NEWS

Local angles: Fayetteville, Kernersville, Wrightsville Beach;

Wilmette, Ill.; Alexandria, Va.

Five UNC students win awards at national journalism competition

By ASHLEY ATKINSON
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Five University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students won top awards in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program’s national journalism championships, program officials announced recently. All were students in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The annual competition, held May 31-June 3 in San Francisco, was open to selected finalists of monthly competitions held during the academic year in writing, photojournalism and broadcast news. Participants had to demonstrate their journalistic skills by performing on-the-spot assignments, made by non-Hearst media professionals who also judged the students’ work.

Judges included a former managing editor of Newsday magazine, a Weather Channel vice president and the photography director of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

May 2002 UNC graduate Tim Nelson of Wilmette, Ill., son of William and Sherry Nelson, won second place and a $4,000 scholarship in the Hearst program’s television broadcast news championship, as well as a $1,000 award for the best use of television for news coverage. In April, the Broadcast Education Association awarded Nelson first place in television hard news reporting in its student journalism competition. He also was named the UNC school’s outstanding graduating senior in broadcast news.

Senior Cate Doty of Fayetteville, daughter of Mark and Nancy Doty, won second place and a $4,000 scholarship in Hearst’s writing championship, as well as an award of $1,000 for the best on-the-spot article.

May 2002 graduate Logan Mock-Bunting of Wrightsville Beach, son of Bruce and Ann Mock-Bunting, won second place and a $4,000 scholarship in the National Photojournalism Championship.

Senior Coke Whitworth of Alexandria, Va., son of Thomas and Margaret Whitworth, won third place and a $3,000 scholarship in the photojournalism competition.

Senior Sudhir Kumar of Kernersville, son of Naresh and Basant Kumar, was named a semifinalist in the radio broadcast news championship and awarded a prize of $1,000.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program, designed to encourage excellence in undergraduate journalism and journalism education, is presented annually under the auspices of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with funding by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.

Entrants must be undergraduate journalism majors enrolled in one of the colleges or universities accredited by Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. More than 100 colleges and universities participate in the program; UNC-Chapel Hill is the only participating institution in North Carolina. Students may submit entries only through their schools of journalism, and the winners’ schools receive matching grants.

- 30 -

(Atkinson is a graduate of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication from Roanoke, Va.)

Contact: Dr. Richard Cole, dean of the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 919-962-1204, richard_cole@unc.edu