2015 – 2016 Writing Winners
From the 596 writing entries received in the 2015-2016 writing competitions, eight finalists’ competition articles qualified them for the Hearst National Writing Championship in San Francisco, where they competed for additional scholarship awards. This special event consisted of an on-the-spot assignment and a press interview. The finalists’ articles were judged for accuracy, writing quality, enterprise and innovation.
On Monday, May 30th, shortly after arriving in San Francisco, the finalists met with the judges for orientation and assignments . This year, the on-the-spot assignment was about the city’s homelessness crisis. The finalists’ press interview took place with Oakland’s Mayor Libby Schaaf. The final deadline was Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. by which point a news story from the interview, a personality/profile of Mayor Schaaf and the spot news piece were due. After reviewing the articles Thursday morning, the judges made their decisions, and the winners were announced at the awards ceremony that evening.
The first-through-third place winners were awarded scholarships of $5,000, $4,000, and $3,000 respectively. The five finalists earned $1,500 scholarship awards. Two finalists were awarded additional $1,000 special prizes for Article of the Year and Best Reporting Technique. All winners and finalists are featured below.
