The newspaper has won the Associated Collegiate Press' Pacemaker award 17 times (in 1963, 1966, 1967, 1970, 1986, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2020 for print; 2014 and 2018 for online). The award is considered one of college journalism's top prizes. It won in 2003 for coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and a campus riot later in the spring of that year. The State News was also a print Pacemaker finalist in 1987, 2010, 2011, 2017 and 2018 and an online Pacemaker finalist in 2005, 2009 and 2017.