Alabama State University’s official student-run newspaper, The Hornet Tribune, is just one of 21 college and university newspapers that will be represented at this year’s “Best of the South” competition.
The results of the “Best of the South” competition are scheduled to be announced during the Southeast Journalism Conference that will be held at Troy University on Feb. 23-25.
The Southeast Journalism Conference, which began in 1986, is a consortium of 39 colleges and universities from the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Florida that possess communications programs and student newspaper staffs.
The purpose of the consortium is to encourage greater interest and participation in student journalism and their newspaper staffs and to form closer ties among students who are pursuing careers in the area of communications.
According to general manager Kenneth A. Dean, J.D., one of the most anticipated elements of the conference is the “Best of the South” competition that allows The Hornet Tribune staff members to see how they measure up against other student journalists in the region who are performing the same duties on their newspaper staffs as they are performing.
Dean said the competition is divided into three categories with 28 subcategories. The three categories are individual awards, school awards and research awards, and while The Hornet Tribune has participated for years in the individual and school award categories, they have never participated in the research category.
“We plan to change that during the 2023-24 academic year, as a lot of newspaper staffs are identifying students to conduct research on topics that affect freedom of speech and press due to numerous efforts by some to restrict those freedoms,” Dean said.
The Southeast Journalism Conference selects professional journalists and college professors from all over the nation to serve as judges for the hundreds of entries they receive from the various college and university newspaper staffs.
The judges will take their time and evaluate the entries carefully during December and January, and the results are announced on Saturday night of the conference during the “Best of the South” Awards banquet. Each winner receives a beautiful certificate with the name of the award, the student’s name and the president’s name of the organization.
While Dean is pleased with the staff’s participation over the last two decades, he would like to see advancement in some other areas.
“I am hoping this year that we will be fortunate enough to win more individual writing awards, such as Best News Writer, Best Feature Writer, Best Sports Writer, Best Arts and Entertainment Writer, Best Podcast and Best Newscast,” Dean said.
He continued.
“We have done a really good job overhauling our website this year, and we hope that the judges will look at our website-design and recognize us with a first-place award. I was hoping that we could have entered the Journalist of the Year Award because that student actually receives $2,000 on the spot, but we did not have any staff members who had served for three years or more currently on the staff.”
Once the The Hornet Tribune staff arrives on the campus of Troy University on Friday, the students will participate in the “Onsite Competition,” a competition that allows them an opportunity to receive a scenario, and then write a story right there on the spot.
“The Onsite Competition allows students from each staff to compete Friday afternoon in the categories of news writing, news photography, features writing, features photography, sports writing, sports photography, design and layout on that Friday evening,” Dean said.
Because many of the members of The Hornet Tribune staff are new, they are excited about the staff’s participation and hope that members of the staff will walk away with some awards.
Freshman biomedical engineering major Jahzara Veasey, who serves as the managing editor for multimedia, is very optimistic about the staff’s participation.
“I believe it will be a great opportunity for the staff to learn where it succeeds and where it is lacking to make sure that we are constantly growing as a team,” she said. “I believe that our University News section is one of our stronger areas in terms of consistent, well-written articles, so I feel that they would have the best chance at winning awards.”
Freshman computer science major Justin B. Freeman, who serves as managing editor for visual media, agrees.
“I am really nervous about what to expect, but I am also prepared for whatever feedback, opportunities or experiences that come from the competition and the conference,” Freeman said. “I feel that our University News section is the strongest and has the highest chances of winning awards.”
Freshman rehabilitation services major Katelyn Brown, who serves as managing editor for standards, ethics and quality control, has a different view.
“There are a variety of new writers this year, and after reading their stories and being around them in the office setting, I see nothing but potential, and I hope that we bring back as many awards as possible.”
She continued.
“I believe the strongest area of the staff is Viewpoints. I have read so many interesting viewpoint articles over the past few months, and the writers within that section have developed their own writing style, so it is easy to pinpoint who writes each story without knowing the author.”
The staff had an opportunity during the month of November to peruse all of the newspapers that were completed from January 2023 to November 2023 and select what they believed to be the best entries for judging for the various categories. The staff entered into 16 subcategories.
Last year was productive for The Hornet Tribune staff as they walked away with seven regional awards: Best Newspaper (second place), Best Opinion/Editorial (first place), Best Special Events (fourth place), Best Press Photographer (first place), Best Artist/Illustrator (fourth place), Best Newspaper Design (second place) and Best Website Design (fourth place).