Cedars Wins Ohio’s Top College News Award for 9th Straight Year

Cedars recently won the Frank E. Deaner Award for Excellence in Collegiate Journalism for the ninth straight year in the Ohio News Media Association’s annual contest.

The Deaner Award goes to the student publication and website that accumulates the most points in the contest’s 11 categories. Cedars was the winner in Division B, which consists of schools with enrollments under 10,000. Cedars accumulated 93 points by placing first in five categories, second in four categories and third in one category. Findlay was second with 47 points and Xavier was third with 42.

Cedars won the following awards:

• News coverage: First place for overall news coverage under the direction of editor-in-chief Tim Miller. The judges said, “Excellent mix of news and lifestyle/campus life.
  Consistently great use of graphics to enhance the news report.”
• Sports coverage: First place for overall sports coverage under the direction of sports editor Tim Miller.
• Headline writing: First and third place. The first-place award went to “Deciphering the Deterioration of Democracy.” The judges said, “Nice alliteration without being punny; good strong words.” The third-place award went to “When Global Outreach Goes Local.” The judges said, “The headline nicely ties global with local, and the drop head continues the theme.”
• Best multi-media package: First place for coverage of the men’s basketball exhibition game at Ohio State: Jacob Bentley and Abigail Hintz for their video report and Carrie Bergan for her photo report.
• Best website: ReadCedars.com is a mix of online-only stories and stories that appear in the Cedars print editions, plus multimedia elements.
• Arts and entertainment: Second place for the combination of two stories by Madeleine Mosher about worship major Noah Ayers and the jazz band and a story by Josh Stevens about Brandon Slifer. The judges said, “Nice stories. Good length. Strong photos. Perfect quotes.”
• Opinion writing: Second place for Alex Hentschel’s Just Sayin’ column.
• Design: Second place for page design of Cedars’ print editions. The judges said, “I like the use of images and art with the stories. Design makes everything easy to read and follow.”
• Coronavirus coverage: Second place for this first-time category. Stories covered the suspension of in-person classes by Tim Miller, the cancellation of spring sports by Abigail Hintz, students unable to return to China by Michael Cleverley, the announcement that the school year will finish online by Tim Miller, a COVID-19 timeline by Chris Karenbauer and Michael Cleverley, and a nursing grad serving at a field hospital in New York by Madeleine Mosher. The judges said, “The stories that mattered and impacted students the most were well done. Consistent topics and good writers kept bringing this grouping to the top.”