Accompanied by Senior Lecturer Kelly Furnas, Elon students Anjolina Fantaroni ’26, Nia Bedard ’26, Fiona McAllister ’26 and Sarah Moore ’26 attended the 2024 ACP Spring National College Media Conference in La Jolla, California.
Elon News Network won a slew of awards from the national Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) during the association’s conference held March 7-9 in La Jolla, California.
Elon News Network’s website, www.elonnewsnetwork.com, earned an Online Pacemaker award — the nation’s highest award for a student media website. In addition, ENN won Best of Show awards for news reporting, diversity/equity/inclusion reporting and digital newsletter. The Pendulum, ENN’s student newspaper, also won first place in the People’s Choice Award, voted on by attendees of the national convention.
A full list of award winners is available on ACP’s website. Below is a list of the Elon winners.
Elon winners
Winner – Online Pacemaker / Staff / elonnewsnetwork.com
2nd Place – Best of Show Broadcast News Program / Staff / “Elon Local News,” Nov. 13, 2023
2nd Place – Best of Show Newspaper / Staff / The Pendulum, Feb. 7, 2024
4th Place – Best of Show Website / Staff / elonnewsnetwork.com
1st Place – Best of Show Digital Newsletter / Staff / Elon News Network Weekly Update
1st Place – News Reporting / Sophie Rosenthal / “Alamance-Burlington schools grapple with financial strain after summer mold crisis”
1st Place – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Reporting / Naomi Washington / “‘You’re creating Black history'”
4th Place – Broadcast Feature Story / Betsy Schlehuber / “Taylor Swift Inspired Musician”
4th Place – Broadcast Sports Story / Mason Willett / “High School Athlete Tackles Challenges on and off the Field”
2nd Place – Newspaper/Newsmagazine / Erin Martin / Page 7, Oct. 4, 2023
6th Place – News/Feature Photo / Joseph Navin / Fire in McLeansville
3rd Place – Sports Photo / Katherine Martin / PBR Cowboy Days
1st Place – People’s Choice Award / Staff / The Pendulum, March 6, 2024
In addition to award presentations, the ACP conference included dozens of educational breakout sessions, student roundtables, on-site publication critiques, as well as keynote addresses by Society of Professional Journalists President Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins and Washington Post columnist Jerry Brewer.
Elon University students attending the conference included Anjolina Fantaroni ’26, Nia Bedard ’26, Fiona McAllister ’26 and Sarah Moore ’26. They were accompanied by Senior Lecturer in Journalism Kelly Furnas.
Elon News Network was also celebrated at last month’s North Carolina College Media Association conference, collecting several Best of Show awards.