2020-21 Hearst Investigative Reporting Winners Announced

San Francisco – The top 10 winners in college Investigative Reporting have been announced in the 61st annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program.

There were 78 entries submitted from 47 universities in the fifth and final writing competition of this
academic year.

First Place has been awarded to  Gabriel Stern, a senior from Syracuse University. Gabriel receives a $3,000 scholarship for the article “In New York prisons, widespread package room complaints go unresolved”
published in The Daily Orange. Gabriel also qualifies for the Writing Championship in June 2021.

Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications will receive a matching grant, as do the journalism departments of all scholarship winners. Gabriel also qualifies for the Writing Championship in June 2021.

Other scholarship winners are:
Sydnee Gonzalez, Brigham Young University, second place, $2,000 scholarship
Valentina Palm, Florida International University, third place, $1,500 scholarship
Rose Wagner, Loyola University New Orleans, fourth place, $1,000 scholarship
Emily Isaacman, Indiana University, fifth place, $1,000 scholarship

The sixth-through-tenth place winners earn Hearst certificates:


Sofia James, University of Southern California, sixth place, certificate
Kevin Pirehpour, Arizona State University, seventh place, certificate
Rachel Crumpler,  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, eighth place, certificate
Jana Hayes, University of Oklahoma, ninth place, certificate
Natalie Parks,  University of Kentucky, tenth place, certificate

Syracuse University has won the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated student points from the five writing competitions held this year.

They are followed by: Indiana University; Arizona State University; University of Florida; University of Oklahoma; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Drake University; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Brigham Young University; Pennsylvania State University.

The top three winning schools will earn $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively.

Judging the writing competitions this year are: Dwayne Bray, Journalist-at-large, ESPN’s The Undefeated; Larry Kramer, retired President and Publisher, USA Today; and Maria Reeve, Managing Editor/Content, Houston Chronicle.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program is conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication and fully funded and administered by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. 103 member universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs are eligible to participate in the Hearst competitions.

The 14 monthly competitions consist of five writing, two photojournalism, one audio, two television and
four multimedia, with Championship finals in all divisions. The program awards up to $700,000 in scholarships and grants annually.