The awards are generally considered to be the highest national honors in their field, and are unofficially known as the "Pulitzer Prizes of student journalism".
Several issues from each newspaper's production schedule are randomly selected to be judged, ensuring that to be competitive for a Pacemaker, a publication must show consistent quality over an entire academic year.
Online Pacemaker entries are judged during the months of February and March, based upon the following criteria: design, navigation, writing/editing, graphics and interactivity.
For the purposes of this competition, student-produced means that the majority of the planning, writing, scripting, taping and editing of the program was done by students.
This contest is unique to the high school level, as no similar award is offered by the ACP to college broadcast programs.