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TABLE 12002 BEA News Division student news competition: RadioCategory 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd PlaceNEWSCAST University of Trinity UniversityMontana University of AlabamaHARD news reporting William Pitts Danielle Cross Kegan HarshaArizona State U. U. of Montana U. of MontanaFEATURE news reporting Josh Davis Josh Davis William PittsArizona State U. Arizona State U. Arizona State U.SPORTS reporting Sudhir Kumar Jessica Hamner Matthew PearlUNC/Chapel Hill U. of Montana Northwestern U.William Pitts’ winning hard news story was a report on mock terrorism that judgescalled, “(high) energy that had me interested from the start,” and “well-written with agood nat sound.”The winning feature news story from Josh Davis on American Idol tryouts inPhoenix was noted as “entertaining” and “fun” by judges.Sudhir Kumar’s winning sports reporting piece was on club football at Chapel Hilland won raves for “an opening soundbite that captures the spirit of the piece,” and foroffering an “entertaining look at a part of college sports where the joy of play has notbeen corrupted by the big sports dollar.”Television competition brought in 119 entries from 23 different colleges anduniversities. (Table 2) In a change from last year’s competition, judging for thenewscast competition was a 2-step process. Newscast entries were first sent to one oftwo preliminary judging teams, one led by assistant news director Greg Boyce atKOAA-TV, Colorado Springs-Pueblo, Colorado, the other led by news producer KorieUniversity of South CarolinaAssistant Professor Tim Brown(at podium in background) announcesWilliam Pitts as the hard news radioreporting winner at BEA’s nationalconvention. William, from Arizona StateUniversity, accepts the award fromUniversity of Memphis AssistantProfessor Dana Rosengard.56Feedback April 2003 (Vol. 44, No. 2)