School of Media News

WKU’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting has finished third overall in the 2016-2017 Hearst Journalism Awards Program – the school’s 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.

Earlier this spring, WKU won the Hearst program’s Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition for the sixth consecutive year and the Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition for the 23^rd time in the past 28 years.

The top 10 schools in the 2016-2017 Hearst Intercollegiate Overall Competitions are first, North Carolina at Chapel Hill; second, Nebraska-Lincoln; third, WKU; fourth (tie), Missouri and Florida; sixth, Arizona State; seventh, Penn State; eighth, Indiana; ninth, Syracuse; and 10^th, Maryland.

Often called “The Pulitzers of college journalism,” the Hearst Journalism Awards Program, now in its 57th year, includes five writing, one radio, two television, four multimedia and two photojournalism competitions offering up to $500,000 in scholarships, matching grants and stipends; 106 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.

Three WKU students will be competing for individual national championships May 29-June 2 in San Francisco.

Harrison Hill, a senior from Louisville, and Gabriel Scarlett, a sophomore from Maumee, Ohio, are among six finalists in the Hearst Journalism Awards National Photojournalism Championship, while Alyse Young, a senior from Redmond, Washington, is one of five finalists in the Hearst National Multimedia Championship.

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