Multimedia Journalism student is awarded Best Overall Contribution at the STAR Awards

GCU Student’s Association recently held their annual STAR Awards – with 16 winners declared on a night of celebrating student success. 

Second year Multimedia Journalism student Rachel Gibson has been awarded Best Overall Contribution for GCU’s The Edit - making it the second year in a row that she has received a STAR Award for her continuous work. 

Rachel feels great to have had her work recognised. She said: “It feels amazing to have won! I did put in a lot of effort this year, writing two articles per edition as well as editing and running the social media channels so it feels incredible to have that work appreciated by others. 

It feels unreal to have won two years in a row, especially to have one for each of the student media groups as both have been a huge part of my two years so far at university. It means I can now set the (perhaps slightly unachievable) goal of winning one a year. Fingers crossed!” 

Despite the limitations of the Covid-19 pandemic, Rachel and The Edit team have been able to operate normally and find other areas of the magazine to focus on. She said: “I think we have been almost lucky throughout the pandemic that we can operate from home. 

A lot of our content is online and despite not having physical editions, we still have them online in a magazine format which is amazing, especially when we haven’t been able to run Radio Caley remotely. I think the main thing I pushed was to really up the social media and make sure it was on point so that we could still virtually pull in as many new volunteers as possible and keep the current ones engaged.” 

Rachel highly encourages other students to get involved with The Edit and not to be put off by the limits of the pandemic. She said: “I would say to anyone wanting to join The EDIT that they absolutely should!  

In first year, it gave me my first taste of journalism outside of my course and this year I got to work with the most amazing committee. It’s nice to have something university related but not coursework, especially during the pandemic, as there are limited ways to do so at the moment. 

It’s such a fun thing to be a part of as well as the sense of achievement each time you see a piece of your work published in an edition or on the website.” 

You can find out more about The Edit on the GCU Students’ Association website 

By Rachael McAlonan 

 
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