WKU News

WKU’s School of Media has won the Hearst Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition for the sixth straight year and the 28^th time in the past 33 years.

WKU won the competition with the highest accumulated student points in the two photo contests of the 2021-2022 Hearst Journalism Awards Program and will receive a $10,000 award. The rest of the 10 finishers are University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Arizona State University; University of Florida; Ohio University; University of Kentucky; Michigan State University; San Francisco State University; University of Montana (tie); University of Oregon (tie); University of Iowa.

WKU had two top-10 finishers in the Photojournalism Picture Story/Series Competition. Gunnar Word, a senior from Edmonton, finished third and received a $1,500 award, while Rhyne Newton, a senior from Shepherdsville, finished seventh. The School of Media will receive a matching award. WKU students finished sixth and seventh in the Photojournalism Features and News Competition.

The WKU School of Media remains in second place in the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition behind the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after three of four competitions. The rest of the top 10 is: University of Southern California; University of Missouri; Brigham Young University; Arizona State University; San Francisco State University; Pennsylvania State University (tie) University of Nevada, Reno (tie); University of Oregon.

Sam Mallon, a senior from Silver Spring, Maryland, finished fifth in the Multimedia Digital News/Enterprise Story Competition and received a $1,000 award; the School of Media will receive a matching award. Joeleen Hubbard, a senior from Knoxville, Tennessee, finished sixth.  

In 2020-2021, WKU finished second in the Hearst Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition, an event it has won eight times in 10 years; and finished third in the Overall Intercollegiate Competition, its 12^th straight top five national ranking. WKU has finished in the top eight nationally in the Hearst program for 28 straight years and has won four overall national championships -- 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2018.

WKU students have won 15 Hearst individual national championships since 1985 — photojournalism in 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014 and 2016; multimedia in 2015; writing in 1985; and radio news in 2006.

Often called “The Pulitzers of college journalism,” the Hearst program consists of five writing, two photojournalism, one audio, two television and four multimedia competitions. The points earned by individual students in the monthly competitions determine each discipline’s Intercollegiate ranking. The winners are those schools with the highest accumulated student points in each category.

Funded and administered for 62 years by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the Hearst Journalism Awards Program offers up to $700,000 in scholarships, grants and stipends annually; 103 colleges and universities with accredited undergraduate journalism schools are eligible to participate.

Contact: School of Media, (270) 745-4144

- WKU -

Western Kentucky University prides itself on positioning its students, faculty and staff for long term success. As a student-centered, applied research university, our students expand on classroom learning by integrating education with real-world applications in the communities we serve. Our hilltop campus is located in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which was recently named by Reader’s Digest as one of the nicest towns in America, just an hour’s drive from Nashville, Tennessee.