San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
COLLEGE’S NEWSPAPER IS NUMBER 1
Southwestern’s The Sun earns top national award
Southwestern College’s student-run newspaper has scored dozens of awards, but it recently earned one of the most prestigious honors when it was named the nation’s best publication in collegiate journalism.
The national Society of Professional Journalists announced on June 21 that The Sun newspaper was the recipient of its first-ever Corbin Gwaltney Award for Best All-around Student Newspaper for work published during 2021. The publication won in the large category for schools with 10,000 or more students and will take home a $5,000 prize. The staff’s work is eyecatching and immediately draws readers in, judges said.
Last year, SPJ partnered with The Chronicle of Higher Education to rename its student newspaper award after Corbin Gwaltney, who in 1966 pioneered tough-minded coverage of the nation’s higher education sector via The Chronicle publication.
The Chula Vista-based student newspaper is no stranger to awards, having earned several national and local awards from organizations such as the San Diego Press Club, Associated Collegiate Press and The Western Publishing Association. They have been an SPJ finalist seven times, but have never won the organization’s national title under its previous name. Student reporters have also received countless awards for their individual work from SPJ and other journalism organizations.
“I think I was in shock and speechless — absolutely stoked — when I found out about the news,” said Julia Woock, who served as the paper’s editor-in-chief during 2020-21. “We all really worked hard and overcame obstacles that kind of had no precedent before. I think it speaks to the dedication and commitment of all the staff that puts this newspaper together.”
The newsroom of about a dozen staff members was still operating remotely in 2021 after months of Covid-19-related lockdowns the prior year. Many of the challenges they contended with at the height of the pandemic were still present last year, but “that didn’t stop us from producing all of our issues,” said Xiomara Villareal-gerado, who was associate editor.
“It was a challenge being able to communicate remotely, with sometimes people not responding fast enough on text message or online and we would only meet twice a week for class, which didn’t feel like enough, but the support Dr. Max Branscomb and our assistant adviser Kenneth Pagano really encouraged us to keep going,” she said.
Staff members covered a wide range of topics last year, ranging from how the pandemic led to a 14 percent decline in student enrollment to profiles of student mothers who balanced motherhood and their education.
The stories they told about living during a pandemic were also ones the student writers could easily relate to.
“It wasn’t easy to juggle everything going on,” said Camila Alejandra Gonzalez, a binational student and The Sun editor who traveled to and from Chula Vista from Rosarito, Mexico. “The commute coming to the states is a gamble. I could be waiting 15 minutes to four hours and that cuts down on editing a paper or covering something.”
Last year, Gonzalez covered migration challenges Haitians faced in Tijuana. Woock recalls her coverage of one of the deadliest crashes in the border area that claimed 13 lives in March 2021. Students also covered the ongoing Tijuana River sewage issue, gun violence and lawsuits that were filed that year against the college.
tammy.murga@sduniontribune.com