The Spring Awards recognizes Broadcasts, Newspapers, Newsmagazines and News Websites. General Excellence and Individual Award contest winners are announced. Recipients of awards administered throughout the year are also honored, including the Georgia Champion Journalist of the Year and Junior Champion Journalist of the Year, First Amendment Essay finalists and Achievement Award winners. Congratulations to all of the winners and honorees!

GSPA is curating a series of mini lessons focused on the theme of innovation in lieu of a traditional spring workshop. We invite members to submit videos (10 minutes or LESS), Powerpoint/Keynote/Google Slide presentations, Insta Stories or other types of content that teach about a best practice.

Please sign up here and plan to email the content to gspa@uga.edu by April 26.

GSPA will celebrate the best in scholastic journalism across the state during a virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday, April 21, 2021, at 4 p.m. The presentation will be in the form of a YouTube video and will be shared on social media and on GSPA’s website.

Owen Donnelly, co-editor-in-chief and writing coach for ODYSSEY Media Group at Clarke Central High School in Athens, Georgia, has been named the 2021 Georgia Champion Journalist of the Year by the Georgia Scholastic Press Association and the Journalism Education Association. The award recognizes the top high school senior journalist in the state.

Natalie Ripps, co-editor-in-chief of Clarke Central’s iliad literary art magazine, was the runner-up in the competition.

Recent work by the Student Press Law Center reveals potential challenges for student journalists covering the COVID-19 pandemic, including censorship.

There are a number of statewide, regional and national opportunities for learning and networking this semester.

Submit your best work from broadcasts, newsmagazines, newspapers and news websites. Additionally, Achievement Awards are open to all publication types.

Completed entries for both the Georgia Champion Journalist and the Junior Champion Journalist contests are due Feb. 5 by 11:59 p.m. There is no fee to enter. For a list of requirements and how to enter, please visit www.ugagspa.org/spring-competitions.

Virtual lesson idea: Encourage your staff to enter the First Amendment Essay competition. The contest is open to students of all publication types (GSPA members) through Jan. 31. There is no entry fee, and the top winners and their publications score monetary awards.

The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication and Journalistic Learning Initiative will host free workshop sessions for high school journalism publications in the spring.

Winners from the fall General Excellence and Individual Awards contests were recently celebrated. Congratulations to all!

COVID-19 has posed many challenges for students, teachers and scholastic publications. How have you adapted to the changes? Share your experiences with GSPA via social media!

With considerations of safety and different school schedules and formats, the GSPA Fall Conference originally planned for late September has been cancelled.

GSPA is now accepting General Excellence and individual contest entries for yearbooks and literary magazines published in the 2019-20 academic year. The deadline to enter is Sept. 30, 2020.

Presented by the UGA School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic, this 30-minute pre-recorded webinar explores some of the legal protections available to journalists in Georgia.

The UGA First Amendment Clinic has distributed a tip sheet developed for journalists covering protests in light of recent and continuing events around the country.

This brief survey will help us better understand the issues that high school journalists are, and are not, allowed to cover in their student media. Please complete the survey by Sept. 21, 2020.

The First Amendment Clinic at the University of Georgia School of Law focuses on direct client advocacy in Georgia on issues of free speech, press, assembly and petition.