Two Grantees Win Major National Awards

Two journalism network members, Ethos and North by Northwestern, have won prestigious national awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) and Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

CSPA awarded the University of Oregon-based Ethos one of only six Gold Crown awards for college student magazines. Among the winners, Ethos was the only fully-independent journalistic publication; four were literary magazines and a fifth was journalistic but class-produced.

"Winning the Gold Crown is a huge triumph for Ethos," says Rachael Mitchell, the magazine's publisher and a senior at Oregon. "It is something we've worked toward for a long time."

"Especially after winning a couple of Silver Crowns, we really made it one of our goals," she adds. "Winning such a prestigious award speaks to how hardworking, motivated, and dedicated to upholding a high journalistic standard our student staff is."

Northwestern University's North by Northwestern, meanwhile, won a Mark of Excellence award from SPJ for being the Best Independent Online Student Publication in the country.

"I'm very proud of the work our team has done," said Nick Castele, a Northwestern junior and the magazine's former editor in chief. "They spent long nights in the newsroom and long days reporting. More importantly, they found creative ways to tell students the news in a fresh, approachable voice."

The publication's story on alleged wrongful convict Hank Skinner, written by Edwin Rios, was also named one of two National Finalists in the Feature Writing category.

"Eddie Rios worked hard reporting the Hank Skinner story for many weeks," Castele says. "His attention to detail brought the story to life. I'm confident that this is the first of many awards for him."

In other CP network awards, Ethos' Mitchell recently won $1,000 for taking fifth place in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program's opinion writing contest. Mitchell won for her article titled "The Cleaner Sister," detailing her sister's struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Coupled with our 12 regional awards from SPJ last month, North by Northwestern's first-place award last year in SPJ's Best Student Magazine category, and Fusion's recent Pacemaker award, we can't say forcefully enough how amazed we are by our phenomenal grantees.

David Spett is the Journalism Network Associate at Campus Progress.

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