The publication won a first-place 2016-17 Pinnacle Award in the Writing category for Best Breaking News Story for David Floyd's and Alexia Stewart's coverage of a protester's actions in an attempt to disrupt a Black Lives Matter event on Borchuck Plaza at ETSU in September 2016.
Floyd, who served as East Tennessean executive editor for 2016-17, graduated in May 2017 with a bachelor's degree in media and communication. Stewart was social media editor and a general assignment writer for the East Tennessean in 2016-17. She is a senior in the Department of Media and Communication.
The Pinnacle Awards are a national competition held each year by the College Media Association, an organization with over 800 members from coast to coast. The awards "honor the best college media organizations and individual work. The contest is open to student work produced for any college media organization, including print, broadcast and online outlets, during an academic year."
In the category, ETSU topped competition from UCLA (second place), The University at Buffalo (third place), and Ball State and West Virginia universities (honorable mentions).
The award winners were announced at the CMA Fall National Convention in Dallas.
The East Tennessean is published twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays during the fall and spring semesters, with 2,000 copies of each edition distributed to 30 locations on the main campus and the Veterans Affairs campus. The East Tennessean also publishes online at www.easttennessean.com.
