Once again, Centennial College’s Journalism students have earned their place among the province’s best.
For more than 75 years, the Ontario Community Newspapers Association (OCNA) has recognized excellence in community journalism across the province. The organization’s yearly Better Newspapers Competition also celebrates emerging talent through student awards, highlighting some of the strongest new voices entering the industry.
The results for the OCNA Better Newspapers Competition celebrating excellence in community news publishing in 2025 were recently announced, and Centennial College students earned recognition in multiple categories. Most notably, Centennial’s student-led digital news platform, the Toronto Observer, was awarded first place for Best College/University Newspaper Website for the second consecutive year.
Being recognized two years running shows the strength of experiential learning in Centennial College’s Journalism programs, and highlights the continued industry recognition of student work coming out of the School of Media and Creative Arts.
What makes the award especially important is the role the Toronto Observer plays in student learning. More than just a publication, the Observer serves as a live community news platform where Centennial College Journalism students cover real issues, event and stories while developing newsroom experience, reporting skills, and multimedia storytelling ability. Winning for the second year in a row places Journalism at Centennial College’s alongside some of the strongest student journalism programs in Ontario.
Student journalists also earned individual recognition for their work. Abby Russchen earned a third-place finish in the Student Feature Writing category, continuing Centennial’s strong presence in long-form storytelling and feature reporting.
Meanwhile, Andrew Rock received an Honourable Mention in the Student News Writing category, recognized for his contribution to student journalism excellence.
Congratulations to all of the students, faculty, editors, and staff involved in this year’s achievement, and to all of the Ontario college and university journalism student winners and nominees.
By Anthony Geremia