CUNY J-School news outlets – including 219 West TV news magazine, the AudioFiles podcast and the NYCity News Service – notched 14 finalists spots in the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards for Region 1, which covers the most of the Northeast.
Winners, to be announced during Region 1’s annual Spring Conference, set for April 7-8 at John Jay College, become eligible for national Mark of Excellence honors.
The June 2016 installment of 219 TV News Magazine was cited in the Best All-Around Television Newscast category. AudioFiles snared five finalist spots:
- Stephanie Daniel’s “One Man’s Voice,” about a dying man who finds solace in singing, and Devin Holt’s “The Great Clown Scare of 2016,” about rumored spottings of frightening bozos, took two of the three slots in the Radio Feature category.
- Nomin Ujiyediin’s “What’s Next for Sex Ed?” and Michael O’Brien’s “Gate of Palmyra Replica Opens in Manhattan” shared two of the three slots in the Radio News Reporting category.
- O’Brien’s “Bleeding All the Time,” about an MMA fighter, made the Sports Feature category.
The NYCity News Service placed in both the Best Digital-Only Student Publication and Best Independent Online Student Publication categories. Other team-driven multimedia efforts cited include:
- “Hate Index,” a searchable database of post-election incidents of intolerance, and “Living Like a Refugee,” a personalized interactive that lets users virtually experience tough decisions facing Syrian refugees, shared two of the three slots in the Best Use of Multimedia category.
- “Forty Dollars and a Bus Ticket,” a look the parole system in New York, made the Online News Reporting category.
- The Online In-Depth Reporting category was packed with J-School projects, including: “The Holy Land at an Impasse,” an on-the-ground look at grassroots peace efforts; Unsettling, an examination of the challenges facing Syrian refugees in the U.S.; and Predator’s Web, Lena Masri’s investigation of the online pedophilia trade,
The Mark of Excellence Awards, which draw more than 4,000 entries from around the U.S., celebrate the best in student journalism.