2015 National Championship

June 1-5, 2015

The 55th annual Hearst National Journalism Awards Championship was the culmination of the 2014-2015 monthly competitions. 29 finalists with top scores from the 1,166 competition entries gathered in San Francisco 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 former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. 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 the consequences and untold stories of the California drought.

The photo finalists were given two assignments: A picture story showing San Francisco’s demographic transformation and a single image representing the 100-year anniversary of the Panama Pacific Exposition. The multimedia finalists were also assigned the story about San Francisco’s changing demographics.

The radio and television finalists’ assignment was to find a story about the impact of the California drought. The judges reviewed the finalists’ pieces Thursday, June 4th, and the winners were announced that evening at the final awards ceremony.