Monday, November 3, 2008
The Kansan received top honors on Saturday for its Web site and sports reporting, as well as additional honors for the paper’s print edition and news reporting.
Kansan.com beat out four other finalists for the 2008 Associated College Press Online Pacemaker award in the four-year college daily newspaper category. The category received entries from 155 four-year schools, according to the ACP Web site. The print version of the paper placed third in the Best of Show category for its Oct. 23 issue, which also included issue nine of Jayplay, the Kansan’s weekly magazine.
Mark Dent, Kansan managing editor, won in the sports story of the year category for “Nowhere to Run,” a profile of former KU running back Charles “June” Henley. Henley, a 1996 graduate and one-time NFL draft pick, is serving a four-year prison sentence in Ohio for aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary.
Dent, who also placed second in the reporter of the year category, said that, although he was happy to have done well in the competition, the awards were not his primary motivation for seeking a career in newspapers.
“It’s really not that big of a deal to me,” Dent said. “I’m not a big fan of praise. If I get some awards, that’s awesome, but I do it because it’s fun, and it’s what I want to do when I grow up.”
Malcolm Gibson, Kansan general manager, said he was pleased by the paper’s success in the annual competition.
“I think it’s a testament to the hard work the students put into the paper, as well as the work of everyone in the school,” Gibson said.
Matt Erickson, Kansan editor in chief, received an honorable mention in the news story of the year category for his reporting on illegal file sharing and KU students who were sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. The story, titled “Facing the Music,” took about a year to write, Erickson said, because the circumstances of the legal cases kept changing just before each of the story’s three proposed publication dates.
“I think all these awards reflect that we have one of the best student newspapers in the country,” Erickson said. “It reflects the strength of our journalism school, and especially that the Kansan is a leader in exploring the possibilities of online newspapers.”
— — Edited by Adam Mowder
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