UPDATE: 1-7-14

After returning from a three-week Christmas vacation, The Feather staff received the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) critique, Jan. 6. The critique scored The Feather in the top category, awarding the staff a Gold Medalist rating.

The critique is scored in three different sections: essentials, verbal and visual, with a total of 1,000 points. The essentials category includes the subsections information, coverage and interactivity where The Feather scored 190/200. Verbal incorporates the text within the publication, giving 396/400 points. In the final category, visual, the staff earned 397/400 points for their photography, graphics, typography and multimedia.

With all three sections combined, The Feather staff earned a total of 983/1,000 points, one of the highest scores the publication has ever received. The critique is judged by a group of CSPA judges who decide on a collective score. The Gold Medalist Critique is an additional honor to the Gold Crown Finalist nomination The Feather received in mid-December 2013.

The Feather scored the highest in the verbal category, where the judges praised the publication’s journalistic writing and stories.

“The Feather exemplifies journalistic writing with storytelling quotes, varied story formats, topics that are interesting and important to the reader,” the judges critiqued. “These ideas are the heart of the story. To quote a critic, ‘Good writing uses just the right words to say just the right things.’ That best summarizes the copy on this website.”

Despite such a high score, the judges still offered some suggestions for improvement. In the essentials category, the judges recommended the staff focus on more packaging with news stories.

“Try to do more packaging on the digital site with a news or feature story, editorial, column, blog, Q&A, illustration and could do a news analyses and add multimedia,” the judges critiqued. “News commentary and news analyses would add another dimension to your coverage.”

Overall, the judges gave many praises to the staff while also giving comments for improvements. One of the favored comments includes the judges calling The Feather a ‘must read” site.

“My favorite part of the The Feather is the quality of the storytelling; from the headlines, through the leads, to the quotes,” the judges critiqued. “Just as NBC promotes itself as ‘must see’ TV; The Feather is definitely a ‘must read’ digital site. The Feather doesn’t just meet the standard for journalistic excellence, it raises the bar for all other digital publications.”

Journalism adviser Greg Stobbe is proud of his students and how they have continued to prove excellence in the journalism world.

“I continue to be amazed by the quality and passion the editors and staff of The Feather,” Stobbe said. “Despite a small staff to begin the year, they captured the attention of their peers and quickly integrated them, passing on their excitement for high school journalism.”

Stobbe was impressed by the critique his students received, and he also appreciated the negative comments, looking forward to improvements.

“However, they are not standing pat,” Stobbe continued. “The leaders have poured through the critique and hope to advance the multi-media by adding facets like Storify to help tell stories, which will further advance The Feather reach to both staff and users.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: 12-18-13
BREAKING: CSPA names Feather Crown Finalist

To end the first semester of the 2013-’14 school year, the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) named The Feather a Digital Gold Crown Finalist, Dec. 18.

The Feather is one of 10 online newspapers named to the Digital Publications category as a Gold Crown Finalist nomination. The other nominees include: FHNToday.com, Inklingsnews.com, Lasso Online, Southwestshadow.com, The Foothill Dragon Press, The Pride Online, The Red Ledger, The Rider Online and The Clarion.

With five categories of high school Crown awards ranging from Yearbook to Print to Hybrid, the CSPA awards its top honors to Gold Crown winners, and secondary honors to Silver Crown recipients. The winners will be announced at the 90th annual CSPA spring conference, March 21.

After winning the CSPA’s Gold Crown last year, The Feather staff returned this school year working hard to repeat the win. The Feather saw its winningest year last year with the Gold Crown, Pacemaker Award, Best of Show, All-American and All-Columbian honors.

This year, two-time Editor-in-Chief Tynin Fries has felt more pressure and nerves this year as opposed to last year.

“Last year no one really expected us to win,” Fries said. “But this year people want to see if we can do it all again. It’s very stressful, but this nomination just means we have to work harder to pull off the win.”

Senior Editor, Viviana Hinojosa is grateful for The Feather staff and all the work they have put towards receiving this nomination.

“I am so extremely thankful and proud of my staff and fellow editors,” Hinojosa said. “Everyone on The Feather has worked so hard to get to this spot. Coming off of a successful year last year we were unsure if we could do it again, but this makes me very hopeful.”

A number of staff members and adviser Greg Stobbe are planning a trip to New York City, where they will attend the CSPA conference and await the announcement of Crown awards in mid-March.

For more news, read the Dec. 16 article, BRIEF: Feather staff takes vacation, resumes Jan. 6 .