WKU News

Two Western Kentucky University photojournalism students placed in the top five of the third multimedia competition of the 2022-2023 Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

Brenna Pepke, a 2022 graduate from Memphis, Tennessee, finished second in the Multimedia Digital News/Enterprise Competition for Finding Home and received a $2,000 award. Allie Schallert, a senior from New Windsor, New York, finished fourth for Coming Alive and received a $1,000 award. WKU’s School of Media receives matching awards.

WKU is in first place in the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition with the highest accumulated student points from three of four multimedia competitions and is followed by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Florida, Syracuse University, University of Southern California, University of Missouri, Pennsylvania State University, San Francisco State University, Brigham Young University, and University of Kentucky.

The top three intercollegiate winners earn $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000, respectively. The final intercollegiate winners will be announced after the completion of all four multimedia competitions in May and will be presented during the National Championships in June.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program, now in its 63rd year, added multimedia to the competitions in 2010. WKU has won the multimedia championship eight times.

Last week, WKU won the Hearst Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition for the seventh straight year and the 29^th time in the past 34 years.

Often called “The Pulitzers of college journalism,” the Hearst Journalism Awards Program includes two photojournalism, five writing, one audio, two television, and four multimedia competitions offering up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants and stipends; 105 member universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs are eligible to participate in the Hearst competitions.

In the Hearst Overall Intercollegiate Competition, WKU’s School of Media has finished in the top five nationally for 13 consecutive years and has placed in the top eight for 29 straight years with four overall championships in 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2018.

In 2021-2022, WKU finished fourth in the overall competition, won the Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition and placed second in the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition.

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.

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

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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.