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Montgomery Blair High School's Online Student Newspaper
Tags: print
Nov. 23, 2002

Silver Chips one of top five newspapers in nation

by Annie Peirce, Page Editor and Kevin Chang, Page Editor
The Silver Chips print edition was named a national Pacemaker by the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) on Saturday, Nov 23.

The Pacemaker award, often referred to as the Pulitzer Prize of high school journalism, is given annually to approximately twenty high school newspapers. Silver Chips was one of five schools to win in the "17 or more pages" category this year, along with Walt Whitman High School's Black and White. "We're all ecstatic to receive such an honor," said Editor-in-Chief Stephen Wertheim.

Silver Chips also won second Best of Show in the "21 or more pages" category at the NSPA convention in Dallas, Texas, for its November issue.

More information about the Pacemaker award is available at the NSPA website.

The Pacemaker award, under its current co-sponsorship of NSPA and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, has been awarded since 1971. The NSPA had been giving awards, however, since 1927. The judges, professional journalists in Dallas of the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention, grade newspapers based on coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership on the opinion page, evidence of in-depth reporting, design, photography, and art and graphics.

Pacemakers are selected by the staff of a professional newspaper in the host city of the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention (2001 entries were judged by the Boston Globe).

Silver Chips was one of ten national finalists for the Pacemaker award announced in September. With Black and White and Stinger of Emmaus, PA, Silver Chips was only one of three finalists from the East Coast. For a complete list of the original finalists see here.

Blair's online newspaper, Silver Chips Online, will be judged separately in February and the finalists for the Pacemakers Online Newspaper awards will be announced in March 2003 for a convention on April 10-13 in Portland, OR. The editors in chief, are confident given that Silver Chips Online, according to Yahoo.com, continues to be the most visited high school newspaper in the nation.

The 2001-2002 Silver Chips staff won over 40 awards from the 2002 Maryland Scholastic Press Association Individual Writing and Editing Contest.

Students especially honored:
Senior Stephen Wertheim won five awards: second place in Front-Page Layout and Web Feature Writing as well as first and second place for Web Review and Opinion and an honorable mention for News.
Alumni Elizabeth Green won four awards: second place in the categories of Editorial and Features as well as honorable mentions in the categories of In-Depth Story and Profile.
Senior Eric Shansby won first place in the categories of Newspaper Comic, Editorial Cartoon (and third place), Hand or Computer Generated Illustration.
Alumni Joseph Howley won first place and shared second place with Ben Meiselman for Web News Writing. He also won third place for Web Review and Opinion.
Senior Jessica Stamler won first place in Front Page Layout
Senior Colby Chapman won first place in both Features and Signed Editorial/Column as well as third place for Single Page Inside Layout.

Alumni Katie Jentleson won second place in the Signed Editorial/Column category
Senior Mathew Yalowitz won first place for Web Feature Writing and shared third place with alumni Julia Kay for News.
Senior Tina Peng won second place for Profile.
Senior Jared Sagoff won second place for News.



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Discuss this Article

  • Michael Wilkinson (View Email) on November 24, 2002
    Well done Silver Chips! You definitely deserve this....!

    http://www.informer.org.uk - sister paper of Silver Chips
  • Chris Mulligan (View Email) on November 24, 2002
    I still wish Chips wouldn't post self congradulatory articles. I fully encourage you to made a little banner about it & put it on your awards page, but frankly I think it hurts your paper far more then helps it to pass this kind of thing off as news.
  • congrats chips on November 24, 2002
    why does stephen take the credit? these awards were for last year's paper, and therefore staff
  • Kevin Chang on November 24, 2002
    First, Stephen never tried to take credit, and second, he was on staff last year.
  • mathwinj on November 25, 2002
    Kevin
    Thanks for getting this up so quickly Kevin. Nullea M.
    There were 5 awards given I think. JM
  • L.A. (View Email) on November 25, 2002
    News is news. We're not congradulating ourselves; we are simply letting our readers (and in this case, the world) know that this group of teenagers has what it takes to win a national award. Would it be wrong of us to print that our It's Academic team won the regional competition? Should we not say that Laurel Jefferson is the only Blazer to go to states (correct me if I'm wrong) just because she's on staff? We should be happy for each other's accomplishments, regardless of whose accomplishments they are.

    That being said, we are all thrilled to be given this award. Congrats guys!
  • Stephen Wertheim (View Email) on November 25, 2002
    Kevin,

    You might want to make clear a few things, based on people's reactions. First, the Pacemaker was for last year's paper and the Best in Show was for this last issue. Some sort of indication that the Pacemaker is THE award of awards would also help to explain why we're making a big deal.

    Also, pleeease change my quote since you quoted me when I thought we were speaking casually.

    Here's the genius to replace it with:

    We're all ecstatic to receive such an honor.

    If you'd like, I can say something to that effect tomorrow.

    Thanks as always.

    Stephen
  • Duncan (View Email) on November 26, 2002
    Perhaps Kevin could have included in his article that the Pacemaker award was awarded for last year's Silver Chips perfomance, largely the work of last year's Senior Staff. Or perhaps Steven could have been gracious enough to give credit where it was due. Then it would have seemed less self-congratulatory, perhaps, and satisfied both that concern and the truth.
  • The Mu And The Omega on November 27, 2002
    Please, stop all of the self-congratulatory articles. It's making me sick.
  • S on November 27, 2002
    I'm not on silverchips but most of my friends are. I think its important to bring up that only juniors submit their writing for this contest. Therefore, altho the editors were seniors, the writing awarded was written by last year's seniors. I'd also like to give a BIG congrats to Colby who won two first place writing awards :)
  • Rachel on November 27, 2002
    Well, it is good news about the award, but the article definitely shouldn't be in your "top news" column.
  • Stephen Wertheim (View Email) on November 28, 2002
    Kevin,

    "The Pacemaker award is given annually to approximately twenty high school newspapers every year."

    GOT YOU AGAIN! Now don't even think of pointing out all the errors in print edition.

    And have a nice Thanksgiving, which is an annual holiday that occurs every year.

    Stephen
  • Farrah on December 3, 2002
    Congrats to everyone!! Happy holidays!
  • jenny on April 17, 2003
    show a picture of your paper
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