Waynesburg University Applause
The staff of Waynesburg University’s Yellow Jacket newspaper has won a national award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
The staff were among national winners for SPJ’s 2016 Mark of Excellence awards, which recognize collegiate work published or broadcast in 2016.
They were named national winner in the in-depth reporting category, small school division for a series of five stories about the local heroin epidemic. The staff included Kimmi Baston, Mattie Winowitch, Teghan Simonton and Anthony Conn.
The team won at the regional level and went on to beat 12 other regional winners who also advanced to the national level.
This is the first-ever national winner for the paper. The Yellow Jacket was one of two universities in Pennsylvania to be national winners in any of the newspaper categories.
The winners will be recognized at the national SPJ conference in September.
According to its website, “For more than 100 years the Society of Professional Journalists has been dedicated to encouraging a climate in which journalism can be practiced more freely and fully, stimulating high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism and perpetuating a free press.”