Penn State University gets top-5 overall finish in annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program

Entries from Penn State communications students in four different categories during a yearlong competition helped the University earn a top-five finish in the annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program, often referred to as the “Pulitzers of college journalism.”

Penn State won the intercollegiate writing competition and added strong performances in related competitions for photojournalism, audio and television, and multimedia to finish fifth in the final overall standings behind North Carolina, Florida, Western Kentucky and Missouri.

The final standings were based on accumulated student points from the 1,303 entries submitted this year.

During the past decade and a half, Penn State has crafted a higher average overall finish than any other school in the Big Ten Conference, or any other school located in the Northeast.

There are 105 college and universities with accredited undergraduate journalism programs eligible to participated in the program, which has been administered for 63 years by the Hearst Foundation. The Journalism Awards Program offers up to $700,000 in scholarships, grants and stipends annually.

The intercollegiate awards have been acknowledged since the inception of the program, and in 1990 monetary awards were added to the Hearst Journalism Awards Program budget.

Publisher William Randolph Hearst established the two foundations that bear his name (William Randolph Hearst Foundation and the Hearst Foundation Inc.) in the 1940s, a few years before his death in 1951. Since then, they have awarded more than $1 billion in grants and programs.