Hearst Multimedia Championship Qualifiers Named

San Francisco – The William Randolph Hearst Foundation has announced the five multimedia finalists who have been selected to participate in the 60th annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program Championships.

The 2020 Hearst multimedia finalists are top winners selected from the first three multimedia competitions held this academic year, which garnered a total of 215 entries.

The finalists are:

Mackenzie Behm, University of Florida
Colin Davy, Syracuse University

Neda Karimi, Stony Brook University
Jiakai Lou, University of Montana

Lucas Pruitt, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Championship has been cancelled as an in-person event. In its place, an alternative competition will be held for the qualifying multimedia finalists, as well as for the eight
writing, five radio, five television and six photo finalists. All finalists will be competing for scholarship awards of up to $10,000 in each category.

The multimedia judges are: Jarrad Henderson, Senior Multimedia Producer – Investigative and Enterprise Video Team, USA Today, VA; Danese Kenon, Director of Video & Photograph, Philadelphia Inquirer, PA; and Brian Storm, Founder & Executive Producer, MediaStorm, CA.

The 60th Annual 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. The 14 monthly competitions consist of five writing, two photojournalism, one
radio, two television and four multimedia, with Championship finals in all divisions.

The program awards up to $700,000 in scholarships and grants annually.

The multimedia category was added to the program in 2010.