News Release

Local angles: Asheboro, Carrboro, Chapel Hill,
Winston-Salem; East Lyme, Conn.

UNC school named tops in Hearsts,
the Pulitzers of college journalism

CHAPEL HILL - Led by strong showings in broadcast news and photojournalism, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication finished first overall in the 2005-2006 Hearst Journalism Awards.

Contributing to this overall intercollegiate championship were a first place in the broadcast news division and second place in photojournalism. The prizes, of $10,000 and $5,000, respectively, go to the school.

Prizes are awarded in three divisions - writing, photography and television and radio news - monthly throughout the year to undergraduates at accredited schools of journalism, which earn points for their students' wins. Schools whose students earn the most points during the year are named overall winners.

Often called the Pulitzers of college journalism, the awards are presented under the auspices of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with funding by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation of San Francisco.

Several of the school's students will compete for individual awards during the Hearst program's national championships June 7-10 in San Francisco. Emily Steel, a senior from East Lyme, Conn., will compete in the National Writing Championships.

Seniors Kristi Keck, of Winston-Salem, will compete in radio, and Sean Maroney, of Asheboro, in television during the Broadcast News Championships. Seniors Ray Jones, of Carrboro, and Samkit Shah, of Chapel Hill, are semifinalists in the Photojournalism National Championships.

The Hearst honor continues a recent string of national and international awards for the school. A multimedia project, "The Ancient Way" (http://www.theancientway.org), received a Best of Category 2006 in magazine/news from the Horizon Interactive Awards, an international competition sponsored by multimedia, design and Web development firms.

Another such project, "Chiloé Stories" (http://www.chiloestories.org), received first place for multimedia in the independent category of the Best of Photojournalism Competition 2005 from the National Press Photographers Association. The project also won second place for multimedia in the independent category of the Pictures of the Year International 2005 contest operated by the Missouri School of Journalism and a 2005 Gold Medal in the SNDies Awards from the Society of News Design.

"These prestigious awards recognize the inspiration and leadership of many faculty members in the school and many hardworking and incredibly talented students," said Dr. Tom Bowers, interim school dean. "Very few schools can claim such wide-ranging validation of the superiority of their faculty, students and programs."

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Note: For more information on the Hearst program, visit http://hearstfdn.org/
School of Journalism and Mass Communication contact: John Kuka, assistant dean for communications, 919-966-3323
News Services contacts: Print, L.J. Toler, 919-962-8589; broadcast, Karen Moon, 919-962-8595