Bulletin for the Win!

California State University Dominguez Hills has made history in its Communications Department when several journalism students won in the 2020 Excellence in Student Media Competition sponsored by the California College Media Association award.

The awards went to last year's 2019 alumni Alex Graf and Kelsey Reichmann and current Journalism majors, seniors Jordan Darling and Destiny Torres.

The California College Media Association first originated in 2003 when a group of journalism faculty and advisers saw a need for more statewide support for college communications and media programs in California. California has a large number of journalism programs compared to most other states in the United States but no statewide organization. The founders hoped to create an organization to support college journalism students and those who worked with them.

Each year, the CCMA holds annual training workshops for media students on a variety of topics and hosts a competition honoring excellence in college journalism.

"It is always good to be honored or just noticed and recognized by people outside your immediate circle," Bulletin advisor Joel Beers said. "This is the first time that I know of in the last ten years that we have entered any competition, and to get four awards, including four first-place awards, is gratifying for me personally because of the hard work the students put into it."

With more than 15,000 student enrollment, CSUDH's The Bulletin won three first-place awards and one second-place award going up against tough competition, such as UCLA's The Daily Bruin, USC's Daily Trojan, and CSU Fullerton's Daily Titan.

The current Editor-in-Chief of The Bulletin, Jordan Darling, won first place for Best Newspaper Column for her three columns: "For Jami," "People Just Want to Live," and "Left on the Dock: Veteran's Day Links Generations in this family." She has been the only student at CSUDH to be Editor-in-Chief for two semesters for The Bulletin.

"It is satisfying, it is a really validating moment as a journalist because, especially in your senior year, you think about if you made a mistake in choosing the right degree for you," Darling said. "Knowing that my writing is good enough that I was recognized at a statewide level against colleges like UC Berkeley and USC, it is extremely validating."

The moment that she found out that she won the award was when The Bulletin advisor Beers video chatted to congratulate her on her accomplishment with the whole Bulletin staff.

"It was a really good moment and I 100 percent cried when I found out that I won," Darling said.

During Christmas break, Beers and Jordan went through old issues and picked what they believed were the best stories The Bulletin had to offer. One of the stories was written by senior and arts and lifestyle editor, Destiny Torres.

"We submitted about ten stories to the competition," Beers said. "We had best sports story, best investigation story, and best photography, and we won four awards."

Torres, who's been part of the Bulletin for two semesters, is also serving as an editor in her final semester. She won first place for her Best Arts and Entertainment story, "Putting the Corrido in its Proper Perspective."

"I have at least one existential crisis a week, where I am like do I really want to be a journalist?" Torres said. "Do I have the ability to be a writer? So this was insurance for me that I am on the right path." The news was given to her through email and she was in disbelief.

"This is my first time visiting San Francisco and I am getting an award for my work," Torres said about receiving the recognition. "I couldn't be more thrilled."

Beers and Darling also submitted the work of Spring 2019 Editor-in-Chief Kelsey Reichmann, who took second place for Best News Series for her three-part series on tenure, tenure-track, and adjunct faculty. Also, the work of Alex Graf, who was the Managing Editor of Spring 2019, won first place for Best Headline Portfolio.

The 2020 CCMA Contest is broken into three divisions and categories. Division A is the publications at four-year colleges or universities with enrollments of 15,000 students or more, Division B includes publications at four-year colleges or universities with enrollments under 15,000 students, and finally Division C for publications at community colleges.

Some of the categories of the winners include Best News Series, Best Breaking News Story, Best Feature Story, Best Editorial, Best Newspaper Column, Best Arts & Entertainment Story, Best Sports Story, Best News Photograph, Best Sports Photograph, Best Features Photograph, Best Headline Portfolio, Best Series, Best Overall Newspaper Design, Best Newspaper Front Page Design, Best Newspaper Inside Page/Spread Design, Best Infographic, Best Illustration, Best Editorial Cartoon.

The award winners were honored at the CCMA Awards Banquet on Feb. 29, 2020, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco, Calif.

The Bulletin would not be what it is if it wasn't for their students, and it will continue to produce stories that matter. Hopefully, it doesn't take another ten years for our students to get recognized again.