NEWS RELEASE

2011 HEARST PERSONALITY/PROFILE WRITING WINNERS NAMED

San Francisco – The top 10 winners in personality/profile writing were announced today in the 51st annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program, in which 110 undergraduate journalism programs at colleges and universities across the nation are eligible to participate.

First Place has been awarded to DANIELLE PAQUETTE, of Indiana University. She will receive a $2,600 scholarship for her winning article “The Shepherd’s Lamb” published in the Indiana Daily Student. Indiana University will receive a matching grant, as do the journalism departments of all scholarship winners. Danielle also qualifies for the National Writing Championship which takes place in San Francisco this June.

Other top ten winners are:

CJ LOTZ, Indiana University, second place, $2,000 scholarship

ALLISON COPENBARGER, University of Illinois, third place, $1,500 scholarship

JUSTIN FRANZ, University of Montana, fourth place, $1,000 scholarship

ALEXANDRIA R. BELCULFINE, Pennsylvania State University, fifth place, $1,000 scholarship

AUBREY WHELAN, Pennsylvania State University, sixth place, certificate of merit

STEVE MILLER, University of Montana, seventh place, certificate of merit

EMILY WILKINS, Michigan State University, eighth place, certificate of merit

ELLIOT KORT, University of Kansas, ninth place, certificate of merit

ADAM SAMSON, University of Kansas, tenth place, certificate of merit

Indiana University received first place in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated student points from the first five writing competitions of the academic year. They are followed by: University of Kansas; Pennsylvania State University; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; University of Iowa; University of Missouri; Arizona State University; University of Montana; Northwestern University; University of Florida. The final winners will be announced after the spot news writing competition.

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. It consists of six monthly writing competitions, three photojournalism competitions, three broadcast news competitions and two multimedia competitions, with Championship finals in all divisions. The program awards up to $500,000 in scholarships and grants annually.

Judging the writing competitions this year are: Peter Bhatia, Editor, The Oregonian; Ward Bushee, Editor and Executive Vice President, The San Francisco Chronicle; Jennifer Sizemore, Vice President/Editor in Chief, MSNBC.com and Executive Producer, NBC News.

111 students from 63 universities participated in the program’s fifth writing competition of this academic year. Samples of winning work can be viewed in the monthly winners section of the Web site, which is updated shortly after each competition.
Contact:
Jan C. Watten, program director
415.908.4560
jwatten@hearstfdn.org

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