Viewpoints leadership makes its mark at JACC Fall ’26

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Viewpoints editors, reporters and graphic artists headlined as top award winners at this year’s regional journalism conference for two-year institutions. 

Among the winners were Editor-in-Chief Chelsea Sugimura and Managing Editor Marissa Lievanos who took first place in the on-the-spot competition in opinion writing and second place in the news writing contest, respectively, at the Journalism Association for Community Colleges SoCal Fall Regional Conference. 

Held Oct. 10 at Cal State University, Northridge, the conference is an annual gathering to recognize the work of and reporting by student journalists.  

For the first time in recent memory, a team of Viewpoints editors led one of the discussion sessions for conference attendees. Their session described the paper’s production plan for the Local Election and Voter Ed Town Hall that took place Oct. 14 in the Bradshaw Cafeteria. The town hall presented local candidates answering questions about their policies and priorities and why voting matters — both in the primary election held in June and in the upcoming Nov. 3 general election.  

Viewpoints received the Online General Excellence Award – Meritorious for its digital newspaper Viewpointsonline.org and the Newspaper General Excellence Award – Meritorious for its print publication. The awards are two of the highest honors presented by the JACC and reflect the high caliber of work produced by the RCC Journalism Program. 

At the conference, Viewpoints staff gained practice writing on deadline, taking still photographs and picking up tips and career advice from professional journalists from local media outlets. The outlets included the Los Angeles Times, NBC 4/Telemundo 52, ABC 7, CBS LA, KNX-AM 1070, LAist/KPCC-FM, LA Taco, SoCal News and USA Today.  

Additionally, the event allowed students to participate in workshops, network with the pro journalists and meet community college peers along with faculty and staff from four-year schools.  

“Our students keep raising the bar, and I’m extremely proud of their efforts and hunger to learn, grow and step outside of their comfort zone to try new things,” said Angela Burrell, journalism instructor and Viewpoints adviser.  

The following individual JACC awards earned by Viewpoints staff are for work completed during the 2025-26 academic year: 

Critical Review – Honorable Mention:  Annie Lee, Ryan Pope 
Editorial Cartoon – First Place: Brylle Deseo 
Feature Story – Fourth Place: Lupita Rivera Cid 
Front Page Layout – Honorable Mention: Staff 
Illustration – First Place: Brylle Deseo  
Inside Page Layout – First Place: Tara Bristow (former student) 
News Story – Second Place: Aaron Friesen 
Opinion Story – First Place: Lennon Alvarez 
Photo Illustration – Second Place: Tara Bristow
Photo Story/Essay – Fourth Place: Roman Davison (former student) 
Video Hard News Reporting – Honorable Mention: Breanne Soto (former editor-in-chief) 
Video Soft News Reporting – Fourth Place: Noah M. Batchman, Lupita Rivera Cid, Briana Franco, Breanne Soto, Mac Wilson (former students)