Cronkite Students Win 16 Broadcast Awards

For the fourth year in a row, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University has won more awards in the Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts competition than any other school in the country. The Cronkite School won a total of 16 awards in nine different television, radio and documentary categories. The second-place school, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was second with nine awards. Cronkite’s honors include three first-place finishes as well as the association’s highest honor, the Best of Festival award, which went to recent Cronkite graduate Dan Neligh for a television feature news story he did on Arizonans traveling to Mexico to obtain dental work. Cronkite NewsWatch, the school’s student-produced, half-hour television newscast, was named the top student newscast in the country for the second time in four years. Cronkite NewsWatch is distributed four days a week during the academic year by Eight World, a digital channel of Eight-Arizona PBS that reaches 1.1 million viewers across Arizona. Cronkite faculty also received recognition from the BEA. Cronkite NewsWatch Executive Producer Melanie Alvarez and Cronkite NewsWatch Television Production Manager Jim Jacoby won an Award of Excellence in the Promotional Video category for their tribute video to prominent sportscaster Bob Costas, which aired at the 2012 Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism Luncheon in Phoenix last fall. “The breadth and depth of school’s success speaks to strength of our overall program,” said Mark Lodato, Cronkite assistant dean and news director. “It’s not just about one class or a couple of students. This success is a result of the quality of our faculty, students and staff from freshmen introductory classes up through our capstone programs.” Cronkite students recorded three first-place finishes in the categories of television hard news reporting, television newscast and radio sports reporting. Other categories in which Cronkite students earned awards include television news anchor, long- and short-form documentary, television hard news reporting, television feature reporting, TV sports feature story and TV sports talent. The winners will be honored at the BEA’s annual convention in Las Vegas in April. The complete list of Cronkite award winners: Best of Festival: Student Television News (Television Feature News) “More Arizonans Traveling to Mexico For Dental Work” Dan Neligh First Place: Television Hard News Reporting “Navajo HIV” Nathan O’Neal First Place: Television Newscast (airing four or five days a week) Cronkite NewsWatch NewsWatch Staff First Place: Radio Sports Reporting “Halloween Baseball” Hayden Packwood Second Place: Television News Anchor Ryan Haarer Second Place: Long-Form Documentary “Scholarslip” Alex Lancial, Tara Molina and Jake Stein Third Place: Television Hard News Reporting “Scottsdale City Council Campaign Finance Reports Show Controversial Funding” Bill Melugin Third Place: Television Feature Reporting “Old West Tradition Survives in Nogales Boot Shop” Jack Highberger Honorable Mention: Television Hard News Reporting “Buffalo Invasion” Ryan Haarer Honorable Mention: Television Hard News Reporting “For Crime Reporter on Streets of Ciudad Juarez, Change Comes Slowly” Jack Highberger Honorable Mention: TV Sports Story/Feature/Element “The Price of Playing” Justin Beatty, Amber Harding and Kim Pestalozzi Honorable Mention: TV Sports Talent Amber Harding Honorable Mention: Long-Form Documentary “Paying the Price” Morgan Cox, Mary-Catherine Parent and Nicole Shumate Honorable Mention: Short-Form Documentary “The Incidents at Church Rock” Dan Neligh Award of Excellence: TV Sports Story/Feature/Element Videography – “Sun Devils 101: Todd Graham All-Access Show” Lisa Blanco Award of Excellence: TV Sports Story/Feature/Element Storytelling – “Annie Lockwood” Fahim Rasul CRONKITE FACULTY AWARDS Award of Excellence: Promotional Video “Bob Costas” Melanie Alvarez and Jim Jacoby