Hearst Breaking News Writing Winners Named
The top 10 winners in the Breaking News Writing Competition have been announced in the 60th annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program, in which 104 undergraduate journalism programs at universities across the nation are eligible to participate.
There were 96 entries from 54 schools received in the final writing competition of the academic year.
First Place has been awarded to Jordan Miller, a junior from the University of Oklahoma. Jordan receives a $3,000 scholarship for her winning article titled “TOU Gaylord College professor uses racial slur during class in comparison to ‘OK, boomer’ phrase” published in the OU Daily.
Jordan also qualifies to participate in the 2020 Hearst National Writing Championship. Due to the Covid-19
pandemic, the in-person National Championships in Houston has been cancelled. An alternative experience for the winning finalists will be held in its place.
Second-to-tenth place winners:
Juan Carlos Lara, San Francisco State University, second place, $2,000 scholarship
Carter Mize, University of North Texas, third place, $1,500 scholarship
Gabriel Stern, Syracuse University, fourth place, $1,000 scholarship
Caroline Anders, Indiana University, fifth place, $1,000 scholarship
Nick Hazelrigg, University of Oklahoma, sixth place, certificate of merit
Jack Johnson, University of Kansas, seventh place, certificate of merit
Jillian Atelsek, University of Maryland, eighth place, certificate of merit
Maddie Aiken, Pennsylvania State University, ninth place, certificate of merit
Bleu Bell, Florida A&M University, tenth place, certificate of merit
The journalism departments of all scholarship winners receive matching grants.
Arizona State University has won the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated student points in the five writing competitions held this academic year.
They are followed by: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of Oklahoma; Syracuse University; Pennsylvania State University; University of Missouri; Indiana University (tie); University of Maryland (tie);
University of Southern California; Oklahoma State University.
The top three intercollegiate winners earn $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively, and will be announced during Championship Week. All top ten winners earn medallions.
Judging the Breaking News Writing Competitions were: Audrey Cooper, Editor in Chief, San Francisco Chronicle; Dwayne Bray, Senior Coordinating Producer/Enterprise Reporting Unit, ESPN; and Larry Kramer, Retired President and Publisher, USA Today.
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.
