Following a string of awards won by the staff and individuals, including the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Crown, the members of the Southwest Shadow Staff are enjoying their recognition.
“I definitely feel proud,” Managing Editor Ahmed Ahmed said. “There’s this really intense feeling that, despite the difficulties of handling deadlines and the like, our hard work paid off.”
Notably, Ahmed won the JEA Journalist of the Year award for the state of Nevada and will have the chance to win Journalist of the Year at the national level.
“It’s an honor, to be frank,” Ahmed said. “When you’re a managing editor, there is sort of a profound meaning to getting the award since you oversee every story multiple times to make sure it’s up to the standards of the website.”
With the staff’s current successes, Editor-in-Chief Gurleen Swaich is proud of the staff’s dedication.
“When I first became editor-in-chief, it was scary because of the amount of pressure you have in pacing the new students, making sure there’s quality content, etc so I am extremely proud of the work we have completed,” Swaich said. “Especially after last year, everyone worked so hard and dedicated a lot of time to each and every story and I feel like that’s the reason we won the award. Each staff member is a key component to making our journalism class successful and I hope they continue making progress as the year goes on.”
Swaich believes that with a continued effort that the Southwest Shadow will continue to see success in the next generation of editors, and in any upcoming award this year.
“Of course [the] newspaper will be able to win next year,” Swaich said. “The staff has worked extremely hard to come where they are now. I have seen so much progress and I think all we need to continue to work on is maintaining a good publishing schedule and finding that unique angle that makes our story’s stand out.”
Along with Southwest Shadow, The Howl yearbook has also been nominated as a finalist for the NSPA Yearbook Pacemaker award.
“I think we are all honored to be a finalist for the award because as you know, all of us put our blood sweat and tears into completing every book we make,” editor Angelo Cordero said. “We always want to create the yearbook with as much originality and creativity as possible because we want to be unique. We want to set ourselves apart in a way where we can stand out from others. I think that volume 12 was especially unique to be nominated because we were in online learning. We had to use our resources and push to get content out of a year when we were all at home.”
