School of Media News

With a first-place finish in the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition and a second-place finish in the Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition, WKU’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting has placed third overall in 2016 Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

The awards will be presented Wednesday (June 1) in San Francisco, where three WKU students are competing this week for Hearst National Championships in multimedia and photojournalism competitions.

WKU has finished in the top five nationally in the Hearst overall competition for the past seven years and won the national championship in 2000, 2001 and 2005.

Often called “The Pulitzers of college journalism,” the Hearst program holds yearlong competitions in writing, photojournalism, broadcast news and multimedia for journalism undergraduates. Schools accumulating the most points earned by their students in each category are designated the winners of the Intercollegiate Competitions.

The top 10 schools in the 2016 Hearst Intercollegiate Overall rankings are University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Pennsylvania State University, WKU, Arizona State University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Indiana University, University of Montana, University of Oregon (tie), University of Missouri (tie) and Syracuse University.

In addition to its finishes in multimedia and photojournalism, WKU placed 20^th in the writing competition and 25^th in the broadcasting competition.

Alyse Young, a senior from Redmond, Washington, is one of four finalists competing for the multimedia national championship, while Brittany Greeson, a senior from Owensboro, and Nick Wagner, a senior from Ada, Minnesota, are among six finalists in the photojournalism national championship. The individual competitions end Friday (June 3).

Young, Greeson and Wagner were among several WKU students who received awards in the 2015-2016 Hearst competitions.

Young won the Multimedia II/News Competition and received a $2,600 award. Greeson won the Photojournalism Picture Story/Series Competition and received a $2,600 award; she finished second in the Multimedia II/News Competition and received a $2,000 award. Wagner finished third in the Photojournalism Picture Story/Series Competition and received a $1,500 award; he also finished eighth in the Photojournalism News and Features Competition.

In the Multimedia IV/Team Reporting Competition, Kreable Young, a senior from Birmingham, Alabama; Katie McLean, a senior from Cumming, Georgia; and Kae Holloway, a senior from Owensboro, finished third and received a $1,500 award, while the team of Morgan Walker, a senior from Washington, D.C., and Adam Wolffbrandt, a senior from Lexington, finished fourth and received a $1,000 award.

Daniel Vorlet, a senior from Troy, Virginia, finished seventh in the Multimedia I/Features Competition.

Emily Kask, a junior from Glastonbury, Connecticut, finished seventh in the Multimedia III/Enterprise Reporting Competition.

WKU’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting receives matching awards and will receive $10,000 award for its multimedia first-place finish and $4,000 for its photojournalism second-place finish.

WKU has won the multimedia competition for five consecutive years, has won the photojournalism competition 22 times in the past 27 years and has finished in the top eight overall for 23 straight years.

WKU students have won 14 Hearst individual national championships in the past three decades — multimedia in 2015; photojournalism in 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2014; writing in 1985; and radio news in 2006.

Hearst Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition 2016 top 10: WKU, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Syracuse University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Oregon, University of Montana, Pennsylvania State University, Elon University, University of Missouri and Arizona State University.

Hearst Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition 2016 top 10: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, WKU, Ohio University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kent State University, University of Missouri, University of Oregon, Pennsylvania State University, Central Michigan University (tie) and Arizona State University (tie).

For more about the 56th annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program, visit http://www.hearstawards.org/

For more information on the WKU School of Journalism & Broadcasting and the Photojournalism major, contact the School at (270) 745-4144.