The Pine Needle was founded in 1947 at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
We are a student-run newspaper that prints on a biweekly basis.
In 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, the American Scholastic Press Association awarded The Pine Needle first place in their annual newspaper competition among all universities with more than 2,500 students. The 2014 honor ranked the paper among the best in the United States for the sixth year in a row.
The ASPA gave additional awards to the newspaper, Best Sports Section in 2009 and Outstanding Sports Section in 2014, making the paper a double award winner for those two years. In 2012, ASPA awarded outstanding sports coverage to The Pine Needle, again making the paper a multiple award winner. In 2011, the newspaper received ASPA awards for feature writing and news writing. In 2013, The Pine Needle was awarded Outstanding Story – Non-School Related by the ASPA. The overall first place award in 2013 was "with special merit" for outstanding content and design.
In 2010, the North Carolina College Media Association awardedThe Pine Needle Best of Show for Online News Site. The NCCMA made other awards to the newspaper in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, including awards for online news, feature writing, sports writing, news writing, infographics, and page design.