Kelly Taylor

Daily Egyptian

The DAILY EGYPTIAN has been nominated for the Associated College Press’ coveted college journalism award for the second consecutive year.

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Last year, the DE was nominated for the Pacemaker award, and in 2002 the DE won the award for the first time. Manjunath Pendakur, dean of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, said the nomination demonstrates the hard work of the DE as well as the School of Journalism.

“The high standards the faculty set for students in their courses, in a seamless way, goes into the DE newsroom,” Pendakur said.

He said while many universities have newspapers, not many have newspapers that are a direct product of the university’s journalism program. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University have college newspapers not connected with the university’s journalism department, he said. The paper is financially independent from the university, but the journalism school director serves as its fiscal officer.

He also said the nomination gives the newsroom additional credibility.

“It really establishes the fact that the DE has come out of the shadow of the Kodee Kennings hoax,” he said.

In August 2005, the DE discovered it had been the subject of a hoax that had been spun for two years. The complex tale involved a motherless girl named Kodee Kennings whose father was serving in Iraq. The newspaper has since retracted all the stories and columns about Kodee Kennings and apologized to its readers.

Zack Creglow, who served as editor in chief at the time, said the effects of the situation have been positive in the end.

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“It was a huge black eye, but it was a learning experience that can’t be topped,” said Creglow, who now works as a reporter at the Rockford Register-Star.

Creglow said the scandal may have hurt the DE’s reputation in the eyes of some readers, but industry professionals are still aware of the paper’s quality.

The DE will compete against universities in its category, including the University of California-Los Angeles, North Carolina, Harvard, Iowa, Florida State and Eastern Illinois.

The nominees are judged based on aspects including newspaper content and coverage, quality of writing and reporting, design, photography and graphics. Winners will be announced at the Associated Collegiate Press National College Media Convention in St. Louis on Oct. 25-29.

For a list of the nominees, visit http://www.studentpress.org/acp/winners/npm06.html.