Maddy QuonThe Daily Mississippian won first place for best newspaper and best website in the Society of Professional Journalists Region 12 Mark of Excellence competition.
Ole Miss students won 13 awards in the competition. There were seven first-place winners and six finalists. Students won first place in several different competitions: Billy Schuerman for sports photography, Daniel Payne, Eliza Noe and Kenneth Niemeyer for general news reporting, Will Stribling for radio news reporting and Devna Bose for online news reporting.
The Daily Mississippian was named Best All-Around Non-Daily Student Newspaper for an entry that included three print newspapers published in 2019. The category is for newspapers that publish in print for less than four days a week.
Niemeyer, who assisted Payne and Noe on the news article about Chancellor Glenn Boyce’s past working at ‘segregation academies,’ said that he’s very proud of everyone in the Student Media Center for all of their hard work.
“It made me happy to see that we’re continuing to be successful and we’re still gaining recognition for things that I already know we do very well,” Niemeyer said.
Payne, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Mississippian, said that it feels good for all of the staff’s hard work to be recognized, especially with all the breaking news that they’ve had to cover this year.
“All of the reporters, editors, designers and photographers do the work because we care so much about our community, but it’s always great to see our efforts — both in print and online — win awards,” Payne said.
The SPJ Region 12 competition includes universities in four states: Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. The SPJ awards one winner and two finalists in each category.
The other six finalists are NewsWatch Ole Miss for best all-around newscast, Skye Spiehler and Brianna Florez for television in-depth reporting, Grant Gibbons and Carson McKinney for online sports reporting, Meagan Harkins for online news reporting, Payne for newspaper general news reporting and Schuerman for breaking news photography.
