csceagle.com earns top honors in NCMA Digital Media

The Eagle’s website, csceagle.com, captured first in “Excellence in Digital Medium,” the top award in the digital medium competition of the Nebraska Collegiate Media Association’s Golden Leaf Awards, presented Saturday at the association’s annual conference hosted this year at Chadron State College.

This is the second time in four years csceagle.com took top honors in the Digital Medium division.

The website’s win, coupled with The Eagle’s fifth straight “Best in Overall Excellence” title in the newspaper division, places the staff earning top spots in two of the NCMA’s four media division competitions.

In addition to newspaper and digital medium, NCMA operates competitions in radio and television divisions.

“Hannah Clark, our web editor, worked really hard this last year to improve our website,” The Eagle Managing Editor Jordyn Hulinsky, junior of St. Paul, said. “The rest of the editors used social media and our website more than in the past. So we’re all really excited we won first in Digital Media this year.”

The digital medium division’s competition is broken into 12 individual categories from breaking news stories to use of a digital medium for public service, to emerging platforms, to community collaboration.

Eligible entries must have been posted on the site between March 1, 2014, and Feb. 28 this year.

Students from the NCMA’s seven member schools who competed this year earned points for their respective websites for placing first (5 points), second (3 points) or third (1 point) in each of those 12 categories. Honorable mentions do not earn points. The points each student earns are then totaled to determine which website earns the “Excellence in Digital Medium” title.

The csceagle.com staff submitted 25 entries. Six students scored points in eight of the 12 categories, while the whole staff scored five points for winning first place in the  Community Collaboration category for its coverage of The Big Event in April 2014.

The website earned six first-place awards, worth 30 points; two second-place awards, worth six points; and two third places, worth two points, for a cumulative score of 38 points toward the best overall title. The staff also earned four honorable mentions, bringing its individual award total to 15, plus the best overall title, for a total of 16 awards in the division.

Doanline, Doane College, Crete, finished second in the “Excellence in Digital Medium” category, accumulating 16 points, while and HC Media Online, Hastings College, Hastings, finished third with 15 points.

“I cannot say enough about the quality of work and the dedication of the student staff of The Eagle and csceagle.com,” said Michael D. Kennedy, journalism instructor and adviser of The Eagle and csceagle.com.

Hulinsky garnered the most individual awards with five. Hulinsky teamed up with News Editor Sarah Townsend, junior  of Douglas, Wyoming, to win the Investigative Journalism category.

Hulinsky also entered a solo piece to win the Promotional Content category. She also paired up with former Managing Editor Ashley Swanson, who graduated in December 2014, to finish third in the Emerging Platforms category.

Hulinsky also garnered two honorable mentions – one for a second entry in Promotional Content the other for a team piece written with Lifestyles Editor Janelle Kesterson,  junior of Bridgeport, in the Digital Breaking News Story category.

Kesterson and Townsend co-wrote a different news piece that captured first in the breaking news category.

Swanson, now News Editor at The Clay County News, Sutton, also teamed up with Townsend and the work they produced together took first in the Use of Digital Technology category.

The Eagle’s Opinion Editor Robert “Spike” Jordan, senior of Harrison, earned three awards, first place in the Multimedia Features category, and third place and an honorable mention, both in the Promotional Content category.

Hannah Clark, senior of Littleton, Colorado, and editor of csceagle.com, earned a second-place award in the Use of a Digital Medium for Public Service category. Clark also is a feature writer for The Eagle.

“Hannah has stepped up and embraced her role as our web editor and she does a stellar job,” Kennedy said. “She is a talented writer and editor, and a dedicated leader, committed to excellence in all she does.”   

“It’s an honor to receive the award,” Clark said about csceagle’s first place finish in overall excellence. “But my division, Digital Medium, is never an individual endeavor. The Eagle’s website in particular was a collective effort of not only myself, but of many previous web editors, including Kevin Oleksy who created the original design. My fellow staff members managed social media and assisted in regularly uploading content.”