Potter College News

Two Western Kentucky University photojournalism students have been honored in the second multimedia competition of the 2021-2022 Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

Hannah Vanover of Beaver Dam finished second in the Multimedia Innovative Storytelling and Audience Engagement Competition and received a $2,000 award for her entry Invisible. WKU’s School of Media receives a matching award. Ivy Ceballo of Plant City, Florida, placed seventh in the competition.

WKU is in second place in the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition behind the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after two of four contests. They are followed by University of Southern California; Arizona State University; San Francisco State University; Pennsylvania State University; University of Missouri; Syracuse University (tie); Brigham Young University (tie); and University of Nevada, Reno.

In 2020-2021, WKU’s School of Media won the Hearst Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition for the fifth straight year and the 27^th time in the past 32 years and finished third in the Overall Intercollegiate Competition, its 12^th straight top five national ranking. WKU also finished second in the Hearst Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition, an event it has won eight times in 10 years.

WKU has finished in the top eight nationally in the Hearst program for 28 straight years and has won four overall national championships -- 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2018.

WKU students have won 15 Hearst individual national championships since 1985 — photojournalism in 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014 and 2016; multimedia in 2015; writing in 1985; and radio news in 2006.

Often called “The Pulitzers of college journalism,” the Hearst program consists of five writing, two photojournalism, one audio, two television and four multimedia competitions. The points earned by individual students in the monthly competitions determine each discipline’s Intercollegiate ranking. The winners are those schools with the highest accumulated student points in each category.

Funded and administered for 62 years by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the Hearst Journalism Awards Program offers up to $700,000 in scholarships, grants and stipends annually; 103 colleges and universities with accredited undergraduate journalism schools are eligible to participate.

Contact: School of Media, (270) 745-4144.