San Francisco – Winners have been announced in the Multimedia Digital News Competition of the 2023-2024 Hearst Journalism Awards Program. There were 68 entries from 40 schools submitted in the third multimedia competition of the year.
First Place has been awarded to Marilee Combs, a senior from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. Marilee will receive a $3,000 scholarship for the winning piece “A Child of Ukraine” and qualifies for the National Multimedia Championship which will be held this June in San Francisco.
The other top finalists are:
Second Place, $2,000 award, Georgia Mallett, Western Kentucky University
Third Place, $1,500 award, Calli Westra, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Fourth Place, $1,000 award, Gunnar Word, Western Kentucky University
Fifth Place, $1,000 award, Zach Nemirovsky, Syracuse University
The top five winning schools receive matching grants.
The sixth-through-tenth place finalists are:
Sixth Place, certificate, Nico Mendoza, Central Michigan University
Seventh Place, certificate, Lily McInerney, Stony Brook University
Eighth Place, certificate, Milena Malaver, Florida International University
Ninth Place, certificate, Anita Tiara Holman, University of Southern California
Tenth Place, certificate, Bailey Stover, University of Missouri
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is in first place in the Intercollegiate Multimedia Competition with the highest accumulated student points from the three multimedia competitions held thus far.
They are followed by: Western Kentucky University; Syracuse University; University of Florida; University of Missouri; Stony Brook University; Arizona State University; University of Nevada, Reno; Pennsylvania State University; Colorado State University.
The top three intercollegiate winners earn $10,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively. The final intercollegiate
winners will be announced after the completion of all four multimedia competitions in May and will be presented during the National Championships in San Francisco.
The multimedia judges are: Meredith Hogan, Senior Creative Producer, Red Element Studios; Danese Kenon, Managing Editor of Visuals, Philadelphia Inquirer; Robert Scheer, Deputy Managing Editor for Visuals, The Post and Courier.
The Journalism Awards Program, now in its 64th year, added multimedia to the competitions in 2010. The
program also includes five writing, one audio, two television, and two photojournalism competitions offering up to $700,000 in scholarships, matching grants and stipends. 105 member universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs are eligible to
participate in the Hearst competitions.
