Minnesota Daily is best student paper in U.S.

The Daily's student journos go home with the gold.

The U of M's Minnesota Daily has been named the all around best daily student newspaper in the United States by the Society of Professional Journalists -- for the second year in a row.

The Daily's Mike Mullen was also a national runner up in the sports writing category, for his work on "Athletics finances: a balancing act."

The best student newspaper in the country.

And the Daily pocketed first-place regional awards in breaking news photography, general news photography and editorial writing.

Editor in chief Devin Henry, a journalism and political science double major from Shakopee and four-year Daily veteran, told us today that before the paper took national top honors, it first had to beat regional competition from other student papers from Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas.

It also didn't get to submit what it considered to be its best work: SPJ picked a handful of random dates from the year and asked to see only those issues.

So, just another day at the office turns out to be just another day putting out the best student newspaper in the country.

"We got lucky," he joked. But he didn't mean it. And he was quick to share the credit with the whole staff, as well as the Daily's previous editor, Holly Miller, who presided over some of the winning editions culled from the previous academic year.