The Beginning Journalism classes won an inter-publication Paly journalism penny war held as a fundraiser through the months of October and November.

The penny war, a competition between Paly’s five journalism programs, Voice, Viking, Verde, Campanile, and InFocus, with the Beginning Journalism classes competing as one, took place from October to mid-November. The goal was to maximize contributions to the Student Press Law Center, a Virginia-based non-profit that protects the rights of student journalists, providing free legal advice as well as information on student and press rights. The SPLC,which relies on donations to carry out its work, offered a pizza party reward to the largest national fundraiser for the Your Voice, Your Freedom campaign, which aids protection of the free student press.

The rules were simple: each denomination of money had a point value equal to its worth. Pennies were worth one point, nickels five, dimes ten, and so one. The catch? Only pennies had a positive value. All other money would subtract from the point total of each publication. The intention was to exploit the inter-publication rivalry, encouraging staffers to donate larger coins, termed “negative money,” to other publications.

The money was collected in large water jugs donated by the Arrowhead Water Company, which supplies the drinking water to the front office. Each publication had its own labeled jug in the English department computer lab.

Sports magazine The Viking was widely expected to be the winner, with an 11th-hour donation of more than $30 in pennies on the last day of the fundraiser. Early estimates placed Viking in the lead, beating Beginning Journalism by almost $4.

The final tally, however, ended with Beginning Journalism, at -$3.75, about $6 ahead of Viking, who, as a result of $58 dollars in larger denominations, ended with -$9.87.

Beginning Journalism’s victory can be attributed to theft from non-Journalism students. The Beginning Journalism students did not participate as actively as other classes, partly because they were disheartened by theft.

The only money in their jar was negative money from other publications. This was apparently a temptation for other students utilizing the lab, and because the lack of pennies meant this jar was light enough to tamper with, compared to the fuller containers of other publications, it was emptied several times.

When the penny war ended, the Beginning Journalism jar contained exactly seven silver coins and three one-dollar bills, totaling $3.75 in negative money. This was the smallest total donation from any publication, and Beginning Journalism was the only group to have no pennies in the jar.

The Viking placed second overall, at –$9.87. The Viking jar contained the most money, $106.23 in total. Viking was the largest contributor of pennies, with nearly $50.

Campanile, which placed last at -$67.05, had the most negative money – almost $85, $47 in quarters. Campanile was the only publication other than Viking that raised more than $100.

Voice finished fifth overall, with -$44.21, and was the third largest fund-raiser, ending one penny short of the $100 mark. Voice balanced more than $72 in negative money with almost $28 in pennies, becoming the second-largest contributor of pennies, but also the second-largest receiver of negative money.

InFocus, the third place finisher, had -$30.81 and raised a total of $55.39. InFocus entered the competition several days after Voice, Viking, and Verde, due to delayed notification of the competition and its rules.

Features magazine Verde received fourth place, with -$36.50, and $59.70 raised. The Verde jar had several magazines in its bottle along with the money donated.

Over 11,000 pennies were collected, along with 377 nickels, 647 dimes, and 600 quarters. Donations totaled $427.21.

All silver coins were counted before the Thanksgiving holiday during fifth, sixth, and seventh periods by Paul Kandell, advisor to Voice and Verde, Alex Dehnert, former Voice webmaster, and members of Voice and Verde. Though The Viking was invited to participate, the staff was in production of the day chosen for counting.

To learn more or donate to the SPLC, visit http://www.splc.org/.