CSSM’s Infant Paper Wins 7 Awards With No Journalism Program

Without a journalism adviser and without any communications program, Cal State San Marcos’ student newspaper was thought by most to also be without a prayer in a statewide student newspaper competition held last weekend.

But the fledgling Pioneer, a newspaper run out of a spare bedroom in an Escondido apartment, shocked everyone, including its founders, by winning seven awards at the 42nd annual California Inter-Collegiate Press Assn. conference, including first place for the best opinion section and for best overall design.

Pioneer, which publishes every other week, beat out weekly newspapers such as UC Irvine’s New University and The Graphic at Pepperdine University in mail-in competitions, and outpaced perennial powerhouses such as the Daily Bruin of UCLA and San Diego State University’s Daily Aztec in on-site contests.

“It’s unprecedented that a brand-new school would win all these awards,” said Michael Fitzgerald, a journalism professor at Cal State Sacramento and faculty adviser for the association.

“Not just for a new school, but for any school, they did very well, and they had a number of us advisers staring at each other, wondering what sort of magic is taking place at the San Marcos campus,” Fitzgerald said.

Only two weeks ago Pioneer was recognized officially by the university as the student newspaper for the campus, said Pioneer co-founder and graphics director Jonathan Young. Before then, the paper could tout itself only as the newspaper “serving” Cal State San Marcos.

Eventually, after a journalism program is established, the university will take complete control of the newspaper. Until then, however, Young, who is not even a student at the up-start university, and co-founder Larry Boisjolie will continue to run the paper. They may even manage to turn a profit, as they do now.

These awards “are like our diploma, this is what we take to our potential employers and say, ‘This is what we’ve done,’ ” said Young, who is studying English at Palomar College. Both Young and Boisjolie worked for The Telescope, the Palomar College newspaper, before starting Pioneer.

“For a university to be in its second semester, and without a journalism department and without an official newspaper, this is incredible,” Young said.

“We were intimidated by the other newspapers in some areas. Some of our competition had 12-page news sections, while our entire paper is only 16 pages long.”

The newspaper has a staff of eight, plus nine contributors, and as of the deadline for the competition, it had only published eight issues since September and was ineligible to compete in categories requiring entries from last March, Young said.

Also, since the university has no sports program, Pioneer has no sports pages, which made it again ineligible for some categories.

Boisjolie, 30, attributed the paper’s success to older and highly motivated students. The average age of the Cal State San Marcos student is 30. Young, however, is only 20.

“We think this is indicative of a real bright future for the paper,” Boisjolie said.

Tricia Reader, past president of the California Inter-Collegiate Press Assn., said the competition drew more than 2,000 entries from 30 universities, and Cal State San Marcos has vaulted itself into one of the top three university weeklies in the state.

“I would say that they are right up there, and people should take notice of them,” Reader said. “We were just astounded at how well the paper did.

“Most of the time, the budgets of the school newspapers reflect how well the school does. The school with the larger staff and the larger budget usually does better.”

As a result of its success, Reader has invited Cal State San Marcos to be host of next year’s convention.

However, there is one hitch.

“The first question that comes to mind is, ‘Where are we going to hold it?’ ” Young said. The university does not yet have a campus and is operating out of a leased industrial park off West Los Vallecitos Boulevard.

The San Marcos area also lacks hotel facilities capable of accommodating a convention with about 300 delegates, Young said.