The Columbia Chronicle swept the Illinois College Press Association journalism awards this year, winning top honors as the best student media outlet in the state for mid-sized schools.
ICPA awarded the Chronicle first place for general excellence for web for a third consecutive year.
In total, the Chronicle and its staff won 33 awards, including 10 for first place.
“I’m so incredibly proud of the team,” said Editor-in-Chief Doreen Abril Albuerne-Rodriguez, a senior journalism major who is leading the paper this semester.
Albuerne-Rodriguez also won two individual awards, third place for headline writing and honorable mention for feature writing for a story about Sin Título, a socially conscious clothing brand that was started in 2020 by three Latina sisters.
“Knowing that the couple stories I wrote for the Chronicle had an impact not only to myself, but also the people reading it pushes me to keep creating and empowering our staff to do the same,” she said.
Deputy Editor Addison Annis won four photography awards and the annual conference’s Ron Wiginton Chicago Photo Contest. It’s the second year that a photojournalist from Columbia College has won the contest. Senior photojournalism major Lukas Katilius won third place in the competition.
Annis won first place for feature and general news photograph, third place for a photo essay from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and honorable mention for sports photo. Senior photojournalism major Kaelah Serrano, who was the Chronicle’s director of photography for the 2024 spring and fall semesters, won a second place award for sports photo and third place award for feature photo.
The Chronicle won in every photography and video category this year even as the college’s photojournalism major was cut in a historic overhaul of academic programs at Columbia. The journalism major is also merging with the communication major in Fall 2025. Broadcast media will be a new minor.
“The Chronicle is a journalism powerhouse in the state. Given all of the challenges at the college right now and the worries about our future as an institution, it’s inspiring to celebrate this kind of excellence,” said Jackie Spinner, faculty advisor for the Chronicle and professor in the School of Communication and Culture. “It shows just how committed the faculty are to showing up every day and continuing to teach excellence. We do it for our students and because we know their potential.”
The awards covered content published from Spring 2024 through the Fall 2024 semesters. Journalism alum Olivia Cohen served as editor-in-chief during the spring semester, and Patience Hurston was editor-in-chief during Summer 2024 and Fall 2024. Hurston, a senior journalism major, is now the paper’s copy chief.
“I’m extremely proud of what we were able to accomplish this past year. We’ve worked tirelessly to provide the Columbia community with the news that most impacts us all, and we do it because we care about our college,” Hurston said. “Being awarded for general excellence is an honor because that means we’re doing something right. Things like these just remind us why student journalism is important. It’s a platform for truth, creativity and the voice of our community. It drives us to continue pushing boundaries and telling stories that matter.”
Cohen, who is currently an energy and environment reporter at The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, returned to Chicago for the conference to moderate a discussion on newsletter engagement with Monica Eng of Axios. Spinner, who was elected second vice president of ICPA at the conference, presented a data journalism session on covering the financial crisis in higher education. Fernando Diaz, bilingual media advisor for the Chronicle, also led a panel discussion on publishing content in Spanish. Joshua Havens, broadcast media technician for the School of Communication and Culture, ran a pop-up booth for student journalists to learn how to use a green screen.
The award-winning entries included a feature by Hurston on Kim Hale, a librarian who was laid off after 35 years because of the college’s financial challenges. Hurston won third place in the feature story category for that story.
The staff of the Chronicle also won first place for editorial pages, and Peyton Reich won third place for an editorial about the loss of the school’s in-person student health center when she was the opinions editor in Fall 2024. Reich, a senior photojournalism major, is now the paper’s director of photography.
The Chronicle also picked up major sports awards. Maya Liquigan won third place for sports news for her exclusive coverage about how Columbia’s sports teams and clubs lost access to the East-West University gym in Fall 2024. She and
Sofía Oyarzún, a bilingual reporter, also won second place in the sports game category for their NASCAR coverage. Oyarzún is a sophomore journalism and marketing double major.
Two of the Chronicle’s podcasts also earned awards, and Ali Brenneman, senior journalism major, won third place in the multimedia category for Chronicle TV.
Chronicle Creative Director Lilly Sundsbak, a sophomore illustration major, won second place with alum Alex Suarez in the front page layout category for the front cover of the Chronicle’s sex issue in February 2024. She also won first place in the feature page design category for her art in the Chronicle’s election issue in October 2024.
“It’s such an honor for me to watch the students consistently show up and produce great journalism day after day,” Spinner said. “The breadth of the awards shows how talented this staff is across disciplines, which is something we’ve been so purposeful about building in the last few years.”
This story has been updated.
Copy edited by Manuel Nocera
