Place, Bring-in Ad: Israel Villacota

Honorable Mention, News Photo: Michael Yanow

Mail-in Categories:

General Excellence: Corsair Staff

General Excellence, Online: Corsair Staff

First place, Video Journalism: Patricia de Borba

First place, Feature Photo: Chris Alves

First place, News Photo: Paul Alvarez, Jr.

Second place, News Photo: Michael Yanow

Honorable mention, Video Journalism: Hector Mejia

Honorable mention, Web/Broadcast News: Corsair Staff