Cronkite Students Place in Hearst Awards

Two students in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University have placed in the feature writing competition of the national Hearst Journalism Awards Program. Ryan Kost, who graduated from the Cronkite School in May, won third-place honors for a story he wrote about three U.S. children who were abandoned in a Mexican orphanage. Phoenix Magazine devoted eight pages to the story this summer. Kost was awarded a $1,000 prize. Placing 13th was James Kindle, a Cronkite senior, for a story that he did as part of a Cronkite School summer reporting project in Johannesburg, South Africa. The story centers around an apartment complex that has brought together South Africans and foreigners in a city that has a history of xenophobic violence. The wins put ASU in second place nationally after the first round of the prestigious Hearst competition, often referred to as the Pulitzers of college journalism. There were a record 138 entries from 78 universities. The Hearst Journalism Awards Program consists of six monthly writing competitions as well as competitions in photojournalism, multimedia and broadcast news. The program, administered by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, awards more than $550,000 in scholarships and grants annually. The Cronkite School has finished in the top 10 nationally in the Hearst competition for the past seven years, including a first-place finish in 2007 and second-place finishes the previous two years. The contest is judged by professional journalists.