Journalism students’ multimedia package places in all categories.
By Courtney Kaiser
sac-ranger@alamo.edu
Four members of the The Ranger staff won awards for a multimedia package in an on-site competition at the Texas Community College Journalism Association’s annual convention Oct. 28-Nov. 1 in Austin.
The TCCJA convention was held in conjunction with the national convention of Associated Collegiate Press and College Media Advisers.
The Ranger competed against multimedia teams from seven other community college journalism programs. The competition required teams to find, report, produce and upload a multimedia package in 12 hours.
TCCJA titled the competition “6 p.m.-6 a.m. on Sixth Street” because students had to find a “slice of life” somewhere on the street between the hours of 6 p.m.-6 a.m.
Their package, “Innocents Roam Sixth Street,” focused on young children in Halloween costumes out with their grandmother on the strip notorious for vivid and sometimes unusual nightlife.
“We had several ideas and different venues we were looking at, but then we saw the kids and we just went for it,” production manager Katherine Garcia said. “We knew the judges would like that.”
Ranger photographer Danielle Kelly won first in Best Dominant Photo and second in Best Photo Story; Kyle R. Cotton, assistant managing editor-news won second for Best Written Story; Ranger photographer Daniel Carde won honorable mention in Best Video; and Kelly, Cotton, Carde and Garcia won third for Best Headline.
“There were five categories and they placed in all,” Media Communications Chair Marianne Odom said.
Eastfield College in Dallas won Best Overall Multimedia Package.
In other convention news, The Ranger was one of seven community college newspapers to be named a finalist for the Newspaper Pacemaker 2015 from the Associated Collegiate Press.
“It’s a very prestigious award,” Odom said. “It’s sort of like the Academy Award of college journalism.”
The Ranger is one of only 61 student college newspapers that have been inducted into the Associated Collegiate Press Hall of Fame, Odom said. The Ranger has won a Newspaper Pacemaker 11 times and been a finalist six times. The Ranger has won the Online Pacemaker twice.
Garcia, who was editor of The Ranger in spring 2015, accepted the award. The award was for fall 2014 and spring 2015.
“It meant a lot to me to receive an award for a paper I had worked on,” Garcia said. “I don’t think we’ve won the award since 2010.”
The Ranger’s entry, “Innocents Roam Sixth Street,” can be viewed at http://6thstreetdailyteamf.wordpress.com.