The multiple platforms of the Schieffer School of Journalism were honored Sunday for outstanding breaking news coverage at the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors convention in San Antonio.

TCU Student Media won the Charles E. Green Star Award for breaking news report of the year for its coverage of the TCU drug bust. The award recognizes a single day's coverage of breaking news that include multiple stories, graphics, multimedia and social media coverage.

"This is how you cover breaking news," the judges said referring to last spring's news coverage.

The award for the Daily Skiff and TCU 360 marks the first time a college news organization has won a Charles E. Star Award.

The Daily Skiff and TCU 360 also won the TAPME Headliners Star Award for Breaking News, Division 1, for last spring's coverage of the TCU drug busts.

John Lumpkin, Director of the Schieffer School of Journalism called the award a "tremendous achievement for our students and faculty," adding they "have met the transformative challenge of converting to real-time digital journalism."

That challenge included using "the capabilities of new platforms that expand the boundaries of coverage for our audience, including live video streaming of news conferences, [and] the document cloud so that hundreds of public records can be displayed," Lumpkin said.

The importance of this year's award is highlighted by the fact that TCU Student Media competed against the state’s commercial daily newspapers instead of other colleges.

This is a consequence of an expanded license with the Associated Press that TCU Student Media has; rather than a college subscriber, TCU Student Media is a member of the Associated Press news cooperative and has the same relationship as local commercial dailies throughout the state.

TCU Student Media also walked away with two other awards from the TAPME including, 2nd place, Best online newspaper, Division 1, and 3rd place, general excellence, college newspapers.

TAPME is an association of editors and other news executives of member newspapers of AP,  including all the state’s metros and almost all the other dailies. It is the largest editorial organization of its kind in the state, with a history dating back to the early 1900s.

Each year TCU Student Media enters its students’ best work in other contests dedicated exclusively to student journalism at colleges and universities, in addition to the TAPME.