The ‘Centurion’ newspaper picked up the Keystone Press Awards April 3 in Hershey, including eight first-place prizes, bringing total awards earned to 108
The Times
Bucks County Community College’s student-run newspaper, the Centurion, earned 15 Student Keystone Press Awards from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association Foundation for 2019, the most ever in one year, including eight first-place prizes.
That brings the total awards that the newspaper has won in the two-year college division of the statewide contest to 108 since it began entering in 2010. It placed first in General News, Ongoing News Coverage, Public Service/Enterprise Package, Feature Story, Personality Profile, Feature Photo, Website, and Video Story. The paper also won honors for packages of stories about the #MeToo movement, the Parkland school shooting and resulting protests, and the 2018 midterms.
Professor Tony Rogers, coordinator of the journalism program at Bucks, said the consistent performance by student journalists each year is a reflection of the quality of the academic program at the public, two-year college.
“The credit goes to the hard work and dedication of our journalism students,” he said. “Year after year, they push themselves to do the very best work they can, and I think that is reflected in the number of awards they’ve won.”
Rogers noted how well the students did in the hard-news categories, such as general news and ongoing news coverage.
“I think some school papers carry a lot of reviews and opinion pieces, which certainly have their place. But our emphasis is on substantive hard-news reporting, which requires the kinds of skills professional newspapers and news websites are looking for in recent college graduates,” he added.
The professor also pointed out that the Centurion swept the new “video news story” category, entered by students in Bucks’ Webcast News Production course who make videos for the paper’s website.
“We’ve also won the best website award for many years in a row now, which shows that our students are learning to use the digital tools that are so important to modern newsrooms,” he said.
To read the Centurion, visit bucks-news.com. To learn more about the journalism program at Bucks, visit bucks.edu/journalism or contact Rogers at bucksjournalism@gmail.com or 215–968–8165.
The Centurion won the following awards, presented at the America East Media Business and Technology Conference in Hershey on April 3:
· General News, First Place: “Pastor Aden Pays Yet Another Visit to the Newtown Campus” by Francis Klingenberg
· General News, Honorable Mention: “Bucks Student is Arrested for Making Threat” by Sarah Siock
· Ongoing News Coverage, First Place: “Parkland Shooting/March For Lives” by Hal Conte, Connor Donaghy, Matthew Aquino, and Shannon Harrar
· Ongoing News Coverage, Second Place: “The 2018 Midterms” by Sarah Siock, John Fey, Keri Marable, and Jennifer Abele
· Public Service/Enterprise Package, First Place: “The #MeToo Movement” by Gabby Houck, Jillian Broskey, Jocelyn Pappas, and Tyler Creighton
· Feature Story, First Place: “Philly Inquirer Columnist Mike Sielski On Twitter, Super Bowl & Fake News In New Age of Sports Journalism” by Julia Pacifico
· Feature Story, Honorable Mention: “The Opioid Epidemic: It Starts With Us” by Gabby Houck
· Personality Profile, First Place: “A Sit Down with Bucks Instructor and Congressional Candidate Steve Bacher” by Gabby Houck
· Feature Photo, First Place: “Three Cooks, 70 Reserved Tables, 100 Degree Kitchens: How Angela Shellenberger Takes the Heat, Every Day” by Joe Roatche
· News Photo, Second Place: “Pastor Aden Pays Yet Another Visit to the Newtown Campus” by Francis Klingenberg
· Layout and Design, Honorable Mention: Gabby Houck, Shannon Harrar, Centurion Staff
· Website, First Place: Centurion Staff
· Video Story, First Place: “Animal Adoption Event” by Julia Pacifico
· Video Story, Second Place: “Doylestown Hosts Women’s March” by Hal Conte
· Video Story, Honorable Mention: “Bucks Men’s Basketball” by Macy Moors
