Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: University of North Texas Entry Title: Students, faculty protest President Smatresk’s response to recent events involving trans community Entry Credit: Ileana Garnand, Jillian Nachtigal Judge Comment: A great comprehensive piece of journalism that included multiple approaches to the topic, multiple storytelling platforms and quality observational journalism. This is an example of "flooding the zone" on a big breaking story and it worked well.
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: UT-Arlington Entry Title: Students protest anti-transgender speaker Entry Credit: Dang Le, Jonathan Perriello, Juan Salinas II, Orlando Torres Judge Comment: A strong contender in a tough category. This piece captured the chaos involved with clashing ideologies on the campus in a way that neither took sides nor shied away from the conflict itself. Great use of multiple elements and varied sources to tell the story.
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: Baylor Entry Title: Baylor student dead, another arrested after crash near campus Entry Credit: Matt Kyle, Ana Ruiz Brictson Judge Comment: A great meat-and-potatoes style piece of breaking news coverage on a horrific event. The integration of additional information on updates as well as the use of secondary sources puts this in an upper echelon of this category.
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: Baylor Entry Title: False report of active shooter puts Waco High on alert Entry Credit: Matt Kyle, Ana Ruiz Brictson, Rachel Royster Judge Comment: A great use of inside sources to tell a story that people wanted to understand. Good integration of social media in a responsible way as well here.
Competition Comment: A great group of entries that showcased the ability of these journalists to go get stories that were unfolding in real time. Great work on keeping accuracy at the forefront of their efforts while still revealing important content to the readers.
