2017 Championship Writing Winners
From the 588 writing entries received in the 2016-2017 writing competitions, eight finalists’ competition articles qualified them for the Hearst National Writing Championship in San Francisco, where they competed for additional scholarship awards. This special event consisted of an on-the-spot assignment and a press interview. The finalists’ articles were judged for accuracy, writing quality, enterprise and innovation.
On Monday, May 29th, shortly after arriving in San Francisco, the finalists met with the judges for orientation and assignments. This year, the on-the-spot assignment was to address how President Donald Trump’s tougher stance on immigration law enforcement has impacted people or places in San Francisco.
The finalists’ press interview took place with San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. The final deadline was Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. by which point a news story from the interview, a personality/profile of Mr. Herrera and the spot news piece were due. After reviewing the articles Thursday morning, the judges made their decisions, and the winners were announced at the awards ceremony that evening.
The first-through-third place winners were awarded scholarships of $5,000, $4,000, and $3,000 respectively. The five finalists earned $1,500 scholarship awards. Two finalists were awarded additional $1,000 special prizes for Article of the Year and Best Enterprise Story. All winners and finalists are featured below.
