Yellow Jacket Applause
Waynesburg University’s student-run newspaper, The Yellow Jacket, recently received word that it earned eight awards from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association (PNA), for work published in the 2017 calendar year.
The PNA is a nonprofit trade association for print and online media in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Each year, student and professional journalists are given the opportunity to submit entries for the Keystone Press Awards, in categories including general news, profile and feature writing and photography, among others.
Staff members and alumni from The Yellow Jacket won a total of eight awards in the Division II category, for four-year colleges and universities with enrollment under 10,000. This is four more awards than the publication received from the organization last year, which had been a record-breaking year.
“This is a moment that I have been waiting for from the moment I first sat in my executive editor chair this past August,” said Mattie Winowitch, junior journalism major and executive editor of the Yellow Jacket. “And to be able to say that I helped lead my staff to accomplish this difficult and amazing feat is more than I could ever ask for.”
Winowitch attributes the success to the hard work of staff members and the leadership of The Yellow Jacket advisors. The newspaper has a longstanding reputation for being professionally recognized-winning four awards from PNA and 11 from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2017.
Sarah Bell, academic communications coordinator and one of The Yellow Jacket advisers, said, “I am incredibly proud of The Yellow Jacket staff for all of their work this year. Winning a record-breaking eight PNA Keystone Press Awards is a reflection of how dedicated and multi-talented the newspaper staff is. Being selected to receive awards in a range of categories — from featuring writing and sports to photography and layout — speaks volumes to the quality of student journalism at The Yellow Jacket.”