Journalism

Daily Sundial, Pop-Up Newsroom win CCMA awards

March 6, 2014

Daily Sundial staff wins 15 CCMA awards
The Daily Sundial staff won 15 awards at the CCMA 2013-14 awards banquet.

 

The Daily Sundial won 15 awards at the 2013-14 California College Media Association (CCMA) awards on Saturday at the Catamaran Hotel in San Diego.

The Sundial won awards for news stories, best overall design, headlines, multimedia and cartoons. It also took a second place award for general excellence among all daily student-run newspapers in California – the UCLA Daily Bruin was first and UC Berkeley’s Daily Californian was third.

“The Daily Sundial does a phenomenal job of including diverse voices from student and campus officials in its reporting,” the judges wrote. “The paper also is smartly interactive, leading the reader to online features, surveys and questions.”

The Journalism Department also took home an award for the Pop-Up Newsroom, an innovative, decentralized method of covering news that leverages handheld devices and social media. 

“Pop-Up Newsroom is a new model for journalism education, and this award is recognition that we need to give our students opportunities to be creative and innovative if we want them to be successful journalists in the future,” said Dr. Melissa Wall, a professor in the Journalism Department.

David Hawkins, currently the Daily Sundial photo editor, won two awards for photographs taken while working for the Santa Monica College Corsair.

The California College Media Association exists to encourage California colleges to work together in addressing common problems faced by college news media outlets. The group also exists to “provide support and communications to advisers and editors, to nurture college journalists and to share resources,” according to the mission statement. More than 50 colleges from throughout California participated in this year's contest. Professional journalists serve as the judges' for the contest.

“The Sundial students are dedicated to covering the CSUN community,” said Melissa Lalum, publisher of the Daily Sundial. “The put in countless hours to the digital and print products – it is nice to see them received recognition for their hard worl.

The following students took home awards at the ceremony:

  • Jason Gallaher, first place, news story
  • Luis Rivas, first place, arts and entertainment story; second place, arts and entertainment criticism
  • Loren Townsley, second place, photo illustration
  • Jasmine Mochizuki, second place, features design; second place, sports design
  • Taylor Villescas, second place, headline portfolio
  • Nathan McMahon, third place, headline portfolio
  • Dustin Johnson, first place, cartoon
  • Brita Potenza, second place, audio slideshow
  • Trevor Stamp, third place, audio slideshow
  • Leah Oakes, second place, color advertisement
  • Jennifer Luxton, second place, online advertisement

Staff awards included:

  • General excellence, second place
  • News series, third place
  • Overall design, second place