HEARST  JOURNALISM  AWARDS  PROGRAM

NEWS  RELEASE                                                                                                                                                  

HEARST  IN-DEPTH  WRITING  WINNERS  NAMED

San Francisco – The top 10 winners in college In-Depth writing have been announced in the 49^th annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program, in which 110 undergraduate journalism programs at colleges and universities across the nation are eligible to participate.

First Place has been awarded to MATT  ERICKSON, a senior at the University of Kansas.  He will receive a $2,000 scholarship for his winning article, “Facing the Music” from The Daily Kansan.  The University of Kansas will receive a matching grant, as do the journalism departments of all scholarship winners.  Matt has qualified to participate in the Hearst National Writing Championship in San Francisco this June.

   Other scholarship winners are: 

MEGAN  HIRT, University of Kansas, second place, $1,500 scholarship

RYAN  KNUTSON, University of Oregon, third place, $1,000 scholarship

ANDY  BOYLE,  University of Nebraska-Lincoln, fourth place, $750 scholarship

PETER  JACKSON, Northwestern University, fifth place, $600 scholarship

SARAH  M.  PANUSKA, University of Missouri, sixth place, $500 scholarship

REBECCA  DELANEY, University of Missouri, seventh place, $500 scholarship

MIMI  ABEBE, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, eighth place, $500 scholarship

ANDREW  MCGILL, Pennsylvania State University, ninth place, $500 scholarship

OLIVIA  HUBERT-ALLEN, Elon University, tenth place, $500 scholarship

The University of Kansas received first place in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated student points from the first three writing competitions of the academic year.  They are followed by:  Northwestern University; Arizona State University; University of Missouri; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; San Francisco State University; Iowa State University; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Pennsylvania State University; University of Oregon.  The final winners will be named in April following the final writing competition.

The Awards Program is conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, and fully funded and administered by the W.R. Hearst Foundation.  It consists of six monthly writing, three photojournalism and four broadcast news competitions and one multimedia competition, with championship finals in all divisions except multimedia.  The program awards up to $550,000 in scholarships and grants annually.

Judging the writing competition this year are:  Arthur S. Brisbane, ASB Consulting, East Dennis, MA; Jeff Cohen, Executive Vice President and Editor, Houston Chronicle, TX; and Peter Bhatia, Executive Editor, The Oregonian, Portland, OR.

There were 92 students from 55 universities and colleges who participated in the program's third writing competition of this academic year.  For samples of winning work, please check the monthly winners section of the website which is updated shortly after each competition.

            Contact: Jan Watten, program director

            415-908-4560

jwatten@hearstfdn.org

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