By Courtney Elisech
The Delta Collegiate won 19 awards and honorable mentions at the 2023 Michigan Community College Press Association Conference on April 1. That includes a second-place tie for the General Excellence category, and Page Design Editor, Misty Barron winning the Janet Nellis Mendler Student Journalist of the Year.
Barron also won second place for First Amendment Reporting for an article on book banning in Michigan. She also accepted the second place award for Overall Newspaper Design.
For their coverage of the Rocky Horror Picture Show Heather Kittle and Courtney Elisech won first place for Multimedia Reporting. Kittle also won awards for her role as Head of Videography with the video team which includes Vincent Khan and Kathryn Nickell.
The video team won first place in the Best Blog category for their weekly (WO)man on the Street video blog. The Delta Beat is a biweekly news broadcast from the Delta Collegiate that won second place in the Video Production category. The video team also won in the Humor category for their (WO)man on the Street episode about Black History Month. Each member of the video team received awards for their work.
Nickell was also awarded third place in the Personality Profile for her work with a local man who struggles with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Khan received an honorable mention in the Sports News Reporting category about a Delta basketball game. Khan and Elisech received honorable mention for First Amendment Reporting of their coverage of the abortion forum at Delta.
In addition to the first place award in the Multimedia Reporting category and honorable mention in the First Amendment Reporting, Elisech won second place in the Personality Profile category for her piece on an author who found success in the Covid-19 pandemic. Elisech is the current Editor-in-Chief for the Delta Collegiate.
Noah Brasseur received second place in the In-Depth Enterprise Reporting for his coverage of the purposed Michigan coast-to-coast railroad project. Onnie Stone received an honorable mention in the News Photo category for a photo of Lt. Gov. Gilchrist’s visit to campus.
Logan Fairchild worked with the Delta Collegiate in the Fall of 2022 and was awarded first place in the Serious Column category for his piece on the importance of transgender awareness. Sesa Graham was acting Editor-in-Chief in the winter of 2022 before working as an Editorial Consultant in the fall and received second place in the Feature Story category for her reporting on mental health.
A student submission by Emily Doyle received honorable mentions in the Critical Review category for their reporting on the Temple Theatre in Saginaw. As a team, the Collegiate received honorable mentions for the Editorial piece on a four-day workweek.
Videography by Kathryn Nickell, Edited by Heather Kittle
The conference was held in person for the first time since 2019 at Central Michigan University. Ten Community Colleges participated in the conference are as follows: Lansing Community College, Schoolcraft Community College, Grand Rapids Community College, Kellog Community College, Monroe Community College, Henry Ford College, Muskegon Community College, Northwestern Michigan College, Delta College, and Washtenaw Community College.
Keynote speaker Julie Stafford shared what she has learned from her years in the business from small-town reporting to waiting hours to meet the Pope. Those who attended the conference were able to attend break-out sessions with different speakers who have excelled in the world of journalism. Four speakers were present, and each guest could choose two of them to learn from.
2017 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Jake May, was among the speakers who shared his experiences about using heart and empathy to create powerful photojournalism. Rachel Esterline Perkins shared stories from her 15 years as a communication and marketing professional and talked about how to properly share stories and engage online using social media. Kirkland Crawford is a sports editor at the Detroit Free Press and spoke on how to cover sports in the digital age. Senior news leader for MLive Media Group, Leanne Smith, shared tips on how to get a job in journalism and how to be a good, nosey reporter in an informal talk.
