NEWS RELEASE
HEARST BREAKING NEWS WRITING WINNERS NAMED
San Francisco – The top 10 winners in college breaking news writing were announced today in the 55th annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program, in which 108 undergraduate journalism programs at universities across the nation are eligible to participate. There were 80 entries in this competition, submitted from 46 schools.
First Place has been awarded to Megan Antonina Jula, a junior from Indiana University. Megan will receive a $2,600 scholarship for her winning article titled “Woman sentenced to 20 years for aborting and discarding baby” published in Indiana Daily Student. The Department of Journalism at Indiana University will receive a matching grant, as do the journalism departments of all scholarship winners. Megan also qualifies to participate in the 2015 Hearst Journalism Writing Championship held this June in San Francisco.
Other scholarship winners are:
Benjamin Oreskes, Northwestern University, second place, $2,000 scholarship
McKenna Ferguson, Colorado State University, third place, $1,500 scholarship
Jordan Rudner, University of Texas, Austin, fourth place, $1,000 scholarship
Miguel Otarola, Arizona State University, fifth place, $1,000 scholarship
The sixth through tenth place winners receiving certificates of merit are:
Will Drabold, Ohio University, sixth place
Emma Ockerman, Ohio University, seventh place
Hannah Armenta, Kent State University, eighth place
Michael Majchrowicz, Indiana University, ninth place
Joshua Cannon, University of Memphis, tenth place
Indiana University has won the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated student points in the five writing competitions. They are followed by: Arizona State University; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Northwestern University; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; University of Montana; Pennsylvania State University; University of Iowa; University of Missouri; Oklahoma State University. First through third place intercollegiate winners will receive $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively. These awards will be presented during the National Championships in San Francisco this June.
Judging the writing competitions this year are: Arthur Brisbane, retired Editor and Corporate Executive, Knight Ridder Newspapers; Nicole Carroll, Vice President/News and Executive Editor, The Arizona Republic; and Mike Leary, Senior Vice President and Editor, San Antonio Express-News.
The 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 TV and four multimedia, with Championship finals in all divisions. The program awards up to $500,000 in scholarships and grants annually.
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Contact: Jan C. Watten, Program Director
415.908.4565
jwatten@hearstfdn.org
