NSPA Pacemaker awards announced via livestream, journalism professionals applaud student efforts

The results are in…The Feather Online is a recipient of a 2020 Online Pacemaker from the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), April 17! The Feather earns a spot as a top online high school newspaper.

Out of the 28 finalists recognized across the country, The Feather is one out of 16 schools, only two in California, to receive this prestigious NSPA award.

Only 185 schools and their digital newspapers qualified from 30 states for the annual competition.

This is the seventh Online Pacemaker for The Feather since its first in 2005/2006. Due to COVID-19 and the cancellation of the spring awards conference in Nashville, TN, the ceremony was streamed online from Minneapolis, MN.

The NSPA is also a critique service that is available to its over 1,500 member publications of which The Feather belongs and uses to help improve its media site and journalists’ abilities.

The NSPA, serving and helping scholastic publications since 1921, presents scholastic journalism’s “Pulitzer prize”, awards the Pacemaker in five different categories: online, magazine, newspaper, yearbook and broadcasting. Each entry is judged by a team of professionals on coverage, content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership, design, photography and graphics, according to NSPA.

In the following tweet, NSPA congratulates the 2020 Pacemaker Award and Best of Show winners.

CONGRATULATIONS to our spring 2020 Pacemaker Award winners and Best of Show winners! https://t.co/8nMcA0JcVE pic.twitter.com/Cpzxjm25YB

— NSPA (@NSPA) April 17, 2020

The Feather, which has a staff of 33 and from a high school of only 220 students, competes against all high schools in the United States and from other countries for an Online Pacemaker, regardless of school size or division. Many schools have students from over 3,500 students and hundreds in journalism classes. The Feather is co-advised by Greg Stobbe and Kori Friesen. The digital multimedia newspaper daily publishes from the first day of school through graduation each year.

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The last time The Feather won an Online Pacemaker was in 2016 but was a finalist in 2018. The digital version began its inauspicious start in October 2001. For more, visit The Feather’s About Us or Achievement pages.

The online streaming of the Pacemaker finalists and winners commenced with a message from NSPA executive director Laura Widmer who applauded and congratulated the 2019-2020 student journalists and their accomplishments, despite the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The NSPA also promoted the 2020 Online Pacemakers on their Facebook page. If viewers missed the live streaming, the 2020 NSPA Spring Awards Ceremony is available for viewing on Vimeo.

After “Professional Shoutouts” from author of The Radical Write Bobby Hawthorne, executive director of Student Press Law Center Hadar Harris and journalist at CNN Lisa Ling, Gary Lundgren, associate director of NSPA, hopped on the screen to share the Pacemaker finalists.

Harris, previously interviewed by junior journalist Faith Monroy for Student Press Freedom Day, shared her gratitude for being able to congratulate the journalists present on the online streaming.

“These are hard times and the reporting you’re doing is under very difficult circumstances,” Harris said. “We know though that your work is essential and is incredibly important in creating a historical record of this moment in time. We’re proud to be able to support you, we’re proud to be able to recognize you and we want to congratulate you for the brave work that you are doing.”

The finalist list was followed by commendation from activist Mary Beth Tinker,  Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District,  ESPN reporter Ohm Youngmisuk, photojournalist John Moore of Getty Images and a columnist for The Washington Post, John Kelly.

Editor-in-chief of The Feather, Vijay Stephen, ’21, explains how he feels the Pacemaker denotes the Feather staff’s hard work during throughout the year. Stephen shares his excitement about helping to continue the Feather’s legacy as a an award-winning news source.

“I was kind of shocked that The Feather won the Pacemaker,” Stephen said. “I wasn’t really expecting it. The Pacemaker is a testament and product of the Feather team’s late nights, early mornings, work ethic and continuous dedication to an organization that has been going on for a while, and will hopefully continue far into the future. I understand the exhausted feeling that I’m sure a lot of the team has, but hopefully they see this and realize that it’s worth it.”

The professional comments concluded with words of praise from ESPN senior writer Marc Spears, Catherine Kuhlmeier from Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, news anchor for NBC News Paul Gerke and a journalism professor at Bethel University, Scott Winter. The words from these full-time journalists were welcomed in the list of Pacemaker award-winners.

Online Pacemaker winners for 2020:

The Feather Online – Fresno Christian High School (Fresno, CA)

Mill Valley News – Mill Valley High School (Shawnee, KS)

Coppell Student Media – Coppell High School (Coppell, TX)

Wayland Student Press Network – Wayland High School (Wayland, MA)

HiLite – Carmel High School (Carmel, IN)

Knight Errant – Benilde-St. Margaret’s School (St. Louis Park, MN)

The Harbinger – Shawnee Mission East High School (Prairie Village, KS)

U-High Midway – University of Chicago Laboratory High School (Chicago, IL)

Wingspan – Liberty High School (Frisco, TX)

Echo – St. Louis Park High School (St. Louis Park, MN)

The Shield – McCallum High School (Austin, TX)

The Kirkwood Call – Kirkwood High School (Kirkwood, MO)

Rubicon Online – St. Paul Academy and Summit School (St. Paul, MN)

The Hawkeye – Mountlake Terrace High School (Mountlake Terrace, WA)

Southwest Shadow – Southwest Career and Technical Academy (Las Vegas, NV)

Scot Scoop – Carlmont High School (Belmont, CA)

Of these 16 2020 NSPA Online Pacemaker winners, only two are unique, independent websites: The Feather Online and The Harbinger. The other 14 are hosted and originally created by SNOsites.com. Then the templates are customized by the individual newspaper staffs. The SNOsites.com website is a proven successful way to get online high school newspapers off the ground.

The Feather’s design is original based on a summer of 2015 redo and design by Feather advisers and continues to be updated and tweaked as a labor of love on a custom WordPress platform. The new Feather site debuted Sept. 28, 2015.

The Feather Online congratulates its fellow Pacemaker winners and thanks to NSPA for their continued support of scholastic journalism and the honor they bestowed on a small Fresno digital only newspaper. As the school year persists at home, The Feather staff strives to continue informing and engaging with the community through news articles and social media posts.

For more articles, read Feather a 2020 NSPA Online Pacemaker winner by Avery Jones, BLOG: Amateur rocket launch and NSPA’s online panel shares advice for editorial leadership during COVID-19.

Addison Schultz can be reached via email and via Twitter @SchultzAddison.