General Column Division 1
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- Place Name: First Place
Contestant Name: A&M-College Station
Entry Title: Opinion: Keep politicians — not professors — out of A&M's classrooms
Entry Credit: Wyatt Pickering
Judge Comment: Clearly reported/researched. Strong voice and LOCAL, relevant news hook carried all the way through the piece. Crisp in structure and focus. Well done!
- Place Name: Second Place
Contestant Name: Retrograde
Entry Title: UTD’s handling of Box-a-Thon is yet another case of campus censorship
Entry Credit: Tyler Crivella
Judge Comment: Well-researched, clear reporting, strong voice and an absolute direct bullseye on local impact.
- Place Name: Third Place
Contestant Name: UT-Arlington
Entry Title: LGBTQ+ visibility on campus
Entry Credit: Elwim Sorto
Judge Comment: Now this is a column that provides added value to the conversation, with strong, specific local examples that highlight how UTA, a public college, is affected by national and state political pressure. Tone, structure overall was smooth and clear. Maybe some overall tightening can help this land a bit more sharply. I'd have loved to know specific examples of who at UTA may be pushing back and whether the overall call to action can tie into work already being done/worth recognizing to give it a bit more of a UTA edge.
Nicely done.
- Place Name: Honorable Mention
Contestant Name: Abilene Christian
Entry Title: Our hood, our responsibility
Entry Credit: Zion Webb
Judge Comment: Extremely personal, courageous column that does well at showing how an individual moment fits into the big picture of overall social construct and humanity within our nation. The throughline hook/news peg is there, and mostly focused. Structure needs a little support, but not much. Voice isn't strong all the way through to carry readers, but plenty of moments that pulled at heartstrings and made me feel some type of way, whether I agreed or not. Keep what works, refine where voice may not be as strong or direct.
If I were to make this stronger, it would be moving this part much higher up and weaved the personal story around this:
"George Floyd’s last breath was drawn under the pressure of a knee. Children’s laughter silenced in classrooms turned into graveyards. Headlines about mass shootings and political assassinations, such as that of Charlie Kirk, incited division instead of peace.
We live in a culture where bullets, blood and barbarity scream louder than brotherhood, and hate drowns out the love we should give each other."
And then I would've ended on this part, for the entire piece to come full circle with a bit of tightening:
"But this I do know: God did not create us for division. He created us in his image, not to divide, but to unite and share his truth.
We’ve got to build up each other when the world tells us to be divided.
We’ve got to choose words over guns or fists, looking away from violence.
And we’ve got to have tough, respectful conversations with people that we wouldn’t normally collide with.
This is not my hood. This is ours. And when it’s ours, we should do our very best to protect it and those within it."
Overall, hindsight is 20/20, and this piece still hits hard.
- Competition Comment: It's clear Texas journalism is alive and well, with curiosity-driving students and diligent educators.
Reminds me of my moments as a J-school student. And absolutely, student media is media.
I can't wait to see how some of these students do in the field.
