San Francisco – Winners have been announced in Multimedia Enterprise Story Competition of the 2025-2026 Hearst Journalism Awards Program. The winners were selected from 78 entries from 48 schools submitted in the third multimedia competition of the year.
First Place has been awarded to Amelie Fawson, a senior from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Amelie wins a $3,000 scholarship for the story titled “The Magic of Marshall.” Amelie also qualifies for the Hearst Multimedia Championship in June 2026.
Other top five winners:
Second Place, $2,000 award, Sean McInnis, Western Kentucky University
Third Place, $1,500 award, Jay Byrd, Western Kentucky University
Fourth Place, $1,000 award, Nicole Borman, University of Florida
Fifth Place, $1,000 award, Maya Wasik, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The top five winning schools will receive matching grants.
Sixth-through-tenth place finalists:
Sixth Place, certificate, Chloe Fitzgibbon, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Seventh Place, certificate, Lori Saxena, Stony Brook University
Eighth Place, certificate, Elia Mast, University of Missouri
Ninth Place, certificate, Willie Gillespie, University of Oklahoma
Tenth Place, certificate, Alexis Baker, University of Kentucky
Western Kentucky University is leading the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition with the highest student points from the three multimedia competitions held so far.
They are followed by:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Florida
University of Southern California
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Pennsylvania State University
Syracuse University
Michigan State University
University of Missouri
University of Kentucky
The top three intercollegiate winners earn $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 respectively. The final intercollegiate winners will be announced after the completion of the four multimedia competitions and presented during the National Championships in San Francisco this June.
The multimedia judges are: Lauren Frohne, Lead Video Journalist, The Seattle Times; Jim Seida, Producer, NBC News; Ed Ou, Visual Journalist/Documentary Filmmaker.
The Hearst Journalism Awards Program added multimedia to its competition roster in 2010.
Now in its 66th year, the program includes four writing, two photo, one audio, two television, one podcast and four multimedia competitions offering up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants and stipends. Currently, there are 104 universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs are eligible to participate in the Hearst competitions.
