UA Student Newspaper Named Finalist for Top College Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama student newspaper, the Crimson White (CW), has been named one of 11 finalists for the Associated Collegiate Press Newspaper Pacemaker award, which will be announced in November.

The Pacemaker award is the nation’s top student press general excellence award.

The CW is a nominee for the award in the category of four-year college daily newspapers for its general excellence in the fall of 2001 and spring of 2002. During this time, Luke Connell, now a staff writer for the Birmingham Post-Herald, was editor. Paul Isom, director of the UA Office of Student Media, serves as adviser.

Other finalists in the four-year daily category include student newspapers from Harvard University, The University of Pennsylvania, California State University, Indiana University, The University of Illinois, the University of Kentucky, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Southern Illinois University, Iowa State University, Northwestern University and the University of Texas at Arlington. No other Alabama schools were named finalists in the four-year daily category.

The Associated Collegiate Press is a nonprofit education membership association and a division of the National Scholastic Press Association. The ACP has had college members since its inception in 1921 and is the largest and oldest membership organization for college student media in the United States.

The ACP provides three categories of competition in its Pacemaker competition: four-year dailies, four-year non-dailies and two-year publications.

The ACP names five winners in its four-year daily category, between five and 10 in its four-year non-daily category and four or five in its two-year publications category.

Pacemakers are selected by the staff of a professional newspaper in the host city of the National College Media Convention, co-hosted by ACP and College Media Advisers Inc. Judges select Pacemakers based on coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership on the opinion page, evidence of in-depth reporting, design, photography, art and graphics.

The winners will be named at the convention in front of more than 2,500 college journalists Oct. 30-Nov. 3 in Orlando, Fla.