The Herald announces the Student Press Awards 2025 shortlist
We are proud to announce The Herald Student Press Awards 2025 shortlist, in association with Weber Shandwick (Image: Newsquest)
In an age of misinformation and fake news, the continuing presence of a strong and independent media has never been more important. With growing security threats, far-reaching power concentrated in the hands of a few, global technology brands and pressures building over finite resources in a world that's rapidly heating up, the role of journalists is becoming more relevant than ever.
Against this backdrop it is essential to identify the next generation of fearless voices and to support those writers, journalists and broadcasters who are willing to seek out the truth and report it with rigorous clarity.
That's the aim of The Herald Student Press Awards 2025 in association with Weber Shandwick, the finalists for which have been announced today.
Read more:
The Herald's Student Press Awards are the chance of a lifetime
These awards have been created in order to encourage the highest standards in journalism and to single out talent amongst students at Scotland's further and higher education establishments. The student newspaper has a proud history of free speech and of providing a solid training ground that has given us some of our finest journalists and the shortlist announced today includes contributors not just of print titles, but also of radio stations and digital platforms.
The submitted articles, podcasts, features, reports and sports bulletins have been scrutinised by a panel of experts, led by Herald editor Catherine Salmond and have been selected for their success in providing fresh insights into well-worn subjects; uncovering new facts and providing thrilling accounts of sporting encounters, and for doing it all in language that is unambiguous and, at times highly entertaining.
The winners of the Student Press Awards 2024 with Editor Catherine Salmond at far left, Gemma Forrester from Weber Shandwick, 2nd left and Callum Baird, editor-in-chief, Newsquest Scotland and Northern Ireland (Image: NQ) Amongst the awards being contested are: Best Use of Digital Media; Design of the Year for newspapers and magazine: Scoop of the Year and Student News Brand of the Year.
There are tangible rewards at stake in the shape of one week's work experience with The Herald editorial team for winners of News Writer of the Year, Features Writer of the Year, Sports Writer of the Year and Columnist of the Year categories, while the winner of The Student Journalist of the Year title will receive a four-week paid internship with The Herald this summer.
Winners will be announced during a ceremony that will take place in The Herald offices in Glasgow on Thursday, 15 May and there is an opportunity for anyone connected with the finalists, their publications or digital platforms, as well as for those from the associated educational establishments, to come along and support them on the day.
Full details of how to take part are available online here.
Find the full shortlist below:
Best use of Digital media
Aidan Gilbride, SPFL News Now, Edinburgh Napier University
Amanda Crawford, UWS Newsroom, University of the West of Scotland
Antonella Valente, The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
Fred Byrne, Gettin' Rowdy with The Gaudie, The Gaudie
Design of the Year (Newspaper or Magazine)
Clive Davies, The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
Hannah Hamilton, The Magdalen, University of Dundee
Morgan Woodfall, The Glasgow Guardian, Glasgow University
Columnist of the Year
Alexander (Sandy) Woodhouse, ENRG, Edinburgh Napier
Emilia Evonne Beatrice Lauder, ENRG & The Broad, Edinburgh Napier University
Hannah Linda Hamilton, The Magdalen, The University of Dundee
Features Writer of the Year
Carlin Braun, Brig Newspaper, University of Stirling
Kulsum Shabbir, Strathclyde Telegraph, University of Strathclyde
Nina Miller, The Glasgow Guardian, University of Glasgow
News Writer of the Year
Eva J Milne, The Jute Journal, University of Dundee
Amelia Boag McGlynn and Fred Byrne, The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
Katherine McKay, Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Odhran Gallagher, Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Sports Writer of the Year
Anya Diggines, Brig Newspaper, University of Stirling
Jack Harris, ENRG, Edinburgh Napier University
John Shiels, The Clyde Insider, Glasgow Clyde College
Oliver Kennedy, The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
Scoop of the Year
David Forrest, The Clyde Insider, Glasgow Clyde College
Edward Jewsbury, Brig Newspaper, University of Stirling
Katherine McKay, Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Odhran Gallagher, Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Student News Brand of the Year
Brig Newspaper, University of Stirling
The Student, University of Edinburgh
The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
ENRG, Edinburgh Napier University
The Glasgow Guardian, Glasgow University
Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Strathclyde Telegraph, University of Strathclyde
Student Journalist of the Year
