Chanticleer Wins Six Pinnacle Awards at Annual College Media Association Conference

11/13/2024

By Brett Buckner  

The Chanticleer, Jacksonville State University's student newspaper, was recognized during the annual College Media Association's (CMA) conference by winning six Pinnacle Awards, including Website of the Year (standalone). According to the CMA, the Pinnacle Awards honor "the best college media organizations and individual work." According to the CMA, the Website of the Year award "recognizes excellence in overall coverage, content and content delivery, design, reporting, writing and editing, multimedia, special projects, cross-platform integration, service to the campus community and interactivity."  

The award is representative of a team effort put forth by the entire 2023-2024 Chanticleer staff, said Editor in Chief Madeline Ricard. "They worked their butts off," she said. "They were doing a great job of looking at every area of campus, whether it was news, features, or sports, and they wrote about it. I'm proud of the work that they did, and I think this award is a good reflection of everything that they covered and everything that they focused on."  

As proud as Ricard is that the Chanticleer staff to have been recognized, awards aren't what motivate them. "It's always an honor to be recognized for the work that we do, but ultimately our goal as journalists is to inform those who are reading our stories," she said. "We are here to serve the general population, whether that's Jax State students, alumni, faculty, or members of the community. And we never really want to make awards our main priority."  

In an era that's essentially moved on from traditional physical media, creating an engaging online presence for newspapers is a necessity. Winning Website of the Year proves that the Chanticleer staff appreciates what their readers want, said Ben Cunningham, director of student media. "We expect stories to be a quicker read for a digital audience," he said. "The Chanticleer used to be a weekly newspaper, and even in the early- and mid-2000s, it was hard to get students to think about news as something that should be communicated quickly. So, now they're no longer married to this weekly print publication schedule. If a story breaks, they jump on it and tell it to the audience right away. They've adapted to that idea really, really well."  

The Chanticleer also won second place in Best Feature Story for Anna Barrett's article on Jax State Housekeepers, and honorable mention in Best Game Story for Maddie Reid's article on Jax State Baseball player Caleb Johnson's grand slam in February. Ricard won an honorable mention in Best Profile for her story on Jax State Director of Bands Ken Bodiford. "We spend a lot of time in the classroom trying to teach students the skills they need to serve a community by asking good questions and getting answers that everyone needs," Cunningham said. "It's really nice to see that work pay off when the students ask those questions and get those answers and do a good job of publishing it all on a well-designed website to make sure the audience knows about those stories."  

The Chanticleer and WLJS 91.9 FM, Jax State's student radio station, won two second-place Pinnacle Awards and four honorable mentions. WLJS was awarded second place for Best Audio Newscast for Tanner Kughn's Cocky Talk segments and honorable mention in Best Sports Newscast for Hayden Coker's weekly show, "The Afternoon Slate." Current Program Director Aidan Cathey, 2023-24 Program Director Katie Cushing, and 2023-24 Music Director Cassie Peterson created a promo called "50K for 50 Years" that won honorable mention in Best Audio Promo/PSA. 

(L-R): Sports Editor Austin Tackett, Editor-in-chief Madeline Ricard, former Features Editor Maddie Reid, News Editor Lindsey Frazier and former News Editor Anna Barrett. (Former Sports Editor Justin Travis, who joined in a video call, is also pictured.)