By Timothy Guy
By Timothy Guy
With a total of 16 awards, Riverside City College’s Viewpoints and Inland Valley News students made their strongest showing to date at the Society of Professional Journalists annual Southern California Excellence in Journalism Awards ceremony.
The event, which was held on May 13 at the Riverside Marriott, included winners from such professional newspapers as The Press-Enterprise and the Sun.
Viewpoints won a total of 11 awards in the student categories, one of those being third place overall in the Best Newspaper contest.
In the Best Page Layout contest Viewpoints editor in chief Joshua Duran won three awards: first place for his design for the review of the movie “Sin City,” second place for an Academy Awards preview page and honorable mention for the design of the review for the movie “The Corpse Bride.”
Former Viewpoints photographer Mike Lewis won three awards for his photography. He took home first place in the Feature Photo competition for a photo of the Adams go-kart track and third place for a photo of the UC Riverside Space Day event. He also won second place in the Sports Photo category.
Former artist Liston Morris won two awards for editorial cartoons, including first place for a cartoon about book prices on campus and second place for a cartoon on global warming.
Viewpoints also came away with awards for writing.
Former entertainment editor Erin Tobin won third place in the Best Editorial category for a story about student apathy toward voting at RCC entitled “Apathy or Laziness.” Vanessa Overbeck, former Viewpoints news editor, won third place in the Best Sports Story category for a story about the RCC women’s fastpitch team’s 2005 season.
Duran was excited about the strong showing that Viewpoints had.
“The staff of this paper works extremely hard, so to be recognized by professional journalists is a huge honor for us,” he said.
RCC’s television show Inland Valley News came away with a total of five awards.
Inland Valley News field producer Marina Kochan won first place for her television news story about stem cells, and news anchor Diana Thornhill won second place for her television news story entitled “Baby Friendly.”
Inland Valley News producer J Baker won third place for her television news story entitled “Go Red.”
Baker also won third place for a television features story with former Inland Valley News reporter Sarah Haney for a story entitled “Fant-a-Shes.”
“It felt good to win third place at the 2005 Southern California Excellence in Journalism Awards, but not as great as it was to be able to see old friends and make new acquaintances,” Baker said. “Each of the four nominees from our class won a placement. So it was great because it goes to show just how much RCC’s Telecommunications and Journalism program really teaches us the industry standards.”
Viewpoints and Inland Valley News adviser Allan Lovelace was pleased with the student’s showing at the awards.
“This is by far our best showing yet,” he said. “It was a wonderful opportunity for our students to network with our graduates who were there to accept awards, too.”