Daily Egyptian excels at Illinois Press Association Competition

The Daily Egyptian received 23 awards, including 12 first places, Saturday at the 2004 Illinois College Press Association Competition in Chicago, taking home more honors than any other college newspaper in the state.

In this year's competition, SIUC's independent student-run newspaper, which is sustained mostly through its annual $1 million in advertising revenue, reached a new record when it surpassed its 2002 high mark of 10 first places. This is the second time in three years the DE has taken the most first-place wins. The staff also won six second-place awards, three third-place awards and two honorable mentions.

The competition evaluates material from 37 student newspapers. Entries are judged by members of the Illinois Press Association, which includes many newspapers statewide.

DE editor-in-chief Kristina Herrndobler attended the ceremony with other staffers and said it was gratifying to accept the awards with newspapers staffs from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois watching, but winning is not the DE's primary mission.

"These awards ceremonies are more like a culmination of a year's worth of hard work," said Herrndobler, a senior from Benton studying journalism. "We don't spend the year working for these awards, but when they come it is a great honor and an exciting moment for us." Of the 23 awards, the DE advertising department took home six awards in the five advertising/classifieds categories. Advertising Manager Joe Battistoni said it is always a relief to see the department's hard work pay off.

"We like to be an award-winning staff and to be able to tell our clients that we are an award-winning staff," Battistoni said. "It's just a lot of experience and hard work that is finally paying off for some people who have been there a long time." Walter Jaehnig, director of the School of Journalism, said it is nice to receive recognition from people outside the University community.

"We know here the Daily Egyptian does a solid job of covering the campus community, and it is nice to know that outside judges would come to that same conclusion," Jaehnig said. Manjunath Pendakur, dean of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, said to hear the college's student newspaper win so many awards is exciting. "This is a wonderful honor that our hard-working students and staff have brought to this University and the School of Journalism," Pendakur said.