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She is preparing to leave the United States after 23 years, leaving behind her 31-year-old daughter, a DACA recipient or 'Dreamer' who came to the United States when she was 8 and is still in the process of gaining her green card. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, is a federal program that protects undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children from deportation. 'I don't want to feel like I'm going to be spending two months in some detention center in the middle of God knows where, where none of my family members see me,' she said in Spanish during an interview with the Herald. She asked not to use her name for this story because she fears she could be targeted. 'I'm done,' she said. Her daughter's immigration situation is also precarious, even though she is married to a U.S. citizen. His family, from Cuba, got lucky when they won the visa lottery. But her family did not have such luck. Valdes' family did what immigrants often do: They fled danger, asked for political asylum, hired lawyers and filed paperwork. And they lost. Last year, only 19.3% of Colombian asylum cases were approved, according to researchers at Syracuse University. Even in 2006, when violence was at a very high point in Colombia, only 32% of asylum cases were approved. Their family's story reveals the toll a constantly changing and exceedingly complicated immigration system has on families who tried to 'do the right thing' and legalize their status. Now, under President Trump's administration, which has ramped up enforcement and the optics around it, being undocumented has become even more hazardous. People who have been living and working in the shadows in the United States are now being forced to decide if the reward of seeking a better life is still worth the risk. And those who are following the rules are afraid the rules will keep changing. The mother has already started packing boxes. Denied asylum Valdes' mom had never heard of the American Dream. She said she had never even heard the phrase 'el sueño americano' before coming to the United States. The family fled Colombia in 2002, leaving behind comfort and status. Valdes' mother had been an architect in Cartagena, a city on the South American nation's Caribbean coast. The family had a driver, a cook and a nanny. But violence by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, the rebel group known as FARC, was encroaching on their lives: armed robbery at their home, threatening calls and the kidnapping of her cousin, a wealthy businessperson. The family was forced to pay a ransom for his release. The early 2000s in Colombia, under President Andrés Pastrana, were years of intense violence by guerrilla gangs such as the FARC, who targeted wealthier Colombians. 'They would just pick up anybody who they believed they could get money from,' said Valdes. Her aunt would often call Valdes' mom from Florida, telling her their family would be safer here. The family arrived on a tourist visa in 2002, found a lawyer and applied for asylum. It was denied in 2004. Under U.S. immigration policy, people who have suffered persecution due to factors such as race, religion, nationality, membership to a social group, or political opinion can apply for asylum. It must be filed within a year of arrival in the United States. Valdes' family's interview did not go well and they were placed in removal proceedings. They appealed and in 2006 took the case to the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals. The family's asylum application claimed that Valdes' mom would be killed by the FARC guerilla gang if she returned to Colombia, in connection with her cousin's kidnapping. But the court ultimately found holes in her case, and said her fear is not well founded and that she failed to prove that she would be in danger if she returned to Colombia. Their final motion was denied in part because it was filed 45 days late, according to the court filing. Valdes was just 11 years old when the courts denied her family's final plea to stay in the United States. The family was issued removal orders. 'I feel like I made a mistake asking for asylum,' said Valdes' mother. 'I wasn't guided well because I was scared and didn't know what to do.' She says predatory lawyers charged her close to $40,000 but never told her the truth about her odds of winning the case. 'It's pure show,' she said in Spanish. 'I believed they would help, but they did nothing.' By then, Valdes and her brothers were attending public schools in West Palm Beach, a right undocumented children have because of a supreme court ruling which passed narrowly in the early '80s. 'I just kind of poured my whole life into school, just to kind of distract myself from other things going on in life, specifically with immigration,' she said. In fifth grade, she won the science fair. At Roosevelt Middle School she was in the pre-med program and the national junior honor society. She always had A's and B's in school. But when her middle school national honor society was invited to Australia, she had to stay behind, unable to travel because she was undocumented. At Suncoast Community High School, she was invited to sing in a choir concert in Europe, but again, she could not go. In 2007, ICE detained Valdes' parents and her eldest brother. Her other brother and Valdes were picked up from school and reunited with their parents at the ICE office. Valdes' mom said the officer told her that since the family had a removal order, they needed to deport at least one person to prove they completed their quota for the day. But to this day, Valdes and her mother can't fully explain why the father was deported but they were released. Was it luck? Did the ICE officers sympathize with their family? Then 13, Valdes remembers standing in the Miami immigration office as agents took her father away. 'He was wearing jeans, a tan coat and a gray-blue fisherman's hat,' she said. 'What I remember the most is that there was, like, some sort of feeling that I got, that I knew that I was never gonna see him again.' He was deported in January of 2007, when Valdes was in seventh grade. It was the only semester she ever failed in school, she said. Her father died at 69 in Colombia in 2022. A petition for him to get legal status and return to the U.S., filed on his behalf of his son from a previous marriage, was approved a year after his death, said Valdes. '17 years too late,' she said, in tears. DACA as a lifeline In 2012, Valdes and her mother were preparing to leave the United States for good. Flights were booked. Boxes mailed. Then, just 14 days before departure, President Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. 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