The Daily Cardinal was again named the best student newspaper by the Society of Professional Journalists in Region 6 for the organization’s 2023 Mark of Excellence Awards.
The Corbin Gwaltney Award, which the Cardinal also won in the 2022 competition, is given to the student newspaper in Region 6 which demonstrates the best all-around coverage of its campus community. Region 6 includes student reporting in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Cardinal staff also received honors for work produced with the paper and through professional internships or freelance work.
Rachel Hale, a University of Wisconsin-Madison senior and Cardinal senior staff writer, was named a finalist in the General News Reporting category for her Cardinal report about experiences of community and loneliness for Jewish students after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
Additionally, Hale was named a finalist in the In-Depth Reporting category for her Wisconsin Watch story on the growing Moms for Liberty movement in Wisconsin.
Sophia Vento, a UW-Madison senior and former editor-in-chief of The Cardinal, won the In-Depth Reporting category for ‘It doesn’t have to stay like this,’ a report for Madison-based newspaper Isthmus about school social workers tackling increased mental health needs at Memorial and East High Schools.
Curb: Fusion, a magazine produced by the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, received top honors for Best Ongoing Student Magazine and Best Affiliated Website. Vento was the magazine’s editor-in-chief, and multiple Cardinal staffers were part of the magazine’s team last fall.
Hale, a lead writer for Curb, won the Feature Writing category for ‘Buzzer-beater,’ an in-depth account of a Milwaukee barber shop seeking to bridge health care divides.
Tyler Katzenberger, the current Cardinal managing editor, won three categories for his work as a politics intern and misinformation fellow for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Katzenberger won the Breaking News Reporting category for a report on Starbucks removing Pride decorations from two unionized Madison cafes as well as the Regional Political Reporting category for a report on voter education group Keep Our Republic.
He also won the Investigative Reporting category for a report on Gov. Tony Evers not replacing a Wisconsin open records tracking website despite promising to do so four years earlier.
The Cardinal also won the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Collegiate General Excellence award for the second consecutive year in March.
First-place winners will advance to a national competition against winners from 12 total SPJ regions.
