Flagler students win journalism awards

Annually, Historic City News has reported the Society of Professional Journalists “Mark of Excellence Awards” honoring the best in student journalism in print, radio, television and online collegiate journalism categories; again, this year, Flagler College scores among the top.

The Flagler College Gargoyle took first place for best independent online publication at the Region 3 conference at the University of Florida on March 24. The college’s student-run, online-only newspaper took five awards — including two first place awards for editor Michael Newberger for online opinion writing and sports editor Mari Pothier for online sports reporting.

“This is a huge honor for us, especially since we had to compete against much larger universities and publications,” said Gargoyle adviser Brian Thompson. “We were one of the smallest schools in the competition, so it really says something about the quality of the journalism taking place here at Flagler.”

This is the second year a Gargoyle member took first place in the online opinion category. Last year the Gargoyle won four awards in the competition, and took second place in best independent online publication.

The first place regional winners now advance to the national competition. Region 3 includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. This year, the contest received more than 4,000 entries across the 12 competing regions.