The California Newspaper Publishers Association has named the Daily Forty-Niner one of the top four student newspapers in California.
A Blue Ribbon Committee of eight judges, all professional newspaper people from out of state, reviewed the College and University General Excellence Division of the annual CNPA professional newspaper contest to recognize the best in California journalism.
The Blue Ribbon Committee said that the Daily Forty-Niner "has good spot news coverage throughout." The panel of distinguished professional journalists said, "[The Daily Forty Niner is] not a big paper, but [it] covers the campus well."
The Forty-Niner was judged on four criteria: general and departmental news coverage; editorial excellence (sentence structure, story organization, headline language, spelling and proofreading); graphics excellence (readability, makeup, art reproduction, advertising, presentation and press work); and Opinion page.
Blue Ribbon panelists judging the Forty-Niner were: John Brewer of the Peninsula Daily News in Washington; Bob Bucket of the Azle News in Texas; David Gauger of Gauger Media Service in Washington state; Jim Herman of the Wausau Daily Herald in Wisconsin; Bill Hilliard of The Oregonian, Portland; Pam Rieder of American Journalism Review, a national journalism magazine based in Maryland; Terry Ross of Yuma Daily Sun in Arizona; and Julia Wallace of the Statesman Journal in Oregon.
"California is blessed with many fine newspapers," Herman, the managing editor of the Wausau Daily Herald, said. "In spot news, some of the small dailies did exceptional jobs of covering major disasters on deadline."
Gauger, president of Gauger Media Service in Washington state, said, "California newspapers are substantially above the norm and therefore judging them provides a unique opportunity to examine some of the country's best."
The Daily Forty-Niner is the laboratory newspaper published by the Department of Journalism at California State University, Long Beach. Dr. William A. Mulligan of the Journalism Department faculty is the Forty-Niner publisher. Darren Friedel is the current editor of the Forty-Niner. The paper was established in 1949.
The California Newspaper Publishers Association is the state's major journalism organization for newspaper executives.