Newspaper nominated for national award

The Saratoga Falcon has been nominated for the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) Pacemaker award in the category for newspapers of 17 or more pages. It was the second time the newspaper had received this nomination in the past 14 years.

“It was a complete surprise and honor to find out [about the nomination],” said former editor-in-chief Shannon Galvin, who graduated from the school last spring. “For whatever reason, we’ve rarely been able to get that honor, so we weren’t really expecting to.”

More than 300 entries were made into this competition, which had five separate categories for newspapers of eight or fewer pages, newspapers of nine to 16 pages, newspapers of 17 or more pages, news-magazines and middle school newspapers. A dozen newspapers received nominations in the 17 pages or more category. Other local schools to receive nominations include Palo Alto High’s Campanile in the nine to 16 pages category and Monta Vista High’s El Estoque in the 17 pages or more category.

The last time the Falcon received a Pacemaker nomination was for the 2005-2006 school year.

Over the years, The Falcon has enjoyed more luck in the other major national competition for high school newspapers, Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Crown Awards, receiving six awards since 2003.

Falcon adviser Mike Tyler also felt surprised by this year’s Pacemaker nomination.

“I didn’t expect to do very well because there have been years where I think the newspaper is really strong and doesn’t get a nomination,” he said. “So it’s just one [competition] I automatically don’t put much hope into. To be a finalist is a great honor.”

Galvin and former editor-in-chief Uttara Sivaram sent many issues of the school newspaper to many student press organizations for judging in June, including the October 2010 issue, which featured last year’s win against Los Gatos in football.

“I think our coverage of the win over Los Gatos was a great display of our strengths as a paper,” Galvin said.

Galvin looked at former Pacemaker winners when redesigning the look of the newspaper last school year.

“I think the redesign helped give us the added boost to put us in the running because it made the paper look more modern and easy-to-read,” she said.

Newspapers were judged on aspects such as content quality, layout, depth of reporting, photos and art.

Tyler feels proud for the staff, especially the seniors who led the staff last year. Competition for publication awards can be very tough because newspaper staffs must go against the best schools from across the nation and not many publications win.

“For newspaper, it’s exciting for an issue to come out, and and you feel proud, but there’s rarely ever recognition for it,” he said. “It’s nice for the students to receive a pat on the back once in a while from an outside entity saying, ‘You’re doing a good job. This is high quality work.’”

Final results of this competition will be announced in at NSPA’s Fall National High School Journalism Convention in Minneapolis from Nov. 17-20.

To see a complete list of Pacemaker award nominees, visit http://studentpress.org/nspa/winners/npm11.html