Winning the Pacemaker

It might sound cliche, but when we left for Austin I really just thought it was an honor to be named a finalist for a Pacemaker. I remember what the paper was like my freshman year, and the amount it’s changed between then and now is astonishing. We’ve come really far in a relatively short [...]

Wait, that’s a name I recognize…

So as you may have heard, The Pendulum brought home its first Pacemaker on Saturday (well, we technically got home Sunday, but you know what I mean). It was an amazing achievement that I still am replaying the moment of over and over again in my head. It was absolutely insane to hear our name [...]

A Few Pictures of Austin

A few pictures I took as part of my photography assignment while in Austin.

The Pendulum and the Pacemaker

I almost didn’t make it to the awards ceremony on time.  I had just gotten out of another session, and hadn’t realised I only had nine minutes to go back up to the 17th floor, change out of my jeans and jacket into something more appropriate, and then run back into the Governor’s Ballroom on [...]

Pendulum Wins Even More Awards from ACP

A day after winning a national Pacemaker award from the Associated Collegiate Press, the Pendulum was honored again by the ACP Nov. 1. The Pendulum, Elon University’s weekly student newspaper, received several Best in Show awards on the last day of the joint convention between ACP and College Media Advisers Oct. 28-Nov. 1 in Austin, Texas. Representatives from [...]

Showcase Austin09

In this session, the two speakers reviewed layouts from the convention they thought were particularly strong. They reviewed the papers that were placed on the tables on the fourth floor, and one publication was not featured more than twice. The Pendulum was one of the papers featured twice, once for its front page and once [...]

The Art of Writing Catchy Narrative Ledes

This session was a little more basic than I hoped, but it was still a nice refresher of ways we can spice up our ledes, something we’ve been struggling with lately. The speaker said summary ledes, which present the most critical information first, are appropriate in breaking news stories, but in feature stories and follow-ups [...]

Recruiting and Retaining Staff

This was the session I thought would be most helpful to The Pendulum since so many of our staff members are seniors and we’ll need some new recruits. Nils Rosdahl of North Idaho College gave some helpful advice, but I didn’t get as much out of the session as I hoped, I think partially because [...]

The Pendulum Wins a National Pacemaker Award

The Pendulum, Elon University’s weekly student newspaper, received a 2009 national Pacemaker Award from the Associated Collegiate Press at the organization’s joint conference with College Media Advisers Oct. 31 in Austin, Texas. The Pacemaker is the highest honor ACP gives to its members. Student leaders Andie Diemer (editor in chief), Alexa Milan (managing editor), Ashley [...]

Day Three: “Ledes need to be concise and work as a launch pad into the rest of the story”

PUBLICATION CRITIQUE: The Pendulum critique by Chris Whitley, Tarrant County College (located in Hurst, Texas) The following are tips, advice and notes from Whitley about our latest edition of The Pendulum (Oct. 28, 2009) Conscious decision to use serif and sans serif fonts for headlines? Got a nice, clean look and design to it (front [...]