Journalism students paced Elon in a prestigious national contest open to college students from more than 100 schools accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Journalism students spurred Elon University’s School of Communications to a Top 20 national finish in the 2014-15 Hearst Journalism Awards Program, which offers competitions in writing, photojournalism, broadcast news and multimedia.
The competition is open to college students from more than 100 schools accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Student work is reviewed by professionals and awarded points by each of three judges in every individual competition.
Elon placed 19th nationwide and fourth among private universities, trailing only Syracuse (7th), Northwestern (10th) and Southern California (16th). Elon’s highest category finish was 12th in the series of national writing competitions.
Following are the students who finished in the top 20 of individual competitions:
- Kate Murphy ’15 placed fourth in the Enterprise Reporting competition for “Armed teachers aim to defend K-12 schools,” which she produced for the News21 program. Murphy also placed 19th in the Sports Writing competition for “Phoenix fights for global perspective: Elon student-athletes challenged with uneven opportunities for study abroad.”
- Tommy Hamzik ’17 placed 18th in Sports Writing for “Never back down: Nicole Dennion kicks cancer.”
Elon was 14th overall in the 2013-14 competition and 21st the year before. In 2009, Elon’s Randy Gyllenhaal ’10 took first place in the Hearst National Television Broadcast News Championship.
In the 2014-15 competition, the national winner was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.