ASU’s journalism school placed first overall in the Hearst Journalism Awards’ intercollegiate broadcast competition with five students placing in the top 20 in their respected fields.
This marks the second time in three years the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication won the $10,000 award for its first place finish.
Journalism senior Nathan O’Neal placed first in the TV news portion of the competition with two stories for Cronkite NewsWatch. One story aired last semester and the second story aired this semester.
One of his winning clips was a story on how food safety regulations impact small farms, which he worked on for about six months before it ran. The second was about the high rate of HIV on the Navajo reservation.
“Since I was a freshman, I have seen some great students here and I’m honored to be one of them,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal is now working on an additional two clips for the semifinal stage of the competition.
Economics and journalism senior Dan Neligh placed fourth in the TV features portion of the competition and qualified for the semifinal round.
This was Neligh’s second time placing in the Hearst Journalism Award Program Competition. In 2011, his first place multimedia category win qualified him to compete in the competition's national championship, where he took third place.
Neligh’s winning features this year were a story on a Phoenix symphony conductor and the owner of the Jamburritos food truck, each of which he said took between 35 and 40 hours to complete.
He submitted his semifinal stories — a video about dentistry in Mexico and another detailing the relationship between immigration and politics — Wednesday.
Neligh said he felt honored by the award, but was more proud of the work he did.
“At the end of the day, awards don’t matter so much as the work itself,” Neligh said.
Journalism senior Ryan Haarer placed sixth in the TV news category for two stories he did with Cronkite NewsWatch.
Last year, Haarer traveled to Alabama to report on the state’s new immigration law, which is similar to Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070.
“Arizona was the blueprint for this law, but Alabama had even more restrictions,” Haarer said.
His other story for the contest focused on a population of buffalo near the Grand Canyon. Because hunting is illegal in state parks, the buffalo population has steadily increased and is threatening the area’s ecosystem.
Journalism junior Alexandria Gregory said she was surprised to find that her clip, which she created for an online media class, won ninthplace in the intercollegiate multimedia competition.
Her story, “Living Independently with ALS: One Man’s Story,” was part of a group project about Lou Gehrig’s disease for her online media class.
Gregory interviewed a local man diagnosed with ALS, who still maintained a high level of independent living, including driving.
“Doing this story was really inspirational,” Gregory said. “If he can pull through doing everything he does, we can do anything.”
Journalism senior Selena Larson placed 11th in the multimedia competition for a story she put together on child slavery in West Africa.
Larson traveled to Ghana with Phoenix-based nonprofit Compassionate Journeys in December. While there, she spoke with children who had been pulled away from their families to work as slaves, as well as some of their owners.
She decided to put together a short video documenting the children’s stories after she had difficulty transitioning back to her normal life in America.
“I definitely had culture shock,” Larson said. “It was tough to go back to school and work after it.”
She said the award shocked her, as she concentrated on public relations and only recently discovered a passion for multimedia.
Alumna Lydia Camarillo, who graduated in December, placed ninth in the radio competition and rounded out the Cronkite school’s winners.
Clarifications: Nathan O'Neal submitted two stories for the Hearst competition in 2011. One aired last semester and one aired this semester.
An earlier version of this story stated Dan Neligh had won two Hearst awards. He also placed third in the competition's national championship competition.
Reach the reporter at julia.shumway@asu.edu or follow @JMShumway on Twitter.
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