San Francisco – Winners have been announced in the Photojournalism Picture Story/Series Competition of the 2022-2023 Hearst Journalism Awards Program. The winning photojournalists were selected from 93 entries from 53 schools submitted in the second photo competition of the year.
First Place has been awarded to Kennedy Gott, a December 2022 graduate from Western Kentucky University. Kennedy wins a $3,000 scholarship and qualifies for the National Photojournalism Championship which will take place in San Francisco this June 2023.
The top qualifying finalists, along with the top finalists in photo I competition and three finalists with top combined scores from the two competitions, will submit additional photos for a semi-final round of judging. Four
finalists will be chosen from that round to compete in the National Photojournalism Championship along with the first-place winners in photojournalism, and finalists in the writing, audio, TV and multimedia Championship categories.
The second through fifth place finalists are:
Second Place, $2,000 award, Laura Bilson, Ohio University *
Third Place, $1,500 award, Wesley Lapointe, University of Oregon *
Fourth Place, $1,000 award, Grace Smith, University of Iowa *
Fifth Place, $1,000 award, J’sha Gift, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill *
The top five winning schools receive matching grants.
The sixth-through-tenth place finalists are:
Sixth Place, certificate, Jerod Ringwald, University of Iowa *
Seventh Place, certificate, Lauren Witte, University of Florida *
Eighth Place, certificate, Gabi Broekema, Western Kentucky University *
Ninth Place, certificate, Benjamin Fanjoy, San Francisco State University
Tenth Place, certificate, Isaac Wasserman, University of Oregon
* These finalists qualify for the semi-final round.
Western Kentucky University has won the Intercollegiate Photojournalism Competition with the highest accumulated student points in the two photo competitions.
They are followed by: University of Iowa; University of Oregon; Michigan State University; Ohio University; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of Florida; Pennsylvania State University; Elon University; University of Montana.
The top three intercollegiate winners earn $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively. These awards will be presented at the Intercollegiate Awards Presentation during the National Championship in June.
The photojournalism judges are: Marcia Allert, Managing Photo Producer, Apple; Nicole Frugé, Director of Visuals, The San Francisco Chronicle; Danny Gawlowski, Assistant Managing Editor, The Seattle Times.
The 63rd annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program added photojournalism to the competitions in 1970. The program also includes five writing, one audio, two television, and four multimedia competitions offering up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants and stipends. Currently, there are 105 universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs are eligible to participate in the Hearst competitions.
