Two University of Mississippi student media leaders have been named as winners in the 2018-2019 Hearst Journalism Awards Program.
Abbie McIntosh and Ariel Cobbert both placed in the Hearst Journalism Awards national competition this year.
In the Television Features category, McIntosh tied for 15th place. There were 107 entries from 60 universities. Cobbert placed 21st in the Photojournalism News and Features category, which had a record 128 entries from 77 universities.
McIntosh is station manager for UM’s award-winning NewsWatch Ole Miss – a daily, student-run live 30-minute newscast.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Abbie the past two years as she was NewsWatch station manager,” said NewsWatch faculty adviser Nancy Dupont. “Then I had the pleasure of having her in my advanced TV reporting class. She has a goal to be excellent in everything she does. In fact, she will overcome any obstacle getting in the way of her success. She is in the top 1 percent of broadcast journalism students I’ve ever taught.”
The two TV packages from McIntosh that were entered in the Television Features category were both from coverage of Hurricane Michael. Three journalism students – led by journalism professors Mark Dolan, Ji Hoon Heo and John Baker – traveled to Panama City in October to report about the hurricane’s impact.
Cobbert, who graduated in December 2018, is former photo editor for The Daily Mississippian and The Ole Miss yearbook. Her Hearst photojournalism entry included her DM coverage of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and photos she took for the yearbook and for her internships. In summer 2018, she had a photo internship at the Daily Press in Virginia, and she had a fall internship at the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
Alysia Steele is one of the JNM professors who have worked closely with Cobbert.
“I have watched Ariel blossom over the years,” Steele said. “What I love and respect about Ariel is how hard working she is, and how she takes constructive feedback from a good place and applies it to her work. She has one of the best attitudes I’ve ever seen in a student, and I’m ridiculously proud of her. It’s nice to see her place in Hearst. I can’t wait to see what she does career-wise, because I know for sure she’s going to make an impact in the journalism world.”
The Hearst contest has several more categories with deadlines during spring semester.
Winners were selected from 107 entries submitted from 60 schools nationwide. The first-place winner qualifies for the National Television Championship held in San Francisco next June.
Other top winners, along with the top finalists in the next television competition, will submit additional entries for a semi-final round of judging. Four finalists will be chosen from that round to compete in the championship, along with writing, photo, radio and multimedia finalists.
First Place has been awarded to Grace King from University of Florida. King wins a $3,000 scholarship and qualifies for the National Broadcast News Championship.
The top ten finalists and their awards are:
Second Place, $2,000 award, Lydia Nusbaum, University of Missouri
Third Place, $1,500 award, Matt Lively, Arizona State University
Fourth Place, $1,000 award, Meredith Sheldon, University Florida
Fifth Place, $1,000 award, Claire Going, Pennsylvania State University
Sixth Place, certificate, Claire Kopsky, University of Missouri
Seventh Place, certificate, Tom Austen, Syracuse University
Eighth Place, certificate, Payton Walker, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ninth Place, certificate, Lillian Donahue, Arizona State University
Tenth Place, certificate, Kristen Rary, University of Georgia
The top five winning schools receive matching grants. The University of Florida is in first place in the Intercollegiate Broadcast Competition with the highest accumulated student points from the first of two television competition of this academic year.
It is followed by: University of Missouri, Arizona State University, Syracuse University, Pennsylvania State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Baylor University, Michigan State University, University of Maryland and the University of Georgia.
The final intercollegiate broadcast winners are announced after the completion of the radio competition and the second television competition. The top three intercollegiate winners earn $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively, which will be presented at the National Championships in San Francisco this June.
The television judges are: Julie Chin, news director, KNX Radio, Los Angeles; Lloyd Siegel, former vice president of news partnerships, NBC News, New York; and Fred Young, retired senior vice president of news, Hearst Television Inc., Yardley, Pennsylvania.
The 59th annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program added broadcast news to the competitions in 1988. The program also includes five writing, one radio, two photo, and four multimedia competitions offering up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants and stipends.
There are 104 universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs eligible to participate in the Hearst competitions.
The Hearst Journalism Awards Program is conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication and fully funded and administered by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.
The program consists of five monthly writing competitions, two photojournalism competitions, one radio and two TV broadcast news competitions, and four multimedia competitions, with Championship Finals in all divisions, with the exception of team multimedia. The program awards up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants, stipends and intercollegiate awards annually.
The William Randolph Hearst Foundation was established by its namesake in 1948 under California non-profit laws, exclusively for educational and charitable purposes. Since then, the Hearst Foundations have contributed more than one billion dollars to numerous educational programs, health and medical care, human services and the arts in every state.
Tags: Abbie McIntosh, Hearst, NewsWatch, Ole Miss, Oxford, UM School of Journalism and New Media, University of Mississippi