April 26, 2005 | Students

Medill Students Continue Success in 'College Pulitzers'

Robert Samuels, BSJ06, is one of eight students nationally invited to compete in the National Writing Championships in San Francisco, May 25-29.

The Medill School of Journalism has won first place in the writing competition of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation Journalism Awards Program. Known as the "Pulitzer Prize of College Journalism," the award carries a cash prize of $10,000.

The win marks the 17th consecutive year that Medill has finished first or second in the competition and the sixth consecutive year it has come in first place. The top-ranked journalism school has participated in the contest for 17 years. No other journalism school has ranked even in the top five during the same period. All in all, Medill has been earned 11 first- and six second- place prizes.

Judges award points upon reading entries in the categories of feature writing, opinion writing, in-depth writing, sports writing, personality/profile writing and spot news writing. Schools can submit no more than two entries in each of the six categories.

Robert Samuels is one of eight undergraduates around the country invited to compete in the May 25 to 29 National Writing Championships for print media in San Francisco. Nicole Lapin, who earlier this year won a $2,000 prize for first place in the TV features category, will compete in the broadcast division of the National Writing Championships. Results of the championship do not impact school rankings.

The Medill winners for the 2004-05 print competition are Jessica Mayle, who won 5th place and a $600 cash award for opinion writing; Seth Porges, 12th place for opinion writing; David Sterritt, 7th place and $500 for in-depth writing; Robert Samuels, second place and $1,500 for sports writing, 15th place for spot news writing, and 19th place for in-depth writing; Teddy Kider, fifth place and $600 for sports writing; Anne Broache, 11th place for personality/profile writing; Nick Collins, 10th place and $500 for spot news writing.

In addition to Lapin, Hearst broadcast winners include Ben Kwan, who was a national semifinalist after winning a $750 prize for finishing fourth nationally in the TV news category. Lapin and Kwan, with Joy Piazza and Daniel Gotera (who tied for 19th place nationally in the radio features category), enabled Medill to finish in 9th place nationally in the broadcast division of the competition.

In a separate competition, Northwestern students recently won the "Best in Show" award at the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Region 5 Mark of Excellence Awards. "Best in Show" goes to the school that has won more awards than any other single school. Northwestern won 27 in all, including 12 first-place awards.

In the regional SPJ contests, Theodore Kider won both first and second place in sports writing. First prizes also went to Medill students Stacy Klein and Matthew DeFour for in-depth reporting; Janet Kim for non-fiction magazine writing; Daniel Gotera for radio sports reporting; Andrew Chow for general news reporting; Ben Stewart for spot news; and Adrian Mateus for television features.

Other Medill SPJ winners include Jordana Mishory, Sara Sheridan, Ethan Plaut, Katie Walton, Maridel Reyes, Jacklyn Tranchida, Jacqueline Chmielnicki, Sarah Aller, Bahar Taktehchian, and Loka Ashwood. Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences students Donnie Maley and Adam Riff and School of Communications students Howard Tilman and Kate O'Donnell also won awards.

Northwestern's Blackboard Magazine and NuAsian captured first and second place for best student magazine published more than once a year and best student magazine published more than once a year, respectively.