500!

This month marked my 500th issue as adviser of The Ithacan. Five hundred Wednesday nights of sheer ... well, never mind. The editors bought me a cake, and we celebrated by spending yet another Wednesday night producing an issue of the best college weekly in the country. I let assistant photo editor Durst Breneiser take my picture (anyone who knows me knows how happy I was about that), and here it is. I can't imagine any more satisfying career.

SPJ Names Ithacan Best in the Northeast

The Society of Professional Journalists has once again named The Ithacan the Best Nondaily Student Newspaper in the Northeast Region. The paper received the first place Mark of Excellence Award this afternoon at the SPJ Region 1 conference at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

The paper now goes on to compete against the winners in the other 11 SPJ regions for the national Mark of Excellence Award. The winner will be announced at the SPJ national convention this fall. The SPJ is the largest professional organization of reporters and editors in the country.

SPJ named The Ithacan the Best Nondaily Student Newspaper in the country in 2012.

More Recognition for The Ithacan’s Website

The Ithacan has once again been named a finalist for the Online Pacemaker Award by the Associated Collegiate Press.

The winners of the award — widely regarded as “the Pulitzer Prize of collegiate journalism”  — will be announced at this fall's National College Media Convention in New Orleans on October 26. The Ithacan's website won the Online Pacemaker in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012, and was a finalist in 2009.

The Associated College Press is the oldest and largest membership organization of college journalists in the country. 

Here's Our Next Editor in Chief

Junior Megan Devlin has been named editor in chief of The Ithacan for the 2013–14 academic year. She was appointed to the position by the Ithaca College Board of Student Publications at its annual meeting on April 8.

A Park Scholar in the Roy H. Park School of Communications, Devlin is a Communication Management and Design major with minors in journalism and sociology.

Devlin served as assistant Accent section editor at The Ithacan in spring 2011 and opinion editor in the fall of that year. She has worked as an editorial intern at both The American Prospect and the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and as a community rights intern at Global Exchange in San Francisco. She spent the spring 2012 semester studying in Morocco.

This summer she will be a fellow in the New Sector Alliance San Francisco program, working with an NGO as a communications consultant to improve its social impact.

Ithacan Named Best in New York State

From left: NYPA presenter
Jim Bilinski, design editor
Emily Fuller and assistant
news editor Sabrina Knight.

The New York Press Association has named The Ithacan the Best Overall College Newspaper in New York State for 2012 in its annual Better College Newspaper competition. The award was presented April 6 at the NYPA’s annual convention at the Gideon Putnam Resort in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.  

 The paper also received a Second Place Award for Design and a Second Place Award for Sports Coverage. The awards are for work published during the 2012 calendar year (Aaron Edwards ’12, spring semester editor; Kelsey O'Connor ’13, fall semester editor).

In addition, the following individual Ithacan staff members received awards:

• Allie Healy ’14, First Place for Feature Story, for "Misconception," February 16, 2012, p. 13.
• Megan Devlin ’14, First Place for Photography, for the lead photo in “Foreign Focus,” March 29, 2012, p. 28.
• Sabrina Knight ’16, Second Place for Photography, for “When Push Comes to Shove,” October 11, 2012, p. 28.
• Candace King ’15, Honorable Mention for Feature Writing, for “Man in the Middle,”April 12, 2012, p. 15.

The winning photographs can be viewed in The Ithacan’s online PDF archive.

Help Out Some Young Documentarians

Current senior Alexandra Evans, a former Ithacan news editor and opinion editor (some of you had the opportunity to meet her at the recent New York alumni dinner) is hard at work with a team of student filmmakers on “Line in the Sand,” a documentary about the resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline and tar sands oil. The film began as project in Ben Crane’s documentary workshop course (you all remember what that entails) last semester, but now the students are working to complete the film. There’s a lot of travel involved, as well as all the usual costs associated with making a film, so the students have launched an indiegogo campaign to try to raise money for the project.
I attended the screening at the end of last semester and was impressed with what they've produced so far. Go to their indiegogo page, check out their pitch, and, if you you're impressed, consider a donation to help them along.

What’s New in IC Journalism?

IC’s Journalism Department now has its own Facebook page. Follow it to keep up on the latest developments in journalism education at the college.

