GSMA – Kingston Uni: we won “because we took risks”

Lara O’Reilly is former editor of Kingston University’s River newspaper + now a reporter at Marketing Week…

Winning is sometimes far sweeter when you are not expecting it at all.

Hours before the event two nights ago news was spreading around Twitter that there had been an apparent leak of the Guardian Student Media Awards results.

According to the rumours a press release was sent to current editors of the nominated student publications asking if they would like photos of the event – oh and revealing the winner and runner-up of each category.

Lara O'Reilly and Callum Hornigold

We didn’t know the result for sure; everyone on Twitter was respecting the embargo, but there were plenty of smug-sounding tweets from certain students who seemed to already know the result.

We practiced our gracious losing smiles on the tube to the Guardian offices, still overjoyed that we had been nominated at all.

The ceremony was small, fun and informal – more like a networking event than an awards show, with everyone chatting to students from other publications and introducing themselves to a few of the journos associated with the event.

When the Publication of Year category was introduced, the truth slowly started to unravel. Jon Snow popped up on the television screen explaining the winning publication had never been nominated in the awards’ history.

We didn’t really hear anything after that; we were too busy hugging and jumping up and down. Getting our photo taken with Alan Rusbridger and Matt Wells on stage was surreal and holding the award felt like lifting the World Cup… No. Better than that.

Why did we win? Maybe it was because we were the underdog; because we had never been to the awards before. Perhaps it was because the Guardian wanted to give the award to an unconventional former-poly.

But I think it was because we took risks.

As Adam Westbrook’s press-night documentary explains, Editor Callum Hornigold (who took over the reins from me as we have four editors a year) decided to turn the paper into a red top-style tabloid.

It was a big production job and everyone needed to learn high-end InDesign skills and how to apply them quickly. Also stories needed to be a lot sharper and punchier.

The traditional reporting skills were way above the benchmark too and the majority of stories were generated from working the patch – rather than relying on other media or PR.

We wrote controversial features, the comment was witty rather than stuffy high-brow diatribes perhaps usually suited to student media and we loved what we were doing. It shows.

Never more will I be afraid of taking journalism risks – this amazing accolade of an award is testament to that.