Ithacan Named Best in Northeast

The Society of Professional Journalists has named The Ithacan the best non-daily student newspaper in the Northeast Region. The paper received the First Place Mark of Excellence Award on Saturday at the SPJ Region 1 Conference in Stony Brook, N.Y. The Ithacan 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 or reporters and editors in the country.

In addition, the paper's website won third place for Best Affiliated Website. Aaron Edwards ’12 won second place in the Feature Writing category for “No Day But Today,” which appeared in the October 27, 2011, issue of The Ithacan; Taylor Long ’13 won third place in the Feature Writing category for “Rhythmic Roots,” which appeared in the paper‘s November 3, 2011, edition.

Beth Quill Addresses Park Scholar Finalists

Beth Quill ’06 with Park
Scholar Director Matt Fee
outside the Park Scholar office.

Beth Quill ’06 (editor in chief 2005–06) was on campus Sunday to appear as the alumni speaker at the Park Scholar Finalists Weekend dinner. She stopped by the Ithacan office to catch up and meet some current students. She just finished her fourth year at Science News in Washington, D.C., where she is features editor.

Students and Alumni Schmooze in NYC

Clockwise from left: Matt Quintanilla,
Shawn Steiner, Elma Gonzalez, Kaydi
Poirier, Libby Sile, Stacey Coburn, Lisa
Boyars Gehrke, Sean Fennessey,
Bill Earl, Aaron Edwards, Kelli Grant,
Flora Wang and Nic Barajas.

Our trip to New York for the Spring National College Media Convention meant another opportunity to get alumni together with current students for dinner, networking and conversation at our usual watering hole, Heartland Brewery on W. 43rd St.
This year‘s turnout was one of the strongest yet. Nineteen alumni mixed with the eight students attending the conference, sharing stories of their student and professional experiences. At least one job connection and several internship leads came out of it.

Clockwise from left: Cole Louison,
Andy Swift, Erin Geismar, Matthew
Desii, Deepa Shah, Matt Kelly, Andrew
Weiser, Lara Bonner, Allie Healey and
James Sigman.

Among the highlights: a rare appearance by Anthony Iaffaldano ’99, the first chance to catch up with Sean Fennessey ’03 since he took over as online editor at GQ magazine, a visit from Patrick Doyle, who transferred to NYU his junior year and is now an editor at Rolling Stone, a chance to congratulate Libby Sile ’11 for the CSPA Crown Awards won by the paper under her editorship, and celebrating Matt Quintanilla ’07’s birthday.

From left: Nic Barajas, birthday boy
Matt Quintanilla and Deepa Shah.

This year’s alumni attendees: Nic Barajas ’08, Mike Cagnazzi ’98, Paul Colombo ’00, Stacey Coburn ’06, Patrick Doyle, Bill Earl ’09, Sean Fennessey ’03, Lisa Boyars Gehrke ’01, Erin Geismar ’09, Kelli Grant ’04, Anthony Iaffaldano ’99, Cole Louison ’00, Kaydi Poirier ’11, Matt Quintanilla ’07, Deepa Shah ’06, James Sigman ’98, Libby Sile ’11, Andy Swift ’09 and Andrew Weiser ’11.

Current students in attendance: editor in chief Aaron Edwards, managing editor Lara Bonner, assistant news editor Elma Gonzalez, assistant Accent editor Allie Healey, assistant sports editor Matt Kelly, assistant photo editor Shawn Steiner, chief copy editor Matthew Desii, and assistant design editor Flora Wang.

From left: Bill Earl, Patrick Doyle, Kaydi
Poirier and Libby Sile.

Call Me Maybe

Check out this music video the Ithacan editors made while at the National College Media Convention in New York. It’s no wonder I love my job, working with this bunch.

The Ithacan Hits a New High: Two Gold Crowns, a Silver Crown and Best in Show in New York

From left: Ithacan Managing Editor
Lara Bonner ’13, CSPA presenter
C. Bruce Watterson and Ithacan
Editor in Chief Aaron Edwards ’12.
Photo by Rebecca Castillo.

The Ithacan had its best showing ever at the Spring National College Media Convention in New York City last weekend. The Columbia Scholastic Press Association awarded The Ithacan two Gold Crown Awards for the newspaper and a Silver Crown Award for the website. In addition, the paper won the Apple Award for Best in Show in its category.

