KU News Release

KU journalism school wins national Hearst awards competition

LAWRENCE — For the second consecutive year, the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications placed first in the 48th annual Intercollegiate Writing Competition of the prestigious Hearst Journalism Awards competition.

“The Hearst competition is the most challenging writing contest in the country,” said Ann Brill, dean of the school. “We are proud to be named the best intercollegiate writers in the nation by the panel of judges. To win this, especially two years in a row, is a tribute to our students and their professors."

Often called the “Pulitzers of College Journalism,” the Hearst competitions in writing, photography and broadcast news take place throughout the academic year. For the Intercollegiate Writing Competition, the journalism school that accumulates the most points in each category of the six writing contests is the winner.

“Our student entries this year were remarkable not only for their high quality, but also for their consistency,” said Ted Frederickson, journalism professor and Budig Teaching Professor of Writing. “Out of our 12 entries in the six categories, 10 finished in the top 20 in the nation out of 216 eligible entries. In a way, we were like our national champion basketball team, which had no All-Americans. None of our writers finished first in any one category, but 10 out of 12 scored significant points, which is why we won.”

KU journalism students won a total of $5,000 in the six writing contests, and the journalism school received matching funds of $5,000, plus $10,000 for finishing first.

KU finished ahead of Northwestern University, the University of Missouri, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Nebraska.

The eight winning articles in the first five contests were published in the University Daily Kansan, but the latest winners in spot news writing were Jonathan Kealing, a spring 2007 graduate in journalism from Chesterfield, Mo., and Nathan Gill, a senior in journalism from Iola. Their entries for the final contest were published while the students worked for off-campus newspapers.

Kealing, who won $500 for finishing eighth, was working part-time for the Lawrence Journal-World during his last semester in school when the speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives suggested Lawrence citizens ought to pay higher taxes because they benefit from the presence of KU. Without the university, he said, Lawrence would be no different from Maple Hill. Kealing got in the car, drove to the town of 462 people and wrote a tongue-in-cheek comparison of the cities. He now works full-time as a Journal-World reporter. Kealing is the son John and Debby Kealing of Chesterfield, Mo., and is a Parkway Central High School graduate.

Gill, who won $500 for finishing 10th, was working as a summer intern when he wrote a story for a special edition of the Osawatomie Graphic describing how more than 200 Miami County residents were driven from their homes by a flash flood and took refuge in an Osawatomie elementary school. Gill is the son of Robert and Rebecca Gill and is an Iola Senior High School graduate.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program, conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, is fully funded and administered by the W. R. Hearst Foundation. The program consists of six monthly writing competitions, three photojournalism competitions, four broadcast news competitions and one multimedia competition, with championship finals in all divisions except multimedia. Presently, 108 accredited schools of journalism in the United States are eligible to participate in the program, which awards up to $500,000 in scholarships and grants annually.

Publisher William Randolph Hearst established the William Randolph Hearst Foundation and the Hearst Foundation Inc. in the 1940s. Since then, the foundations have awarded more than $500 million in grants and programs.

To see examples of the winning work, check the Hearst Web site, www.hearstawards.org.

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