Awards & Honors
The Reflector website receives ‘finalist’ honor at national competition

The website of the Reflector, Mississippi State’s student newspaper, was named a finalist in the “Website” category, receiving an Honorable Mention award at the 2022 National Electronic Media Association convention. 
 
The website (reflector-online.com) was one of four finalists. The competition draws entries from major universities across the nation, including the University of Florida, University of Nebraska, University of Oklahoma and others. 
 
The Reflector’s website was overhauled in early 2022 by sophomore Information Technology Services major Joshua Britt. Britt is the Reflector’s online editor. 
 
“Going up against national competition can be a little intimidating at first, especially with how diverse a lot of web design can be. You never really know what someone's standards of excellence may be in terms of web design,” Britt said. “The Reflector succeeds against national competition by really focusing on current design trends while still maintaining a basic structure that anyone can navigate.”
 
The Reflector website publishes photos and stories that appear in the print edition, but also has content that never appears in print. Photo galleries, podcasts, staff bios, social media content, archives, and breaking news stories all appear on the site. The website draws more than 20,000 viewers each month, and more than a quarter million each year. 
 
“While working on reflector-online.com, I really try to prioritize functions that feel natural to the user,” Britt said. “If there's a place on the site that looks like it might lead you somewhere, I make sure that it does. Keeping the interaction between the website and the user 'natural' goes a long way.”
 
This is the third year in a row that the Reflector’s website has been honored by the National Electronic Media Association. In 2020 and 2021, the website won the competition’s “Grand Prize.” 
 
“This just shows that we are effectively using every medium we can to reach our readers,” said Josh Foreman, the Reflector’s adviser. “This is a big honor for us.”

Josh Foreman, communication instructor, serves as the advisor to the Reflector. Foreman was the editor-in-chief of the Reflector from 2004 to 2005. He spent several years living and teaching abroad after graduating from Mississippi State in 2005. He holds an MFA in Writing from the University of New Hampshire, and has written three books of narrative history with Ryan Starrett.