Santa Monica College Student Newspaper Scoops 14 Awards At State Convention:

The Santa Monica College student newspaper the Corsair won 14 awards – including online General Excellence and three first-place awards – at the 2013 state convention of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges held recently in Sacramento.

Corsair photo editor Paul Alvarez Jr. won two first-place awards, one for video journalism and the other for feature photo.

Former Corsair news editor Andy Riesmeyer won a first-place award for video journalism, a second-place for broadcast news and a second-place for news story.

Former Corsair photo editor Michael Yanow won a first-place award for news photo and two third-place awards, one for news photo and the other for photo story essay.

About 500 students from 41 community college journalism programs in California attended the 58th annual JACC state convention.

Students participated in several on-the-spot writing and photography contests and also attended workshops offered throughout the three-day event.

The results of mail-in contests recognizing top work from last year were also announced at the convention.

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.

Here is the complete list of SMC awards at the 2013 JACC state convention:

Publications Contest:

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

First place, News Photo: Michael Yanow

Second place, Webcast/Broadcast News: Andy Riesmeyer

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

Third place, News Photo: Michael Yanow

Third place, Photo Story Essay: Michael Yanow

Fourth place, column writing: Nathan Gawronsky

General Excellence, Online Journalism: Corsair Staff

On-the-spot contest:

First place, Feature Photo: Paul Alvarez, Jr.