The Renegade Rip, Bakersfield College’s student newspaper, added two more general excellence awards and earned 16 individual awards at the Southern California Journalism Association of Community Colleges Conference Oct. 23-24 at Cal State-Fullerton.
The Rip earned general excellence for its print publication and for its online edition, which can be accessed at therip.com. To earn general excellence, print and online publications must achieve a certain amount of points based on judging by professional journalists.
In individual categories, Rip staff members won 12 awards in the mail-in category, which consists of content from the 2008-2009 school year. Each school is allowed two entries per category, and there are usually more than 60 entries per category.
Photographer John Ornelas won two first-place awards – one for news photo and another for sports feature. He also placed fourth in feature photo. In another photo category, Gregory D. Cook, the Rip’s photo editor this semester, placed fourth for sports action.
Kelly Ardis, this semester’s features editor, placed second in critical review and earned an honorable mention for news story.
Leia Minch, this semester’s editor in chief, and Gabino Vega Rosario, last semester’s editor in chief, placed second for front-page layout broadsheet.
Minch and David Karnowski, this semester’s online editor, earned an honorable mention in the photo-story essay category.
Liz Clarke, who last semester became the first student on The Rip to regularly produce multimedia news stories on the Rip’s Web site, won honorable mentions for broadcast video journalism and online photo essay.
Four students earned awards in on-the-spot competition at the conference. For each category, 40 to 50 students from various colleges cover an event and produce content immediately after the event.
Ornelas earned an honorable mention for feature photo, and Ardis won an honorable mention for feature story. Reporter Graham C. Wheat, in his first semester on The Rip, earned an honorable mention for broadcast news writing. Photographer Kristina Gamez, also on The Rip for the first time, earned an honorable mention for editorial cartoon. More than 30 community colleges and 400 students from the Southern California region attended the conference, which offered workshops, seminars and contests.