2014 National Championship

June 2-6, 2014

The 54th annual Hearst National Journalism Awards Championship was the culmination of the 2013-2014 monthly competitions. 29 finalists with top scores from the 1,109 competition entries gathered in Washington, DC to demonstrate their skills in on-the-spot assignments and compete for additional scholarship awards of up to $5,000. The writing, photojournalism, radio broadcast, television broadcast and multimedia finalists, along with program judges, journalism deans, and special guests convened the first week of June for this special event. The eight writing finalists interviewed Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. They wrote a news story based on the interview and a personality/profile article. In addition, they were assigned to write an on-the-spot article about a human interest tale amid the DC war memorials.

The photo finalists were given two assignments: A picture story showing “what makes Washington DC run” and a single image conceptual photograph capturing the historical significance and current state of DC.

The multimedia finalists’ assignment was also to find a story that showed how DC runs.

The radio and television finalists’ assignment was to find a story about how the media/political landscape shift, with the focus of issue and candidate debate moving to direct point-to-voter communication, has impacted journalism today. The judges reviewed the finalists’ pieces Thursday, June 5th, and the winners were announced that evening at the final awards ceremony held at the Newseum.