Breeze journalists to compete for national SPJ honors

The Breeze won the distinction of being the “Best All-Around Student Newspaper” in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Region 2 recently and will now compete against 11 other newspaper for national honors.

The Breeze received the Corbin Gwaltney Award for Best All-Around Student Newspaper in a region that comprises Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia. 

The newspaper also received a first-place Mark of Excellence award for general news writing for the paper’s coverage of the controversies surrounding a conservative speaker on campus in Spring 2023. That winning entry will now compete nationally, too.

The Breeze and Breeze TV were finalists in several other categories:

• Former editor Charlotte Matherly (’23) was a finalist in the in-depth reporting category for her story about student responses to JMU’s use of online counseling with Timely Care.
  
  
• In Television Feature reporting, Kayla Brown (’24) was a finalist for her story about the Love Like Adam Foundation, which fights hazing on college campuses.

• And a group of students were finalists in the Television In-Depth Reporting category for a story about Generation Z’s history of dealing with gun violence.

The Breeze and Breeze TV competed against students at schools that have student populations of 10,000 or more.

MOE Awards entries are judged by professionals with at least three years of journalism experience. Judges were directed to choose entries they felt were among the best in student journalism.