A Good Week for Kelli B. Grant

Consumer reporter Kelli B. Grant ’04 was on a roll this week. First her twitter feed (@kelligrant) was named one of  “The 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013” by Time Magazine. Then she made an appearance on “CBS This Morning” to talk to co-hosts Gayle King and Charlie Rose about states collecting online sales tax (not that television appearances are anything unusual for Kelli these days).
And, as if that weren’t enough, today is her birthday. Happy Birthday Kelli!

Ithacan Named SPJ Regional Finalist

The Ithacan has been named a finalist to receive a Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists Northeast Region (Region 1) at the group’s annual meeting, to be held April 12–13 at Rutgers University’s New Brunswick, N.J., campus.
The award is for overall excellence. The actual place awarded will be announced at the conference awards ceremony. The winner of the regional competition will go on to compete against the winners of SPJ’s other 11 regions for the national Mark of Excellence Award.
The Ithacan received SPJ’s national Mark of Excellence Award for Best Non-Daily Newspaper in the country in 2012.

New York Alumni Dinner Draws a Crowd

This spring’s dinner with New York City alumni drew a record crowd, with 21 alums and 11 current students in attendance. The dinner took place on March 11 at the Heartland Brewery Empire State Building location. The students and I were were town for the spring National College Media Convention where, as reported previously, The Ithacan picked up two Gold Crown awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
It was great catching up with everyone, as always. The alumni represented a broad range of fields:
Newspapers/websites: Nic Barajas ’08 (New York Times), Aaron Edwards ’12 (Digital First Media), Erin Geismar ’09 (newsday.com), Casey Musarra ’11 (newsday.com), Kaydi Poirier ’11 (newsday.com), Kerry Tkacik ’12 (freelance);

From left: former EIC Aaron Edwards
’12, current EIC Kelsey O’Connor ’13
 and Lara Bonner ’12, who served as
managing editor for both of them.

Magazines/websites: Patrick Doyle (Rolling Stone), Kelli Grant ’04 (smartmoney.com), Cole Louison ’00 (GQ), Deepa Shah ’06 (Maxim), Libby Sile ’11 (Esquire);
Television: Evan Falk ’09 (FOX Business News);
Publishing: Lara Bonner ’12 (Sanford J. Greenburger Associates), James Sigman ’98 (John Wiley & Sons);
Marketing and design: Paul Colombo ’00 (Deep Focus), Lisa Boyars Gehrke ’01 (Condé Nast), Anthony Iaffaldano ’99 (Undertone), Laura Lubrano ’02 (Los Angeles Times), Matt Quintanilla ’07 (Arc90), Andrew Weiser ’11 (The Cools);
Real estate: Jim Hawver ’07 (Key New York).

From left: Paul Colombo ’00, Lisa
Boyars Gehrke ’01 and Anthony
 Iaffaldano ’99.

Current students: Kelsey O'Connor ’13 (editor in chief), Noreyana Fernando ’15 (assistant news editor), Sabrina Knight ’16 (assistant news editor), Rose Vardell ’14 (assistant accent editor), Emily Hull ’15 (assistant sports editor), Rachel Woolf ’15 (photo editor), Jaclyn Cataldi ’15 (multimedia editor), Emily Fuller ’15 (design editor), Alexandra Evans ’13 (former opinion editor), Shea O'Meara ’13 (opinion editor), and Rachel Orlow ’13 (Year in Review photo editor).

From left: Laura Lubrano ’02 talks to
Kesh Center director Bob Regan.

In addition, Bob Regan, the Park School’s director of the Dr. John Keshishoglou Center for Global Communications Innovation (or the Kesh Center, for short), stopped in to talk about the school’s new Executive Master’s in Communications Innovation and bring the alumni up to speed on recent Park School developments.

From left: Libby Sile 11, Patrick Doyle and Rose Vardell ’14.

From left: current assistant sports editor Emily Hull ’15 with
former sports editors Andrew Weiser ’11 and Casey Musarra ’11.

From left: Matt Quintanilla ’07, Deepa Shah ’06 and Jim Hawver ’07.

Some High-Profile Exposure

I opened up this week's New Yorker and saw The Ithacan’s online news editor, Kacey Deamer ’13, (left) staring up at me. Disconcerting, but cool! A couple of years ago, former EIC Aaron Edwards ’12 was featured in similar ads.