WKU News

WKU student Kathryn Ziesig won the second multimedia competition of the 2018-2019 Hearst Journalism Awards Program and qualified to participate in the National Multimedia Championship June 1-6 in San Francisco.

Ziesig, a senior from Brentwood, Tennessee, placed first in the Multimedia II-News Competition for the piece titled “Defying All Odds” published in Wkupj.com. Ziesig received a $3,000 scholarship. WKU’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting received a matching grant.

WKU is in fourth place in the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition after two of the four multimedia competitions.

In other Hearst results, WKU senior Emma Collins of Louisville finished seventh in the Enterprise Writing Competition and WKU exchange student Ida Marie Odgaard of Denmark finished 10^th in the Multimedia I-Narrative Storytelling/Features Competition.

In 2018, WKU won the Hearst Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition for the 24^th time in the past 29 years, the Hearst Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition for the seventh straight year and its fourth overall national championship. WKU, which won overall titles in 2000, 2001 and 2005, has finished in the top three overall for nine straight years and in the top eight nationally for 25 straight years.

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 Journalism Awards Program, in its 59th 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; 104 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.

The points earned by individual students in the monthly writing, photojournalism, radio, television and multimedia competitions determine each discipline’s Intercollegiate ranking. The winners are those schools with the highest accumulated student points in each category. The overall Intercollegiate winners are the schools with the highest accumulated student points in the writing, photojournalism, broadcast and multimedia competitions.

Contact: School of Journalism & Broadcasting, (270) 745-4144