For the second consecutive year, the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications placed first in the annual Intercollegiate Writing Competition of the prestigious William Randolph Hearst Writing Foundation Awards competition.

“The Hearst competition is the most challenging writing contest in the country,” said Ann Brill, dean of the School of Journalism. “We are proud to be named the best intercollegiate writers in the nation by the panel of judges. To win this, especially two years in a row, is a tribute to our students and their professors."

Often called "The Pulitzers of College Journalism," the Hearst program holds an annual, year-long competition in writing. This is its 48th year. The journalism school that accumulates the most points earned by its students in each category of the six writing competitions, titled the Intercollegiate Writing Competition, is designated the winner.

“Our student entries this year were remarkable not only for their high quality, but also for their consistency,” said Ted Frederickson, journalism professor and Budig Teaching Professor of Writing. “Out of our 12 entries in the six categories, 10 finished in the top 20 in the nation out of 216 eligible entries. In a way, we were like our national champion basketball team, which had no All Americans. None of our writers finished first in any one category, but 10 out of 12 scored significant points, which is why we won.”

KU journalism students have won a total of $5,000 in the six writing contests, and the School of Journalism received matching funds of $5,000, plus $10,000 for finishing first in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition.

The KU School of Journalism finished ahead of Northwestern, Missouri, Pennsylvania State and Nebraska, who rounded out the top five.

While the eight winning articles in the first five contests were all published in The University Daily Kansan, the latest winners in spot news writing, the final contest, were both published while the students worked for off-campus newspapers.

Jonathan Kealing, who won $500 for finishing eighth, was working part-time for The Lawrence Journal-World during his last semester in school when the speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives suggested Lawrence citizens ought to pay higher taxes because they benefit from the presence of the University of Kansas. Without the University, he said Lawrence would be no different from Maple Hill, Kan. Kealing got in the car, drove to the town of 462 people, and wrote a tongue-in-cheek comparison of the cities. He now works full-time as a Journal-World reporter.

Nathan Gill, a senior who won $500 for finishing tenth, was working as a summer intern when he wrote a story for a special edition of The Osawatamie Graphic describing how more than 200 Miami County residents were driven from their homes by a flash flood and took refuge in an Osawatamie elementary school.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program, conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, is fully funded and administered by the W. R. Hearst Foundation. The program consists of six monthly writing competitions, three photojournalism competitions, four broadcast news competitions, and one multimedia competition, with championship finals in all divisions (except multimedia). Presently, 108 accredited schools of undergraduate journalism in the United States are eligible to participate in the program, which awards up to $500,000 in scholarships and grants annually.

Publisher William Randolph Hearst established the William Randolph Hearst Foundation and The Hearst Foundation, Inc. in the 1940s, before his death in 1951. Since then, the foundations have awarded more than $500 million in grants and programs.

Judging the writing competition this year were: Arthur S. Brisbane, Former Senior Vice President, Knight Ridder, Inc., Monte Sereno, CA; Stephen Buckley, Managing Editor, The St. Petersburg Times, FL; and Jeff Cohen, Executive Vice President and Editor, Houston Chronicle, TX.

For more information, contact Jennifer Kinnard, communications coordinator for the KU School of Journalism, at 785-760-4117 or jkinnard@ku.edu. For more information about the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, contact Jan Watten, program director, at 415-908-4565 or jwatten@hearstfdn.org, or visit www.hearstawards.org.

To see examples of the winning work, please check the monthly winners section of the Hearst Web site at www.hearstawards.org.