NEWS RELEASE
TOP 20 HEARST SPOT NEWS WRITING FINALISTS NAMED
San Francisco, CA – ANDREW R. McGILL, a sophomore from Pennsylvania State University, has won first place in the Spot News Writing Competition of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s 48th annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program. 72 students from 43 universities across the nation participated in this competition.
Andrew’s spot news story from The Daily Collegian is titled, “Life Behind Bars.” He will receive a $2,000 scholarship and the opportunity to compete in the National Writing Championships in San Francisco this June. The College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University will receive a matching grant, as do the journalism departments of all scholarship winners.
The Hearst Journalism Awards, conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, is fully-funded and administered by the W. R. Hearst Foundation. The program consists of six monthly writing competitions, three photojournalism competitions, four broadcast news competitions, and one multimedia competition, with Championship finals in all divisions (except multimedia).
Presently, 108 accredited schools of undergraduate journalism in the are eligible to participate in the program, which awards up to $500,000 in scholarships and grants annually.
The other top finalists in the Spot News Writing Competition, and their awards are:
KIM WILMATH, University of Florida, second place, $1,500
EMILEIGH BARNES, University of Iowa, third place, $1,000
EMILY GLAZER, Northwestern University, fourth place, $750
ERIK MYERS, Colorado State University, fifth place, $600
JILL LASTER, University of Kentucky, sixth place, $500
KELLIE WOODHOUSE, University of Maryland, seventh place, $500
JONATHAN KEALING, University of Kansas, eighth place, $500
MEGAN E. HARIS, University of Memphis, ninth place, $500
NATHAN GILL, University of Kansas, tenth place, $500
Certificates of merit are awarded to students who placed in the top 20:
KATIE NIELAND, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, eleventh place
SARA GANIM, Pennsylvania State University, twelfth place
NIKKI BUSSEY, University of Memphis, thirteenth place
JULIANN VACHON, University of Kentucky, fourteenth place-tie
HOLLY BROWN, Western Kentucky University, fourteenth place-tie
MASON K. KERNS, University of Iowa, sixteenth place-tie
CHRISTY MULLINS, Winthrop University, sixteenth place-tie
SARAH D. WIRE, University of Missouri, eighteenth place
ANDY HARPER, Middle Tennessee State University, nineteenth place-tie
MICHELLE CASADY, Texas Tech University, nineteenth place-tie
Judging the writing competition this year are: Arthur S. Brisbane, Former Senior Vice President, Knight Ridder, Inc., Monte Sereno, CA; Stephen Buckley, Managing Editor, The St. Petersburg Times, FL; and Jeff Cohen, Executive Vice President and Editor, Houston Chronicle, TX.
The University of Kansas placed first place in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated school points from the six writing competitions. They are followed by: Northwestern University;University of Missouri; Pennsylvania State University; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; University of Oregon;University of Montana; University of Iowa; Indiana University; Louisiana State University. The top three winners will receive $10,000, $5,000, and $2,500 respectively.
The Spot News Competition is the last writing competition of this academic year. Monthly writing competitions resume again in October 2008. To see examples of the winning work, please check the monthly winners section of our website which is updated shortly after each competition.
CONTACT:
Jan Watten
415-908-4565
jwatten@hearstfdn.org
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