HEARST EXPLANATORY REPORTING WINNERS ANNOUNCED

San Francisco – The top 10 winners in college explanatory reporting have been announced in the 61st annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program, in which 103 undergraduate journalism
programs at universities across the nation are eligible to participate.

107 explanatory reporting entries from 60 universities were received in this competition.

First Place has been awarded to Riley Haun, from the University of Idaho. Riley receives a $3,000 scholarship for the winning article titled “‘The bottom has just dropped out’: As insect populations plummet, scientists
wonder why.” published in the Spokeman.com. Riley also qualifies to participate in the 2021 Hearst National
Writing Championship this June.

University of Idaho’s School of Journalism will receive a matching grant, as do the journalism departments of all scholarship winners.

Other scholarship winners are:

Angela Roberts, University of Maryland, second place, $2,000 scholarship
Drew Wayland, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, third place, $1,500 scholarship
Bailey Vandiver, University of Kentucky, fourth place, $1,000 scholarship
Ramishah Maruf, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, fifth place, $1,000 scholarship
Ashley Flaws, Drake University, sixth place, certificate
Emily Kelleher, Syracuse University, seventh place, certificate
Erika Peters, Stony Brook University, eighth place, certificate
Adrianna Jacobs, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, ninth place, certificate
Claire Colby, University of Missouri, tenth place, certificate

Drake University placed first in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition with the highest accumulated student points in the first two writing competitions this year.
They are followed by: Syracuse University; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of Florida; University of Oregon (tie); University of Oklahoma (tie);
Stony Brook University; University of Idaho; Brigham Young University; University of Iowa.

The final intercollegiate winners will be announced after the completion of the five writing competitions in June. The top three winning schools in each category will earn $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively.

Judging the writing competitions this year are: Dwayne Bray, Senior Coordinating Producer/Enterprise Reporting Unit, ESPN; Larry Kramer, retired President and Publisher, USA Today; and Maria Reeve, Managing Editor, Houston Chronicle.

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 14 monthly competitions consist of five writing, two photojournalism, one audio, two television and four multimedia, with Championship finals in all divisions. The program awards up to $700,000 in scholarships and grants annually.