UAF student wins press club public service award

University of Alaska Fairbanks student Lina Mariscal has received the 2025 Alaska Press Club Public Service Award. She is one of a dozen UAF students who received awards at the press club’s annual conference earlier this month.

Mariscal is the publisher of Sol de Medianoche, Alaska’s only Spanish-language newspaper. She and several other Latino leaders started the paper, which serves the Latino community in Anchorage, nine years ago.

“For my community, knowledge is power,” Mariscal said in an interview with Alaska Press Club judges. “When you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

The Public Service Award is one of the press club’s top awards and recognizes journalists and media outlets that go above and beyond in coverage that advances public understanding of important issues or that results in changes that benefit the public. The 2025 awards recognize work completed during 2024.

Judges specifically noted Mariscal’s leadership role in the statewide Tu Voz Importa campaign, which initially aimed to explain ranked-choice voting.

“The project expanded into a series of articles, infographics, and social media posts in both English and Spanish that inform community members events such as the 2024 election and local municipal elections, increasing civic engagement and participation,” judges wrote. “As a person who came to Alaska without being able to speak English, Lina knows well the isolation and disenfranchisement that can happen when people can’t get news in their preferred language.”

Mariscal, who also owns and runs a bakery, started taking journalism classes to build her skills.

“I want to make sure I’m doing the paper right,” she said in an interview with a press club board member. “Whatever I do, I want to do it right. It was more difficult in the beginning to understand journalism standards.”

Following are additional current UAF students honored for their work. The list includes journalism students and students in other programs that won awards: 

First place

• Best portrait: Carol Cozzen, Copper River Record, “Quilts of Valor portrait”
• Best breaking news story, video: Patrick Gilchrist, KTVF, “Alaska transportation department to impose bridge weight limit lower than loaded Manh Choh haul trucks' poundage”
• Best arts and culture criticism, print: Delcenia Cosman, Homer News, “Off the Shelf: Nutcracker novel sets a darker stage”
• Best natural sound video journalism: MaryCait Dolan and Gabby Hiestand Salgado, KYUK, “Arctic Artists: Building community through yuraq”
• Best arts reporting, video: MaryCait Dolan and Gabby Hiestand Salgado, KYUK, “Arctic Artists: Building community through yuraq”
• Best sports reporting, print (small): Anna Lionas, Nome Nugget, “Nanooks are 2024 State Champions!”
• Best arts reporting, print: Delcenia Cosman, Homer News, “Homer Theatre under new ownership”
• Best reporting on science, print (small): Zeke Shomler, The Sun Star, “Thesis Watch: Sara Henbslee Researches Young Moose in Northwest Alaska”
• Best public safety reporting, print (small): Manny Melendez, The Sun Star, “Legionella Found in Akasofu and Usibelli Buildings on UAF Campus”
• Best culture reporting, video: Gabby Hiestand Salgado (with Evan Erickson), KYUK, “The bittersweet success of community-based archaeology in Quinhagak”

Second place

• Best humor: MaryCait Dolan and Gabby Hiestand Salgado, KYUK, “Interviewing the Dogs at the Bogus Creek 150”
• Best reporting on government or politics, audio: Emily Schwing, KYUK, “Alaska’s rural schools languish on capital improvement lists and an increase in Base Student Allocation won’t help”
• Best newscast, audio/video: Sage Smiley (as part of a team), Alaska Public Media, “Alaska News Nightly: Tuesday, September 24, 2024”
• Best reporting on government or politics, print (small): Colin Warren, Nome Nugget, “Shaktoolik races against time and bureaucracy to rebuild protective berm”
• Best sports or outdoors column, print: Delcenia Cosman, Homer News, “Out of the Office: Forget not the little joys in life; Bitter patience for sweet fruit; Early sunsets over Homer”
• Best feature, video: MaryCait Dolan and Sage Smiley, KYUK, “In Napaskiak, three generations of teachers uplift Yup’ik language and culture in the classroom”
• Best public safety reporting, print (small) - Patrick Gilchrist, KTVF, “Alaska transportation department to impose bridge weight limit lower than loaded Manh Choh haul trucks' poundage”

Third place

• Best education reporting, audio: Emily Schwing, KYUK, “A utility room under Mertarvik’s public school is full of raw sewage”
• Best reporting on government or politics, print (small): Delcenia Cosman, Homer News, “Libraries face uncertainty in wake of funding cuts”
• Best travel reporting: Anna Lionas and Colin Warren, Nome Nugget, “Three roads, 229 miles and 48 hours— road tripping around Nome”
• Best narrative audio program: Emily Schwing (as part of a team), KNBA, “Alaska's Native Voice: Fashion, Music & Art & Day 2 of the Native Youth Olympics”