Critic took home the largest number of awards at this year’s Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) awards, held in Wellington on September 24, gaining five first place awards, and narrowly missing out on the major award for ‘Best Publication’.
The awards ceremony, which honours the best of student media from the country’s 14 student publications, was held at Victoria University’s Hunter Lounge, and Critic sent a contingent of five to the awards.
Critic swept the substantive content awards for journalistic writing, and also had a number of second and third place finishes in other categories, but ultimately placed second equal for the top prize with Magneto, behind Victoria’s Salient magazine. Judges described Salient as “witty, intensely self-involved in a rather endearingly self-deprecatory way”. Only one point separated the top three publications in a category where two of the three judges were ex-Salient editors. Salient’s only other first place finish was in the ‘Best Cartoon’ category. Suspicious, but we ain’t bitter.
Feature writer Charlotte Greenfield took out the award for ‘Best Feature Writer’, while ‘Dr Z’, otherwise known as Andrew Oliver won ‘Best Feature’ for his feature “Fear and Loathing in Northeast Valley”. The judges noted that Greenfield’s writing had the ability to be locally relevant, even when it wasn’t about local issues.
Volunteer writer Teuila Fuatai won the ‘Best News Writer (Unpaid)’ award, beating out a stiff field in a highly competitive category. Meanwhile News Editor Gregor Whyte won in the ‘Best News Writer (Paid)’ category, with judge Graeme Baker commenting that his “writing style would easily fit into the pages of the Herald”.
Critic’s news and features writers then won in the ‘Best Education Series’ category for a series on the effects of VSM on student associations which judge Nicola Kean described as “engaging and interesting, full of dirt and scandal”. This completed a clean-sweep of the news and features awards.
In a controversial call, Critic’s Mrs John Wilmot finished second in the ‘Best Columnist’ category, losing to the guest column of professional journalist David Farrier, which appears in Auckland magazine Craccum.
Critic’s designer Andrew Jacombs placed in two categories, coming second in ‘Best Cover’ and third in ‘Best Original Photography’. However, an incident where Jacombs exposed himself to a hotel maid detracted from his otherwise stellar performance.
Stephan Gillan took third place in the ‘Best Cartoonist’ category for his Antics comic, Tom Ainge-Roy got third in ‘Best Reviewer’, while Gregor Whyte also had the second best entry in the ‘Best Headline’ category.
Critic wins big.
