The Santa Monica College (SMC) student-run media outlet The Corsair has won several awards from the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) in its Clips & Clicks contest which featured work produced in the Fall 2023 semester. There were 561 submissions from ACP members nationwide. The Corsair and its photojournalists brought home several awards, including two individual first-place awards and a fifth place tie for “Fall 2023 Leader”—top winners from the fall competition—alongside The Daily of University of Washington.
The complete list of Corsair wins is as follows:
· First Place, Newspaper Page/Spread: Caylo Seals for “Gone AWOL: Living in an RV Dwelling in Los Angeles”
· First Place, News Photo: Danniel Sumarkho for “Inkwell Beach Clean up”
· Third Place, Feature Photo: Caylo Seals for “Rebecca Dannenbaum: Seven Years Living in an RV in Los Angeles”
· Honorable Mention, Sports Photo: Caylo Seals for “Failed catch in endzone between rivals USC and UCLA”
· Fifth Place, Fall 2023 Leaders, The Corsair (tie with The Daily of University of Washington)
· Fifth Place, Design, Newspaper Front Page: Elizabeth Bacher, Victor Chambers, Danniel Sumarkho for Living in Community
“The important thing about these wins is that our students, who only have a few semesters of photojournalism experience under their belt, are besting peers from major four-year journalism programs!” said Gerard Burkhart, Corsair photojournalism adviser. “I am in continuing awe of their professionalism and dedication to craft.
“You can really see the passion and dedication of the student journalists in the SMC Corsair newsroom. They treat it as a calling, a vocation, and not just a class,” said Corsair adviser Sharyn Obsatz. “It’s inspiring to watch them work and to see their efforts recognized by these awards.”
The Corsair advising team includes professors Gerard Burkhart, Sharyn Obsatz, and Samantha Nuñez.
The Corsair staff produces a bi-weekly newspaper in the spring and fall semesters, currently available on issuu.com/corsair.website, online at thecorsaironline.com. Follow The Corsair on Instagram @corsairnews. Learn more about Santa Monica College’s journalism program—including an Associate of Arts for Transfer in Journalism, and an Associate of Arts in Journalism (Multimedia Storytelling)—at smc.edu/journalism.
Associated Collegiate Press, with more than 570 members, is a national community of collegiate journalists and collegiate-journalism advisers. Associated Collegiate Press provides journalism education services to students, teachers, media advisers and others throughout the United States and in other countries. A division of National Scholastic Press Association, founded in 1921, ACP is based and incorporated in Minnesota as a non-profit educational association. Learn more at studentpress.org/acp.
