Rachel McClurg
Managing Editor
The Butler Lantern and The Grizzly Magazine traveled to Wichita to attend the annual Kansas Collegiate Media (KCM) contest. On Sunday, April 8, and Monday, April 9, at the contest, they had the chance to win a variety of awards for their work.
“The Butler Lantern took home 19 total awards and placed with a bronze award in the overall two year newspaper division,” Editor-in-Chief Tori Lemon said.
Individually, Lemon took home awards in opinion writing, front page design and headline writing.
“This conference has given me the confidence and reassurance that if I set my mind to a goal, I can achieve it no matter what,” Lemon said. “I met with many wonderful journalists. Conferences like this are wonderful for networking and really seeing what kind of resources are out there.”
The Grizzly Magazine was able to take home some awards during their time at the contest as well.
“All of our staff did amazing, and some got first place, second place and third place in their categories,” The Grizzly Magazine staff member Lauren Hugo said. “Our magazine got silver overall, so we are pretty happy about that.”
Aside from winning awards, the journalists were given options of different speakers that they could go and learn from throughout the day. The speakers presented on a variety of topics such as ethical decision-making and basic photography.
“KCM was incredibly helpful in reassuring our staff’s decision to pursue journalism and personally taught me important things like how to be an ethical writer and report news live,” Hugo said.
Since the controversy with some of the Lantern’s stories this semester, the staff was eager to learn about how they could better handle those controversial stories in the future.
“My favorite session to attend was the session over ethics,” Lantern reporter Tyler Krenzin said. “With our recent controversies here at the Lantern, it was interesting to get a look into how professionals look at our situation.”
Not only does this conference provide knowledge on how to be the best journalists that they can, it also gives them the opportunity to put themselves out there and to get ready for what the future has in store.
“Being able to put down on my resume that I have awards to validate my writing will help me further down the line as I try to join the industry,” Krenzin said.
Whether the journalists won awards or did not win awards, the judges of the contest offered feedback for the individual entries submitted by the colleges. This provides a guide for the journalists to improve their writing abilities for next year’s contest.
“I learned that now, more than ever, the world needs good, reliable journalists who are passionate about delivering the truth to their readers,” Lemon said.
