Feedback May 2002 (Vol 43 No 2)

SEARCHBEA STUDENT NEWS AWARDSby Dana RosengardThe News Division of the Broadcast Education Association sponsored its firststudent news awards competition at the BEA national convention in Las Vegas thispast April as part of the convention festival. The festival is the major showcase forfaculty and student work and held in conjunction with the national convention.“The value of BEA’s Festival awards programs for broadcast news students can notbe overstated. Not only does it provide them with a critical bit of self-confidence butmakes a nice addition to their resume. These new professionals experience first handthe thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. It sets their sights on future contestsincluding the prestigious RTNDA Murrow Awards, among others,” says B. WilliamSilcock, in-coming BEA News Division chairman and assistant professor of broadcastjournalism at Arizona State University.Division leaders felt a program recognizing the broadcast news efforts of studentsacross the country was long overdue and hoped there would be interest in collegenewsrooms. And there was. Television entries in newscast, hard news and featurereporting categories came in from 24 different schools: 137 entries in all! (Table 1)Twenty-nine radio entries in the same three categories came in from nearly a dozenschools. The news staff at WUNC-FM and a former Mutual Radio network bureauchief judged the radio newscast and hard news stories. While the group declined torecognize any outstanding newscasts, Kim Dobitz of the University of Montana tooktop honors in the hard news category for her story on underage drinking. AnotherMontana reporter, Johanna Feaster, along with the University of Colorado’s AngelaGasperini received honorable mention for their radio reporting.The news staff at Alabama Public Radio judged the radio feature news stories.With 21 entries, the largest of the radio categories, feature winners came from acrossthe country: New York, Colorado and North Carolina. (Table 2) Congratulations toGabrielle Hurley, John Langelar, Aaron Mason and John McGraw of Ithaca College,Tim Covi and Nina Grabowski of the University of Colorado, and to Nicole Brusik ofthe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.(No winners chosen in the newscast category and only a 1st place award presentedin hard news category.)Schools were able to enter two television newscasts from calendar year 2001 in thecompetition, all of which were judged by a team of five journalists at WPTZ-TV(NBC), Plattsburgh, NY-Burlington, VT. Assignment Editor Matt Morin led theteam. 6pm Producer Angela Deering led the WMUR-TV (ABC), Manchester, NH,team that judged the hard news entries. News Director Estelle Parsley of WRDW-TV(CBS), Augusta, GA, directed the feature news judging team. Sixteen judges in all,from different states and different network affiliates, none with association to any ofthe winning schools, each team reported high regards for much of the student workthey viewed. And the winners are—- (Table 3)52Feedback May 2002 (Vol. 43, No. 2)