Writing Photojournalism Audio Television Multimedia

2024 Audio Championship

This year, one audio competition was held in the News & Features category. The top winners from those 68 entrants qualified to participate in the Hearst National Audio
Championship in San Francisco June 2-7, 2024.

On Sunday, June 2, the audio finalists and judges met for orientation, a critique of the qualifying assignments and a review of the Championship assignment.

For the Championship assignment, the audio finalists were asked to produce a two-minute story about the following topic:

“Why Can’t We Talk to Each Other Civilly?

You have come of age during a time of incivility. From politics (local and national) to the workplace to college to school in general, we have lost the art of respectful
disagreement. We don’t listen to each other anymore. We avoid conversations with people who don’t share our beliefs. We watch, listen to and read things that agree with our world view. Often shared by our friends. We no longer share the same set of basic truths on many subjects. How does that manifest itself in a place in the life of a city like
San Francisco?”

The judges received the completed entries by Wednesday evening for review. The winners were announced at the awards ceremony on Thursday.

The first-through-third place winners were awarded scholarships of $10,000, $7,500, and $5,000 respectively.

The two finalists earned $1,500 scholarships each.

An additional $1,000 award for Best Use of Audio for News Coverage was selected from the monthly competition submissions.

The winners and finalists are featured below.