Award-Winning Journalism at NC

The North Central journalism program has had a recent wave of success the last few weeks. First, on Student Press Freedom Day, the program was awarded its fourth First Amendment Press Freedom Award. The award recognizes schools that celebrate the First Amendment, particularly with student press freedom. The award is presented by the Journalism Education Association.

For the third year in a row, coincidentally the number of the years the award has been offered, NCHS Live! is a finalist for the National Scholastic Press Association’s (NSPA) Innovation Pacemaker. NCHS Live! won the award last year and hope to repeat in 2024.

The Innovation Pacemaker is designed to encourage out-of-the-box thinking and reward student media for the courage to take chances to improve service to their customers, readers and communities.

“Student media is rapidly changing and top programs are finding innovative ways to deliver content to their readers while building unified and converged teams,” associate director for the National Scholastic Press Association, Gary Lundgren said. “Print is now just one component — there is far more to a successful student media program than publishing the campus newspaper and yearbook.”

“The Pacemaker is the association’s preeminent award,” Executive Director Laura Widmer said. “NSPA is honored to recognize the best of the best.”

Finally, the Indiana High School Press Association recently named North Central senior Salsabil Qaddoura the state’s High School Journalism Student of the Year. She now moves on to the national competition representing Indiana. Qaddoura is the fifth North Central student to earn this recognition.