Santa Monica College's Student Newspaper Collects 14 Awards:

Santa Monica College student newspaper The Corsair won 14 awards at the 2012 Southern California conference of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges held at Cal State Fullerton Oct. 5-6.

One of the awards was for online General Excellence.

Corsair design editor Nathalyd Meza won four awards, including a first and second place for front page layout, and a first place award for the news judgment and layout contest held at the conference. Meza also won a third-place award for an ad she designed to promote the Corsair.

More than 330 students from 23 community college journalism programs attended the annual JACC regional conference. Students participated in several on-the-spot writing and photography contests and also attended workshops offered throughout the two-day event. The results of mail-in contests recognizing top work from last year were also announced at the convention.

The Corsair dominated the video journalism contest by capturing both first and second place in the category, with first place going to multimedia editor Ian Kagihara and second place to news editor Andy Riesmeyer and photo editor Paul Alvarez Jr.

Corsair photographer Amy Gaskin earned a first place for the bring-in photo contest where the assignment was to produce an image related to the election season.

David Hawkins, who began serious study of photography a few short weeks ago, earned first place in the on-the-spot sports photo content.

The writing team of Riesmeyer, editor-in-chief Nathan Gawronsky and former news editor Fatou Samb earned first place in the mail-in news story category for coverage of the pepper spray incident at last semester’s Board of Trustees meeting.

Saul Rubin is the Corsair advisor and instructor of the journalism class that produces the print and online editions of the Corsair, while instructor Gerard Burkhart is the photo adviser.

Complete list of SMC awards at the 2012 JACC regional conference:

Mail in Categories:

Online General Excellence

First place, Front Page Layout (tabloid): Nathalyd Meza

First place, Video Journalism: Ian Kagihara

First place, News Story: Andy Riesmeyer, Nathan Gawronsky and Fatou Samb

Second place, Front Page Layout (tabloid): Nathalyd Meza

Second place, Video Journalism: Andy Riesmeyer and Paul Alvarez Jr.

On-the-spot Categories:

First place, Sports Photo: David Hawkins

First place, News Judgment (tabloid) Nathalyd Meza

First place, Bring-in Photo: Amy Gaskin