The details: The Newspaper Gold Crowns were for Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 (academic year 2010–11, Libby Sile ’11, editor in chief). The Digital Silver Crown was for this year (Aaron Edwards ’12, editor; Honest Charley Bodkin ’15, webmaster). The Apple Award for Best in Show, presented by the College Media Association, sponsors of the convention, is based on a single-issue entry from 2011. The paper entered its "Season of Protest" issue from November 10, 2011. 

The Gold Crowns are a tough nut to crack: There have been several years where only big-university dailies made the finalist list. In the past, The Ithacan has won the Newspaper Gold Crown once, the Newspaper Silver Crown seven times, the Digital Gold Crown twice and the Digital Silver Crown once. This is the eighth time the paper has won the Apple Award for Best in Show in the 11 years they have been presented. The only other publication to win two Newspaper Crowns, a Digital Crown and the Apple Award in its category in this year’s competition was the Indiana Daily Student from Indiana University.

Congratulations to the editors, staff and alumni for their outstanding achievement!

With the Apple Award for Best in Show in New York (from left):
Assistant Sports Editor Matt Kelly, Managing Editor Lara Bonner,
Editor in Chief Aaron Edwards, Assistant Photo Editor Shawn Steiner
 and Chief Copy Editor Matthew Dezii

One More

The Ithacan has just been named one of three finalists for the Apple Award for Best in Show at the New York conference next weekend.

Ithacan Named SPJ Region 1 Finalist

The Society of Professional Journalists has named The Ithacan as a finalist for the 2012 Mark of Excellence Awards for Best All-Around Non-Daily College Newspaper in the Northeast Region and Best Affiliated Newspaper Website in the Northeast Region. The paper is consistently ranked among the top three college newspapers in the Northeast by SPJ.

In addition, senior Aaron Edwards’ story, “No Day But Today,” which appeared in the Oct. 27, 2011, issue of The Ithacan, and junior Taylor Long’s story, “Rhythmic Roots,” which ran Nov. 3, 2011, have been named as finalists in the Feature Writing category.

The winners will be announced at the SPJ Region 1 Spring Conference in Stony Brook, New York, on March 24. Regional winners go on to compete against the winners in the other 11 SPJ regions to compete at the national level in their respective categories.

“Profile in Liberty”

Rob Bluey ’01 was recently the subject of a profile by Jacqueline Otto on the America’s Future Foundation website. Rob is heading up the investigative journalism team at the Heritage Foundation. You can follow their reporting on their blog, Scribe.

Finalists for the Online Crown

In addition to being finalists for Newspaper Crown Awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association this year, which I announced in December, we’ve learned that The Ithacan is a finalist for the Online Crown Award as well. This is the first time we’ve been finalists for both semesters (Fall 2010 and Spring 2011) in print and for online in the same year. Winners will be announced during the spring National College Media Convention in New York at an awards dinner at Columbia University on March 18.

Lisa Boyars Gets Married

There are few things I enjoy more than an Ithacan alumni wedding, and few have been more fun than that of Lisa Boyars ’01 and David Gehrke, which took place February 18 in the Twenty Four Fifth Ballroom in New York. David is a great guy, and Lisa was a beautiful bride, as anyone who knows here would expect. The ceremony was moving — Rabbi Richard Berman, at the couple’s request, repeated all of the Hebrew prayers in English for the benefit of the linguistic impaired such as myself — and the reception was a terrific party.
It was also a chance to catch up with a number of Ithacan alumni attending, including Abby Bertumen ’01, Carrie Cochran ’00, Paul Colombo ’00, Vanessa Leong ’00 and Cole Louison ’00. Carrie, who flew in from Hawaii, and Abby were bridesmaids.

Another Fight Club Reunion

Clockwise from top left, Andy Swift,
Michael Serino, Stephanie Serino, Erica Hendry,
Erin Geismar, Jen Nevins and Edon Ophir at Bar Basque

Over the winter break we took advantage of the brief return of Edon Ophir to the U.S. from Israel to hold another class of ’09 Fight Club reunion. We managed to get everyone from that year’s Ithacan writing workshop together at Bar Basque (another great restaurant recommendation from Erin Geismar) in New York — with the exception of Byard Duncan, who has migrated to the West Coast. After dinner we migrated ourselves, down to a bar in Murray Hill, where we met up with Emma Strachman and Revi Roza. It was a great time, as always.