After receiving the First Place Award from the American Scholastic Press Association in May, The Exponent recently received another First Place Award from the College Media Association. Both organizations are headquartered in New York City serving collegiate media nationwide. We feel very proud that we have competed against college newspapers nationwide to earn both first-place awards.
Over the past few months, several Exponent reporters have won individual awards from CMA for their work in print journalism. For example, Simon Skoutas won the “Best Breaking News Coverage” and the “Best General News Story” awards for his reporting on the temporary freeze of Ohio’s Heartbeat Law and the impact of Ohio’s Senate Bill 83 on higher education, respectively; Alexis Watkins won the “Best Special Section” award for her layout design of the newspaper.
In terms of our online journalism portfolio as of press time, Simon Skoutas (for six times), Kelly Coyne, Molly Cancian, Tommy Maroon, and Niko Gemelas won the “Best of SNO” awards (Note: SNO is bwexponent.com’s hosting platform) for their reporting on campus news and local events, ranging from BW alumnus getting drafted by NFL to local movie theater’s shutdown.
Like many media organizations, The Exponent is hunting for creative ways to reach our readers locally and nationally. Since I took over as The Exponent’s faculty advisor last summer, we have been aggressively expanding our digital media footprint. So far, we have launched a newsletter entitled “The Exponent Newsletter,” a podcast called “Parenthesis,” and by the end of this year, we will have launched our first literary magazine, The Pony (an endearing nickname of The Exponent), featuring our students’ artistic work and creative projects. In response to the trend of the current U.S. media landscape, we also set up our TikTok and Instagram Threads accounts to cater to our Gen Z readers’ interests.
It’s worth noting that Exponent reporters come from a variety of non-journalism backgrounds –– Exponent reporters are majoring in political science, chemistry, digital marketing, entrepreneurship, neuroscience, mathematics, to name a few. However, we discover our passion in journalism as we work for The Exponent. As of now, we have nearly 80 members in the newsroom, plus 30 students from journalism classes who serve as contributing writers.
In a world teeming with unforeseen dramas, conflicting narratives and untold stories, I find solace in the notion that journalism can be a force for change, a catalyst for mutual respect and a conduit for human connection. In high school, I was drawn into journalism because I knew this profession would provide me with unique opportunities to meet new people, go to exciting places and learn about diverse cultures. Later in my life, I came to realize that journalism is more than a profession –– it is a vocation and life-long commitment, indeed: through my work, I am dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless and letting the unheard heard.
Journalism has made me become a better and braver person. There were times when I stepped out of my comfort zone to cover unfamiliar beats (Note: “beat” is a journalism jargon referring to “topic”) and hopped around neighborhoods searching for story ideas; there were also times when I was in a time crunch, being pushed by my editor to reach out to a dozen sources simply to look for one quote to fill in the reporting. There were certainly hard times in practicing journalism, but never bad times. In my days as a professional journalist, I have had the privilege of interviewing hundreds of sources from all parts of the country (and, in fact, from overseas as well) and various walks of life, many of whom I would never have met otherwise. More importantly, through these encounters, I became not just a chronicler of events but also a facilitator for open dialogues, which I have never taken for granted.
Now more than ever, I would like to share this adventurous journey with you. Dear BW students, you should come to work for The Exponent. No matter what journalistic interest you take, you will find a position at The Exponent. To start, you can sign up for CAS251 Participation in The Exponent in any given semester or write me an email at [email protected]. Dear prospective students, I would also like to invite you to join this top college newspaper in the nation: You should matriculate at BW, come visit us in Loomis 185 and be a part of The Exponent in no time. I guarantee that you will not regret this decision.
Editor’s Note: Huixin Deng serves as the faculty advisor to The Exponent. She graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and received her Ph.D. degree in Communication from the University of Miami. Prior to entering academia, Deng was a business and fashion news reporter covering stories on the Wall Street and at New York Fashion Week.
