Student-powered news outlets at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY earned major national honors this month in awards competitions run by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists.
South Bronx Businesses Battle Back, a NYCity News Service special report looking at the neighborhood’s bid to rebound from the pandemic, won SPJ’s “MOEy” best-in-show Mark of Excellence Award for strongest student journalism in the U.S. — beating nearly 3,000 other entries.
Meanwhile, Dashiell Allen and Génesis Dávila Santiago’s series for El Deadline examining hardships facing families sending lost loved ones home to Mexico for burial won the Student/Print Online Journalism category in NAHJ’s annual Ñ Awards.
El Deadline also took home both finalists in that category, thanks to Mariana Martínez Barba and María Mónica Fernández’ series on Latina nannies in New York fighting for their rights and Ana Valdez Savaria’s story about Indigenous Mexican migrants working to maintain their culture in the South Bronx.
Génesis Dávila Santiago’s 219West TV Newsmagazine piece about an advocacy group raising awareness about Indigenous Mexican culture in New York scored a finalist slot in the Student Broadcast Journalism category.
Contributors to the big SPJ award winner include: Dashiell Allen, Naoufal Anhari, Amanda Braitman, Ashlee Brown, Yasmine Dass, Gerard Edic, Deidre Foley, Judith Marks, Amaya McDonald, Jajuan Morris-Guity, Sunny Nagpaul, Ashley Reed, ET Rodriguez, Gretchen Smail, and Emily Swanson.
This marks the second consecutive year work produced out of the J-School has won the MOEy, and the third time since the honor was established in 2015 (the NYCity News Service received the inaugural award).
The latest MOEy caps a run of related victories: In April, J-School news outlets garnered 11 Mark of Excellence Awards for Region 1, which covers most of the Northeast. The J-School later captured four national winners, and one national finalist.