The Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) announced this week the winners of its top awards for scholastic publications. Of the 1,100 digital, print newspapers, magazines and yearbooks submitted, the Kinkaid Falcon was named as one of 15 Scholastic Gold winners for print news. The newspaper staff submitted five of their six issues from 2016-2017 to be judged by CSPA.
Publications are judged on their excellence as showing by their design, photography, concept , coverage and writing. Co-Editor & Chief of this year's paper, Arman Badrei '18 believes it has been a multi-year process that has led to receiving this recognition.
"I think definitely the impact Ms. Yim left and the style that she started her first year, which was our freshman year, has stuck with us. The mentality of raising the bar of writing and design has been important," Badrei says.
Distributed a few times a year, the Kinkaid Falcon covers a wide range of topics including happenings in and around the school, politics, pop culture and often tackling hot button social issues. Enthusiastically hand delivering copies hot off the press to their fellow students and faculty throughout campus, the staff takes pride in facilitating engaging conversations through their publication.
"Yes we're the voice of the students, but I also think it's bigger than that. We're the voice of Kinkaid," says Co-Editor Allison Favaloro '18. "When people come in and see our school, there's newspapers everywhere that they can pick up and look at...that's one of the first things they see and I think that's really impactful".
With the school year coming to a close, the editors and staff are looking to finish the year strong and hope to continue their new standard of excellence for years to come.
"I think (our goal) would definitely be to win the same awards. I think that bar has been set and we hope to reach it. I think more concretely, I want to see the quality of writing continue to be elevated so that it's more captivating storytelling," says Badrei.
Congratulations team!