The website for the College Heights Herald, WKUHerald.com, has been named a finalist for the 2024 Online Pacemaker from Associated Collegiate Press.
The Pacemaker is the nation’s top honor for a student-led media outlet. The Herald has previously won 23 Pacemaker awards — for newspaper/newsmagazine, online, innovation and for its work across multiple platforms — and is the sixth most successful student media outlet in the century-long history of the award.
Wait! Wasn’t the Herald just a finalist for the Online Pacemaker that was announced in October at the National College Media Convention in Atlanta? Yes, but ACP has rearranged the Online Pacemaker contest timeline to allow for real-time judging of the content of college media websites, and websites honored with the 2024 Pacemaker Award designation will be announced March 9 at the National College Media Conference in La Jolla, California.
WKUHerald.com finished as a finalist for the 2023 Online Pacemaker, while the College Heights Herald won the Multiplatform Pacemaker and the Innovation Pacemaker for 2023.
“The change in the contest calendar by ACP means that judges for this year’s Online Pacemaker awards were looking at content on the college news websites for the current year, and making calls on the finalist designations in real time,” said Chuck Clark, director of WKU Student Publications. “I’m proud that WKUHerald.com has reached the finalist designation for the Online Pacemaker for the eighth time since 2010, meaning we are consistently among the best.”
WKUHerald.com has won the Online Pacemaker three times previously, in 2010, 2020 and 2022, three of the Herald’s overall 23 national Pacemaker Awards.
WKUHerald.com is one of 29 university student media outlets designated as finalists for the 2024 Online Pacemaker. Additionally, WKU Student Publications is one of 10 finalists for the 2024 Student Media Business Pacemaker for the work of Student Publications Advertising and the Cherry Creative branded content studio. The Business Pacemaker also will be awarded March 9 in La Jolla.
All together, WKU Student Publications is the home of 46 national Pacemaker awards — the Herald’s 23, 22 for Talisman magazine and 1 for Cherry Creative. Both the Herald and the Talisman are in the ACP Hall of Fame, and both are among The Pacemaker 100, the most successful student media outlets in ACP history, with the Herald at No. 6.
The finalists for the 2024 Online Pacemaker, grouped by state, are:
- Daily Forty-Niner, California State University-Long Beach
- Los Angeles Loyolan, Loyola Marymount University
- Daily Bruin, UCLA
- Daily Trojan, University of Southern California
- The State Hornet, Sacramento State University
- Spinnaker, University of North Florida
- Distraction, University of Miami
- The Red & Black, University of Georgia
- The Daily Northwestern, Northwestern University
- Ball Bearings, Ball State University
- Urban Plains, Drake University
- The Daily Iowan, University of Iowa
- The Sunflower, Wichita State University
- College Heights Herald, Western Kentucky University
- Kentucky Kernel, University of Kentucky
- The Maroon, Loyola University New Orleans
- The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University
- The Michigan Daily, University of Michigan
- WDBM-FM, Michigan State University
- Central Michigan Life, Central Michigan University
- The Minnesota Daily, University of Minnesota
- The Ithican, Ithica College
- The NewsHouse, Syracuse University
- The Daily Tar Heel, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
- Elon News Network, Elon University
- The Vanderbilt Hustler, Vanderbilt University
- The Shorthorn, University of Texas at Arlington
- The Battalion, Texas A&M University
- The Breeze, James Madison University