IU, Ball State students take top Keating awards

Victoria Ison, Claire Wiseman and Katie Mettler took 2nd, 3rd and 1st place honors in this year's Keating Feature Writing contest.

Katie Mettler of Indiana University won the 26th Annual Thomas R. Keating Feature Writing Program in Indianapolis on Saturday, Nov. 10, with her story of a former karate master now homeless after being seriously injured in a mugging.

The Indianapolis Press Club Foundation sponsors and runs the Keating writing challenge program, which features 10 finalists representing Indiana’s best and sharpest college journalism students.

 Mettler was awarded first place and prize money of $2,500 for her feature story.

 Finishing in second and earning $1,250 was Victoria Ison of Ball State University, and Claire Wiseman of Indiana University earned third place and $750.

The Fountain Square Historic District in Indianapolis was the site and subject matter for the Keating program’s 2012 Writing Challenge. Keating finalists were dropped off at Fountain Square at 11:30 a.m. Saturday morning and given four hours to develop and write a feature story. The Indianapolis Star provided space in its newsroom for the finalists to craft their stories.

The program is named in honor of Tom Keating, a popular former Indianapolis Star columnist and Lilly Endowment executive who died in 1985 at the age of 45.

Forty students from colleges around the state entered the contest. A panel of judges chose 10 finalists who competed Saturday.  Besides the top finishers, the finalists included: Kirsten Clark of Indiana University; Ellen Kobe of DePauw University; Michael Majchrowicz of Indiana University; Jake New of Indiana University; Andrew Owens of the University of Notre Dame; Samuel Stryker of Notre Dame and Jessica Wray of Franklin College.

Board members of the Indianapolis Press Club Foundation presented the awards and cash prizes Saturday night at the Skyline Club in downtown Indianapolis.

Jeffrey H. Smulyan, chairman, president and CEO of Emmis Communications, was the keynote speaker. He spoke about how the media need to find new business models for their products.

Each Keating finalist also received $100 and a copy of the book “Indiana Faces and Other Places,” a collection of Keating’s work for The Star from 1966-1982.

Since its inception in 1986, the Keating program has donated more than $116,000 to Indiana college and university students.

Note: Read the winning and finalist entries in the contest.

Ball State Daily News wins top CSPA awards

The Ball State Daily News has won 14 first-place Gold Circle Awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, including the top national awards for sports, news features, commentary and overall design.

The prizes were among a total 91 Gold Circles won by the newspaper this year, including 37 in the Digital Media category for work on its website, bsudailynews.com/.

 The Daily News took first, second and third place in the informational graphics category with work from Evan Backstrom, Chelsea Kardokus and Greg Hudson.

Teddy Cahill took first in sports writing, and Devan Filchak won the top News Feature prize.

 Dylan Buell, the newspaper’s photo editor at the time, won the top award for General or Humor Commentary with his essay on, “What not to bring to Ball State.”

 The first prize in Informational Graphics went to Stephanie Meredith. Chelsea Kardokus, meanwhile, won first-place Gold Circles for Sports Page Design and Typography.

Earlier this year the Daily News won a Gold Crown Award, the highest prize for overall excellence from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, for its online operation.

CSPA is an international student media organization founded in 1925 and based at Columbia University in New York.

 The 29th Gold Circle Awards were among 10,444 entries from across the country.

Complete Awards List: http://cspa.columbia.edu/docs/contests-and-critiques/gold-circle-awards/recipients/2012-collegiate-circles.html

Daily News wins SPJ awards

The Ball State Daily News won first place in editorial writing and general column writing in this year’s regional Mark of Excellence Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists.

The Editorial Writing award went to Rhett Umphress, Benjamin Dashley and Sarah Boswell. Benjamin Dashley won first place in General Column Writing.

Other staffers winning awards included Dylan Buell for photography and Daniel Sipocz for in-depth reporting.

Those were among nine Daily News awards in the contest, which honors the best collegiate journalism in the U.S. and this year included more than 4,000 entries in the group’s 12 regions.

SPJ announced the Region 5 winners covering Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, on Saturday at its spring conference at the Marriott Downtown in Indianapolis.

The first-place winners advance to the national competition round, where winners will be announced in late April.

Daily News takes Ind Collegiate Press awards

The Ball State Daily News took 28 awards in the annual Indiana Collegiate Press Association contest on Saturday, including first-place honors in non-deadline news, sports and features photo, illustration and advertising.

Dylan Buell won both first and second place in Best Sports Photo.

“This photo really captures the tension and movement that the play had,” the judge said of Buell’s first-place picture. “The defender feels like he is going to keep moving and fall out of the photo.”

Bobby Ellis won first place in Best Feature Photo for “Reaching Greater Heights,” of which the judge said: “The cool angle of this photo reflects how exciting a rock climbing competition can be.”

