For the third year in a row, Coral Reef Senior High School has received honors from Columbia Scholastic Press Association for its outstanding literary magazine, “Elysium.” In the first of four announcements of Crown Finalists for 2017 Awards, “Elysium” received the highly prestigious Crown Award recognition.
Forty-two print magazines and 15 hybrid magazines were chosen by CSPA as finalists for the Crown Awards and will be recognized in March 2017 at ceremonies in New York City. The magazines were published during the 2015-16 academic year. Last year’s “Elysium” Editor-in-Chief Michael Gordon, now attending Williams College, will join Amy Scott, publication sponsor, in accepting the award.
Crown Awards honor top student publications chosen from CSPA’s members and are selected for overall excellence in a head-to-head comparison. Student publishing in news, magazine, yearbook or digital (online) formats are eligible. During Crown consideration, publications are judged on their excellence in design, photography, concept, coverage, and writing. A total of 1,100 publications were eligible this year for the competition.
Crown Finalists are actual winners – not nominees. Some will be designated as Gold Crowns; the rest receive honors as Silver Crowns. Final results are announced and presented at the CSPA ceremonies in March.
The CSPA offers three annual competitions to honor excellence in student publishing: Medalist Critiques for written evaluation, Crown Awards for overall excellence, and Gold Circle Awards for individual student recognition.
Medalist Critiques are released on a rolling basis as completed, while Crown Awards and Gold Circles are judged following seasonal deadlines in June and October. For example, Gold Circle Awards for news and magazines were released Sept. 23 while yearbook and digital entries for individual Gold Circle Awards are not due until a final deadline of Oct. Their judging and release will be completed in February.
“We’ve changed the timing of our Crown Awards judging,” said Edmund Sullivan, CSPA’s executive director. “Magazines were judged first, to be followed by print and hybrid newspapers, then yearbooks in October and finally, digital (online) news sites in November.” Announcements of Finalists will follow each judging with the full list complete by mid-November.
The Crown Awards require a different judging process from the CSPA’s Medalist Critiques. Regular CSPA members are invited to submit a second copy of their publication for Crown judging. From among those entries submitted, the Crown Awards are considered at Columbia by panels of invited judges, working in small groups to review each publication.
Crown Awards summarize overall excellence in the entire publication while Medalist Critiques compare each publication against a printed set of standards. In contrast, Medalist Critiques are the work of a single adviser-judge.
Get a complete list of winners at: http://cspa.columbia.edu/magazine-2017-crown-finalists-announced
