This March, Oracle staff took home two top-10 honors at the largest college media convention in the nation. Sabine Benda received the awards for outstanding News Reporting and Feature Reporting. Benda serves as News Editor at The Oracle and was the lead author on both award-winning pieces. Benda’s article, “Won’t you be their neighbor?” took ninth place nationally for News Reporting and chronicled the effects of repeated evictions on unhoused residents of Camp Nenookaasi in Minneapolis.
The article exemplifies a style of journalism called Solutions Journalism, which platforms how community members solve complex social problems. Senior Max Ridenour contributed to the piece. Benda and Oracle staff also took sixth place in Feature Writing for the article “A reflection on the 20th president of Hamline University, Dr. Fayneese Miller.” The competition was held at the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) Spring Media Convention from March 6-9. It was attended by more than 850 students and advisers from the best journalism programs in the nation.
This is the third consecutive year in which The Oracle has achieved top-ten finishes in the ACP competition. The Oracle has been published by Hamline students since 1888 and is the oldest student newspaper in Minnesota. The paper is funded through the university’s Student Media Board. The Associated Collegiate Press is the largest and oldest national membership organization for college student media in the US.
