Herald reporter recieves national honor from ACP

Bonners Ferry Herald reporter Sally Balcaen has received national recognition from the Associated Collegiate Press for an editorial she wrote while a student in the journalism program at North Idaho College.

Her editorial, “Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie,” (I am not Charlie) was originally published in the The Sentinel, NIC’s student newspaper, and was awarded third place in the 2015 Best Story contest in the Editorial/Opinion category. In it, Balcaen adressed the shooting at the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hedbo, in which 11 staff members were killed and 11 more wounded last January. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, who took responsibility for the attack. Geoff Carr, Balcaen’s instructor and adviser at NIC sent the editorial to the ACP for consideration, much to Balcaen’s surprise.

“My adviser didn’t tell me he sent off my editorial, I didn’t know,” Balcaen said. “I had no clue until I got a message from him at the end of September, telling me I had finished in the top 10. I knew that the winner of this award would receive the Pacemaker Award, which is like the Pulitzer Prize for college students. I was in shock, actually.”

After being named a finalist, Balcaen went online and read some of her competition’s submissions, and was impressed by what she read.

“I read some of the other editorials other kids had written, and I didn’t know I’d even make it third, there were some really good ones,” Balcaen said. “For me to finish third, I didn’t think that would happen.”

Carr, Balcaen’s adviser at NIC, called her one of the best students to go through his program, and praised her work ethic as a meticulous reporter. 

“Sally was always a very good student, she was one of my best reporters, but she didn’t actually write many opinions,” Carr said. “I’m really glad she wrote that one, it was definitely the strongest one we had that year. Not only was the opinion great, she expressed it very well. She layed out perfectly why she felt the way she did, and I think it impressed people how she layed out her argument. It was the same as a reporter, she cared about her work. I’m all about self-motivation, and in real life , that’s how you survive especially in the journalism business. You don’t have people constantly doing your work for you. She always tried to make sure her work was as perfect as possible, she took her job seriously. She was one of the best news reporters we had on staff because of that very reason, she cared about what she was doing, and caring is one of the key ingredients to succeess.”

A native of Belgium, Balcaen approached her editorial as one with a unique knowledge of European culture, and offered a different perspective on the tragedy and how the public and the media responded to it. Called on the carpet by a reader for knowing little about French culture as an American college student, Balcaen responded to the comment in French.

“Not only was the opinion great, my favorite thing about it was the online version, which we posted on our website,” Carr said. 

“Someone who lived in France posted a response, which basically said ‘You typical American, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Sally’s response was brilliant. She started it out in French, and let the person know that ‘Yeah, by the way, I know what I’m talking about.’ It was a brilliant response, and a really well-written opinion piece. We really miss her.”

Balcaen’s editorial can be found at http://www.nicsentinel.com/2015/02/je-ne-suis-pas-charlie/