WKU News

WKU’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting has won the Hearst Journalism Awards Program’s Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition for the seventh consecutive year.

With WKU students finishing second and eighth in the Multimedia IV/Team Reporting-News competition and fourth and fifth in the Multimedia III/Enterprise competition, WKU won 2017-2018 championship with the highest accumulated student points from the four multimedia competitions. In the earlier competitions, WKU students had finished second and third in News and fourth and eighth in Features.

WKU was followed in the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; University of Florida; Syracuse University; Arizona State University (tie); Pennsylvania State University (tie); University of Oregon; University of Missouri; and San Francisco State University. WKU’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting will receive a $10,000 award.

In the Team Reporting/News competition, the WKU team of Gabriel Scarlett, a junior from Maumee, Ohio; Michael Blackshire, a senior from Louisville; Fahad Alotaibi, a senior from Saudi Arabia; and Shaban Athuman, a junior from Roanoke, Virginia, placed second and received a $2,000 award, while WKU students Justin Gilliand, a 2017 graduate from Louisville, and Brittiny Moore, a 2017 graduate from Dodge City, Kansas, finished eighth. In the Enterprise competition, Casper Holmenlund Christensen, an exchange student from Denmark, finished fourth and Abby Potter, a senior from Bowling Green, finished fifth; both received $1,000 awards. The School of Journalism & Broadcasting receives matching awards.

Athuman and Scarlett also were among 10 national semifinalists in the Hearst photojournalism competition and submitted additional photos for judging. Four finalists will be selected to participate in the Hearst National Championships June 3-7 in San Francisco.

Often called “The Pulitzers of college journalism,” the Hearst Journalism Awards Program, in its 58th year, consists of five writing, two photojournalism, one radio, 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.

Earlier this year, WKU won the Hearst Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition for the 24^th time in the past 29 years. After four of five writing competitions, WKU is in fifth place.

The overall results will be announced later this spring. In 2016-17, finished third overall – its eighth consecutive top five national ranking. WKU has finished in the top eight of the Hearst competition for 24 straight years, including national championships in 2000, 2001 and 2005.

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 Journalism & Broadcasting, (270) 745-4144