Columbia High Newspaper Scores First Place, Outstanding

The American Scholastic Press Association (ASPA) has recognized Columbia High School student newspaper, The Columbian, as one of the best student newspapers in the country.

In its annual critique, ASPA presented The Columbian with two awards: First Place with Special Merit for high schools in the 1701-2500 population category, an award The Columbian has won four times previously, and, for the first time, the top award ASPA presents, Most Outstanding High School Newspaper for 2011-2012.  Thirteen newspapers, nationally, received this top award including only two others the size of Columbia and only one other from New Jersey. The awards are for work during the calendar year 2011.

The Columbian earned 955 out of a possible 1000 points across categories of content coverage, page design, general plan, art, editing, and creativity.  The judge stated, "You have an excellent school newspaper, which shows the creativity and journalistic knowledge of your editors, re"

The paper won maximum points in such content areas as evidence of a main philosophy of format, conscientious presentation of original material, investigative reporting, community awareness in coverage and focus, continuous features, national and international news as it applies to the student body, and opinions expressed in a mature and understandable manner to allow readers to absorb the ideas.  The paper also won maximum points in page design regarding use of space, relationships among parts of pages, headlines, typestyles, and effective use and placement of photographs and graphics.  Further, the paper earned maximum points in the category called Creativity, which includes budgetary limitations, size of distribution, type of community, how the staff faced and solved problems and other items that make a publication unique for the population it serves. 

The advisors to The Columbian, English Language Arts Teacher Jan McGrane and Graphic Arts Teacher Cindy Malhotra explained that, each year, they learn from the two national critiques in which they participate. Along with ASPA, The Columbian is submitted to the end-of-the-year critique by the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association where, most recently, it was awarded a Gold Medalist ranking for 2011.

"We appreciate the outside journalistic views these critiques give us and we are honored by the feedback," said McGrane and Malhotra. "We are pleased to share our good news with the Columbia High School community."

During the 2010-2011 school year, Justin Block and Sarah Brauner were Co-editors in Chief, Saarah Latif and Violet Tamayo were Design Editors and Raiesah Ramjan was Art/Photo Editor.

Currently, Samantha Cohen and Maria DiPasquale are Co-editors in Chief, Adam Easterling is Art and Design Editor, Lena Eisenstein is Design Editor and Hannah Rafkin is Photo Editor.  

Faith Leonard and Sally Ike will be the Co-editors in Chief for the 2012-2013 school year.