Five days. Three national journalism groups. Fifteen awards.
Outstanding journalism produced by students from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY notched 15 national honors in a recent series of award ceremonies stretching from Oct. 27 through Oct 31.
When Home is School, a NYCity News Service investigation exposing the lack of regulation of booming homeschooling in the U.S., proved our biggest winner, taking home three awards.
The project won Best Investigative Story in the College Media Association’s Pinnacle Awards, and secured second-place investigative journalism honors in Editor & Publisher’s EPPY Awards. Home Ed, a podcast by Mary Steffenhagen that’s part of the When Home is School story package, took first place in the Associated Collegiate Press’ Multimedia Story of the Year (Podcast) category.
At the College Media Association’s Film and Audio Festival, Yessenia Moreno’s AudioFiles podcast piece, Health Care Proxies in the Time of COVID, earned first-place Audio Documentary honors.
And The Housing Crunch, which examines the housing crisis in New York, secured a first-place EPPY for the Best Feature Story on a College/University Website.

Other work featured on our NYCity News Service garnered runners-up EPPYs:
- El Deadline, our Bilingual Journalism Program’s collaboration with Univision’s fact-checking platform, El Detector, came in second for Best Collaborative College/University & Professional Website.
- “I’m Not a Criminal,” a report by Lucy Cabrera and Sandra Lopez about a subway fruit vendor arrested by police, came in second for Best Video on a College/University Website.
- One Flood Too Many, Laura Bratton’s package about the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, came in second for Best News Story on a College/University Website. The piece also received a second-place citation in the College Media Association Pinnacle Awards’ General News Story category.
- The NYCity News Service took the second-place EPPY for Best College/University Campus Website. The News Service also placed third for best website of its kind in the nation in the Associated Collegiate Press’ Best of Show awards.
The Best of Show announcement capped MediaFest22, which brought the Associated Collegiate Press, College Media Association and Society of Professional Journalists to Washington for a combined convention. Among the other awards collected by the Newmark J-School during the Oct. 27-Oct. 30 gathering:
- Embracing Her Femininity, Gavy Contreras’ NYCity News Service video about a Bronx skateboarder, won second place for Short Documentary at the College Media Association’s Film and Audio Festival.
- A Season of Renewal, an edition of our 219West TV news magazine, received second-place honors for Video Newscast at the festival.
- A Scavenger Hunt to Support NYC Street Vendors, an AudioFiles piece by Hannah Fullmer, took a second-place College Media Association Pinnacle Award for Best Audio Special Event Coverage.
- Too Close to Home, Elizabeth Napolitano’s NYCity News Service story about the April subway shooting in Sunset Park, garnered second place in the Associated Collegiate Press’ Story of the Year (Breaking News) competition.
The NYCity News Service, launched in 2007, provides student stories about New York City neighborhoods to professional outlets and produces multimedia special reports.
The student-powered News Service, the school’s 219West TV news magazine, and its AudioFiles podcast and radio programs have collected scores of honors in journalism competitions run by Editor & Publisher, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Online News Association, the Associated Collegiate Press, the College Media Association and other noted media groups.