SMC STUDENT NEWSPAPER THE CORSAIR WINS 16 AWARDS

The Santa Monica College student newspaper The Corsair won 16 awards – including online General Excellence and four first place awards – at the 2014 Southern California convention of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC) held on the campus of California State Fullerton University on October 17-18.

Alci Rengifo, editor-in-chief of The Corsair, won two first place awards – one for column writing and another for news story. Former Corsair staff photographer Amy Gaskin won first place for sports feature photo for a candid shot of Kentucky Derby winner California Chrome, while former Corsair designer Coco Dixon earned first place for front page layout, tabloid edition.

Corsair multimedia editor Ronja Jansz earned a second place award for profile feature story, and online editor Juan Lopez earned second place for feature photo.

About 250 students from many Southern California community college journalism programs attended the convention. Students participated in several on-the-spot writing and photography contests and also attended workshops offered during the two-day event. The results of mail-in contests recognizing top work from last year were also announced at the convention.

Saul Rubin is SMC's faculty advisor to The Corsair and instructor of the journalism class that produces the print and online editions of the newspaper, while instructor Gerard Burkhart is the photo advisor.

A complete list of SMC awards at the 2014 JACC Southern California conference follows:

Publications Contest:

First place, Front Page Layout, Tabloid: Coco Dixon

First Place, News Story: Alci Rengifo

First Place, Column Writing: Alci Rengifo

First Place, Sports Feature Photo: Amy Gaskin

Second Place, Feature Photo: Juan Lopez

Second Place, Profile Feature Story: Ronja Jansz

Third Place, Online Photo Story/Essay: Amy Gaskin

Third Place, Sports Game Story: Trevor Angone

Fourth Place, Profile Feature Story: Elizabeth Moss

Fourth Place, Photo Story: Amy Gaskin

General Excellence, Online Journalism: Corsair Staff

On-the-spot Contest:

Third Place, Editorial Cartoon: Juan Lopez

Third Place, News Photo: Veronika Kachanovskaya

Honorable Mention, News Writing: Nick Carrion

Honorable Mention, News Writing: Jose Guiterrez

Honorable Mention, Sports Photo: Jose Lopez