Ka Leo and staff win awards in publishing competition

UH Mānoa student newspaper honored

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Jay Hartwell, (808) 956-3217
Student Media Adviser
Posted: Apr 3, 2009

The Hawaiʻi Publishers Association this week awarded first place honors to Ka Leo, the student newspaper of the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa campus.

To win its award for the state's best college newspaper, Ka Leo O Hawaiʻi submitted three issues from the 2008 calendar year, when students Kumari Sherreitt (Spring) and Taylor Hall (Fall) edited the three-times-a-week paper for Mānoa's Board of Publications.

The newspaper, along with submissions from Windward Community College's monthly Ka ʻOhana (second place) and Hawaiʻi Pacific University's monthly Kalamalama (third place), was judged by media professionals in the continental United States, who said Ka Leo had "clean design with good visuals. Multiple entry points for readers. Good variety of content . . . Great editorial section with editorial cartoons, and letters to the editor that show the staff writes articles people care about."

This is the second year in a row that Ka Leo has taken first place in the competition, and the first year that Windward Community College's newspaper has entered the contest, which is coordinated by an association whose members include most of the state's newspapers and magazines.

The award followed an announcement by Fox News that former Ka Leo desk editors Meghan Lopez and Casey Chin had produced the nation's best broadcast news story in its annual "College Challenge," which awards $10,000 to the winners and another $10,000 to their University.

Casey Chin was associate news editor and Meghan Lopez sports editor for Ka Leo during Spring 2008. The UH Manoa Journalism seniors decided to focus on broadcast work last fall and this spring, when they began interviewing for their piece on native Hawaiian sovereignty for the Sixth Annual Fox News Channel "College Challenge."

The two used camera and microphone equipment from Mānoa's School of Communications and a video editing bay at Ka Leo's newsroom to produce the three-minute piece.

Fox News will fly the students to New York to receive the award, along with their project adviser, Jay Hartwell, who is also the faculty adviser to the editors of Ka Leo.

For more information, visit: http://hawaiipublishersassociation.com/