SoJ Web Report | June 13, 2011
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| Photo by Thomas Miller |
| Three IU students competed in the national Hearst contest, with Danielle Paquette, center, bringing home first place. Caitlin Johnston, left, took second and Caitlin Keating was a runner up. |
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Danielle Paquette, a senior from Plainfield, Ind., won the national championship along with a $5,000 first prize and a medallion. Caitlin Johnston, a 2011 graduate from Crown Point, Ind., placed second in the competition, and earned $4,000 and a medallion.
"The judges called my name, and tears started streaming down my face,” said Paquette, who wrote two stories in San Francisco. “I felt so incredibly honored and blessed."
Paquette is the first IU student to win national first place in the 51-year history of the Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program. The Hearst awards are regarded as the Pulitzer Prizes of college journalism, said School of Journalism’s Dean Brad Hamm.
“The Hearst competition is a leading gauge for the top journalism schools in the nation,” he said. “Finishing in the top 10 is a great goal, and winning individual or school competitions is rare. I’m proud of all of the success this year by our students, faculty and staff.”
In April, IU student journalists won the Intercollegiate Writing Competition for the second year in a row. Eight winners from those competitions were invited to the San Francisco event. In addition to Paquette and Johnston, Caitlin Keating, a 2011 graduate, competed and won a $1,500 prize.
The San Francisco event is the culmination of a months-long series of competitions sponsored by the Hearst Foundation that draws nearly 700 entries from students at universities around the nation. Twelve IU students' work placed in the top 10 in writing and photojournalism competitions, and their points contributed to IU's fourth place award. IU placed ninth in the Overall Intercollegiate competition last year.
Visiting professor Tom French, BA’81, not only worked with students on their entries for monthly reporting contests, but he also recalls his experience as a second place Hearst winner when he was a student in 1980.
“The Hearst championship is a heart-stopping, once-in-a-lifetime competition, and these three students dove into that challenge with joy and discipline and an exhilarating sense of possibility,” said French, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting at the St. Petersburg Times.
“All three of these young journalists are blessed with astonishing talents, but the real reason they soared out in San Francisco was because of their willingness to keep reporting and writing and rewriting, no matter what,” he said.
The San Francisco event required the eight students to each write three stories. The contestants wrote a profile of California attorney general Kamala Harris and wrote a story about a press conference-style interview with her. The third story idea was announced just before students went out to report on it.
This is different from the monthly contests leading up to the national competition, as students submit work published or posted in collegiate media. In those competitions, Paquette won first in the personality/profile competition. Johnston placed first in the opinion writing competition, and Keating placed second in the spot news writing competition. Most of the award-winning articles were written for the Indiana Daily Student newspaper and Inside magazine.
“I think accomplishments like this are a reflection of the students’ commitment to tell great stories, and their willingness to work hard,” said IDS editorial adviser Ruth Witmer. “They demonstrate that every day. Our three finalists are all incredible young journalists. We could not be more proud.”
Besides French, Barbara Toman, BA’83, won a second place in writing in 1983. IU also had national champions in the individual photojournalism competition in 1970 (John Fulton), 1979 (Scott Goldsmith) and 1983 (Phil Sears).
More:
- Link to a press release about this news.
- Read the winners' first-person accounts of the contest.
- Read about students' successes in the Hearst competition.
- See a Hearst report listing all of the national winners.
- Learn more about the Hearst Foundation Journalism Awards Program.
Questions? Comments? Email the Web editor.
