The Tower named a top student newspaper in New Jersey

Published by May 9, 2018 | By Tower Staff

For the third consecutive year, The Tower, Kean University’s independent, student news organization, has been recognized as one of the top three college newspapers in New Jersey, public or private.

The New Jersey Collegiate Press Association (NJCPA) gave The Tower third place honors for General Excellence, the most coveted category in the annual competition.

The judges are professional journalists, and according to the NJPA website, grant awards “only when they believe that special recognition is warranted.”

The 2017-2018 award “honors the skills of (college) student staff members in journalistic writing, photography and design.“ The award names The Tower staff and Rose Marie Kitchen, editor of the spring 2017 issue that was recognized. Kitchen is a 2017 Communication/Journalism graduate.

Second place went to Seton Hall University’s The Setonian. Rider University’s, The Rider News, took home first place.

This year’s award comes on the heels of second place honors for general excellence in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017, consecutively.

“This award is another well-deserved feather in The Tower’s cap,” said Professor Lois DeSocio, who is the paper’s co-adviser with Prof. Pat Winters Lauro, journalism director in Kean’s School of Communication, Media & Journalism. “We have limited resources and compete against universities such as Rutgers and Princeton, so to consistently win, especially for general excellence, is quite an accomplishment.”

Rebecca Panico, a 2017 Communication/Journalism graduate and 2016-17 Tower editor-in-chief, won The Tower additional honors with two individual awards.

Panico won second place for Investigative/Enterprise reporting – a first for Kean —

for her coverage of alleged institutional racism culminating in a story headlined, “Nearly one year later, no review of Kean’s internal discrimination report.”

First place went to Princeton University’s Daily Princetonian for a piece called “Elite degrees, but at what cost?”

Panico’s article, “Formerly homeless student’s story reveals hidden group on college campuses,” about a once-homeless college student and the aid he received at Kean, especially by Dr. Norma Bowe, placed second for Feature Writing. First place went to St. Peter’s University, The Pauw Wow, for a story headlined, “IG Baddies Trend Sparks New Looks on Campus.”

In separate news, Panico earlier this spring was awarded second-place as “Rookie of the Year” by the New Jersey Press Association for her work on the Union News Daily, where she is now a full-time reporter.

The awards luncheon took place Saturday, April 14, at the Courtyard Marriott in Cranbury, N.J.

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