On April 10, the Society of Professional Journalists announced their yearly regional awards for excellence in collegiate journalism. The awards were for the 2024 calendar year, and the Trinitonian falls into region eight. SPJ splits their awards into two divisions — small and large schools — and with a student population of fewer than 10,000 students, the Trinitonian falls into the small category.
In region eight, small school division, the Trinitonian won the Corbin Gwaltney Award for Best All-Around Student Newspaper, and Diya Contractor, Lauren Roddis, Julianna Plewes and Samara Gerstle won in the breaking news reporting category for “Trinity gets it wrong,” our election day coverage. Additionally, Julianna Plewes was named a finalist for “Multilingual students confused over language requirement.”
A few days later, the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association announced their annual awards which recognize publications at member higher education institutions throughout Texas. Based off of Trinity’s size and status as a four year institution, the Trinitonian competed in Division III and won 15 awards, including second place overall website and six individual first place finishes. A full list of TIPA awards can be found below, with links to all of the winning pieces available on our LinkTree.
We are so proud of everything that the Trinitonian staff has accomplished this year. Each of our 49 members has worked so hard this year, and these awards are beyond well-deserved.
While a number of individual staff members were rightly rewarded for their work, every single article, column, photograph or illustration is the product of dozens of staff members. From training to coming up with story ideas to editing and revising the final product, different staff members are involved at every stage of publication, and I want to thank them all for their dedication. It is because of their hard work and commitment that we are an award-winning publication.
To our staff, thank you for everything you have accomplished, and to our readers, thank you for taking the time to look through and read the Trinitonian. It is because of you that we’re able to do this, and we hope to continue sharing all of your stories.
This is only the beginning of many more awards to come. These awards reflect fall of 2024, and some of our best work happened in the spring. I can’t wait to see this work to also get the attention it deserves, and for the Trinitonian to begin a long reign of SPJ and TIPA victories.
