At the annual region ten SPJ conference, The Observer took home the “Mark of Excellence Award” for “Best Affiliated Website.” The Observer also placed as a finalist for the “Corbin Gwaltney Award for Best All-Around Student Newspaper,” a major honor for college newspapers.
The conference, which was hosted last Saturday, April 15 in Portland, Ore., was attended by members of both The Observer and PULSE. PULSE was also a finalist in the “Best Affiliated Website Category” and took home the win for the “Best Use of Multimedia Award” for their story “Exploring Snoqualmie Tunnel.”
The Observers now award winning website recently underwent a variety of updates, including the addition of new pop-ups, new story layouts and updated header images. Currently, The Observer’s website is focused primarily on a campaign to secure funding after recent de-funding proposals by the S&A committee’s proposed budget.
Isaac Hinson, former Editor-In-Chief of The Observer, spoke about what this conference win means to him, and to The Observer at large. “It was a pleasure to attend the conference in Portland last weekend. Getting to travel thanks to The Observer is always a treat, let alone when I have an excuse to go home. But, being able to accept our awards in person was something that I thought was important.”
“I wanted to physically show how much I appreciated my team’s hard work from when I was still Editor, and how proud I am of them,” Hinson said. “And I also wanted to show everyone how much people truly care about student media, and how much it actually means to the people involved. There’s nothing fictitious about our enthusiasm for student media, and there’s no cynicism about it either. It’s something that means a lot to a lot of people.”
These awards are the latest in The Observers long history of accolades and achievements. In the past, The Observer has taken home a variety of “Mark of Excellence” awards, and current Co-Editor-In-Chief Jackson Roberts believes in the future The Observer could take home many more.
“I think it’s a testament to the hard work, great reporting that we’ve been going out and being able to do, because obviously, these stories, this website isn’t able to be ran without all of our amazing reporters, all of our amazing paid staff. And I’m really proud of it. Personally, I know we took a bit of a stance trying to improve the website a little bit in our term as Co-Editor-In-Chief, so to be able to see it be recognized, and for them to realize the work we’ve been putting into the website is really cool,” Roberts said.
Roberts continued to discuss how cuts to The Observers funding could limit its ability to win awards. Stating, “Without proper funding to have that paid staff or even a proper website domain … to keep up this level of product that we’re putting out, I don’t think it’s really possible for us to keep on bringing in awards without that funding.”