Tiffany Ruesser took first place in Best Illustration for her “Super Cardinal,” a Page 1 illustration playing off the “Superman” theme for this year’s Homecoming football game.

“Possibly the best single page in the entire competition,” the judge wrote “Love this illustration, and spoofing the Daily Planet took this page to the next level. Clean, sophisticated and just awesome.”

A records-based reporting project by Editor-in-Chief Sarah Boswell won first place in the Best Non-Deadline News Reporting category.

“Strong use of public records law to show how BSU police deal with complaints about campus police officers,” the judge wrote.

A dozen other Daily News editorial entries won awards in the Newspaper Division I category for dailies printing three or more times per week.

In the Advertising division, Madison Stevens of the Daily News won three first-place awards for Most Creative Use of Ad Copy, Best Ad layout and Best Use of Photography or Graphic Art.

Fellow designer Elizabeth Wojdyla took a first-place award for Best Electronic Ad – Display, and nine other Daily News entries also won awards in the Advertising category.

Crocker Stephenson visits Daily News

Crocker Stephenson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, winner of the Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award at Ball State University, talks with student editors today at the Daily News.

"I write long features, but I love covering breaking news - it's such an adrenaline rush," he said.

Earlier:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter wins Pulliam writing award
(3/15/2012)

Crocker Stephenson, a reporter for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has won the 2012 Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award presented annually by Ball State University's Department of Journalism.

Stephenson is being honored for his Oct. 2 article "83 Minutes of Life Delivers Lifetime of Memories, Grieving for Couple." The reporter will be recognized April 11 at the department's annual luncheon with a plaque and the $1,500 prize, presented on behalf of the Pulliam family, sponsors of the annual writing award.

The award winner also will give his presentation "Finding Story: A Narrative Nonfiction Writer's Journey" as part of the journalism department's professional-in-residence series. The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. April 11 in Cardinal Hall in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center.

The annual national writing competition, which dates back to 1960, has a distinguished history and legacy. Three past winners have later won Pulitzer Prizes.

Stephenson's award-winning article, part of a yearlong series on Milwaukee's infant mortality crisis, used in-depth reporting and a classic narrative structure to explore the impact one short life had on many people.

Stephenson has been a reporter at the Milwaukee Sentinel (later Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) for 25 years. In recent years, he has written on social issues that impact the lives of children, including child welfare, child abuse and infant mortality.
By Marc Ransford, Media Relations Manager

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Daily News wins online Gold Crown

The Ball State Daily News has won a Gold Crown Award, the highest prize for overall excellence from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, for its online operation, bsudailynews.com/.

The CSPA competition included 182 digital publications. Eight Gold Crowns were awarded, and 30 publications received the second-highest award, the Silver Crown.

The student newspaper's digital operation includes stories and photos from its print edition, online-only content and updates throughout the day and on weekends. Sports writers and other staffers produce streaming video programming, and a social media unit supports Twitter feeds and Facebook updates with breaking news.

Last month the Daily News digital operation won 37 online news awards in the association’s annual Gold Circle competition, including first-place for sports, informational graphics, video feature package and humor writing.

CSPA is an international student media association operated by Columbia University since 1925. The latest awards were presented in New York on Sunday.

Full list of awards:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cspa/docs/contests-and-critiques/crown-awards/recipients/2012-collegiate-crown.html

Daily News wins top digital media awards

The Ball State Daily News has won 37 Gold Circle Awards in online news from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, including first-place honors for sports, informational graphics, video feature package and humor writing.

The student journalists took both first- and second-place awards in three categories.

Teddy Cahill won best online sports story with, “Lembo era starts with emotional victory,” and Andrew Mishler won second place with, “Cardinals fall 3-1 to Boilermakers.”

Stephanie Meredith took first place in informational graphics with “Looking back on a decade,” and Mark Townsend won second with “Sports by the numbers.”

In the general humor or commentary category, photographer Dylan Buell took first place with “What not to bring to Ball State” and Benjamin Dashley won second for “An open letter to the person who stole my bike.”

The top video feature package award went to Justin Tyler for his “Midnight showing of ‘Harry Potter.’”

The work was among 4,956 entries from schools across the country and was published on bsudailynews.com, the student newspaper’s website, from Nov. 2, 2010 to Nov. 1, 2011.

Because the awards are dated by the year in which they are presented, these are known as the 2012 Gold Circle Awards for Digital Media.

The CSPA Gold Circles are among the highest awards earned by student journalists in the United States. The association was founded in 1925 and is owned by Columbia University.



Full list of the awards:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cspa/docs/contests-and-critiques/gold-circle-awards/recipients/2012-collegiate-circles.html