FOUR DEPARTMENTS l 3,200 STUDENTS l ONE RESULT

CHAMPIONSPENN STATE COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATIONS

Three students (Anna Orso, Jessica Tully and Christina Gallagher) represented Penn State — and swept the top three spots in the writing competition — during the William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards

Program individual national championships in Washington, D.C., in June.Orso finished first, Gallagher second and Tully third. (Photo by John Beale)

Penn State’s College of Communications has cap-tured an unprecedented third consecutive national championship in the 2013-2014 overall intercollegiate standings in the William R. Hearst Foundation’s Journal-ism Awards Program.

The overall champion is the institution that scores the most points in the competition’s combined writing-broadcasting-pho-tojournalism-multimedia standings.

The annual Hearst compe-tition draws more than 1,100 student entries each year. It is open to students from the country’s 108 nationally accredited undergraduate programs.

Rounding out the top-10 in the overall standings for 2013-2014 are Missouri, Western Kentucky, North Car-olina, Indiana, Arizona State, Nebraska, Northwestern, Montana, Oregon and Florida, which tied for 10th.

“We were pleased when we won our first overall cham-pionship in 2011-2012,” Dean Doug Anderson said. “We were elated when we repeated in 2012-2013 and we are thrilled to have won this year.

“Our consistency is a credit to the outstanding stu-dents we have in our program.”

The College captured eight individual top-10 student finishes in the five writing categories (features, enter-prise reporting, sports writing, personality/profile writing and breaking news writing); one individual top-10 fin-ish in photojournalism; one individual top-10 finish in broadcasting; one individual top-10 finish in multimedia; and one group of students earned a top-10 finish in the multimedia team category.

In addition to the 12 top-10 finishes, the College earned seven finishes in the top-20 in the four competitions.

By virtue of their outstanding individual performances, three Penn State students earned spots in the 54th annu-al Hearst individual championships in Washington, D.C., in June: Christina Gallagher, Anna Orso and Jessica Tully.

Of the more than 1,100 individual entries in this year’s

CHAMPIONS

College claims third straight national championship

Brittany Horn, eighth, feature writing

ChristianHeilman, seventh, TV features

ChristinaGallagher, first, personality/profile

DaveCole, seventh, multimedia news

StephenPianovich, sec-ond, sports writing

AnnaOrso, first, sports writing

CarleyMossbrook, sixth, breaking news

JillKnight, first, photo story/series

JessicaTully, third, enterprise; fourth, breaking news

KristinStoller, seventh, feature writing

1. PENN STATE2 (tie). Missouri

2 (tie). Western Kentucky4. North Carolina

5. Indiana6. Arizona State

7. Nebraska8. Northwestern

9. Montana10 (tie). Oregon10 (tie). Florida12. Syracuse13. Kent State

14. Elon15. Georgia

16. Southern California17. Ohio University

18. Iowa State19. Minnesota

20. Iowa

STANDINGS

Hearst competitions, 29 students qualify for the individ-ual championships: eight in writing; five in radio; five in television; six in photo; and five in multimedia.

Penn State, Arizona State and Missouri were the only universities to finish in the top-10 in the intercollegiate standings in all four competitions. The College finished second in writing; fourth in multimedia; sixth in broad-casting; and seventh in photojournalism.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program, often called “the Pulitzers of College Journalism,” is conducted under the auspices of the accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication and is fully funded by the William Randolph Hearst Founda-tion. The program awards more than $500,000 in awards and grants annually to the country’s nationally accredit-ed programs and its students.

The College of Communications earned a second-place finish in the 2013-2014 intercollegiate writing standings of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program.

The competition, often called “the Pulitzers of college journalism,” is in its 54th year.

Schools can submit two student entries in each of the five monthly writing competitions: features, enter-prise reporting, sports writing, per-sonality/profile writing and breaking news writing.

This year’s writing competition drew more than 500 entries.

The College traditionally is among the nation’s leaders.

It is coming off back-to-back first-place writing finishes in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 after earning fourth place in 2010-2011 and sixth place in 2009-2010.

“Our talented crop of students this year kept the tradition alive,” Dean Doug Anderson said. “And this is the first time in our history that we claimed eight individual top-10 finish-es in writing.”

All 10 of the College’s writing sub-missions finished in the individual top-25.

Anna Orso, sports writing, and Christina Gallagher, personality/profile writing, led the way with first-place finishes.

Other top-25 finishers: Jessica Tully, third place in enterprise reporting and fourth in breaking news writing; Stephen Pianovich, second in sports writing; Carley Mossbrook, sixth in breaking news writing; Kristin Stoller, seventh in features; Brittany Horn, eighth in features; Steven Petrella, 15th place tie in personality/profile writing; and Leah Polakoff, 22nd in enterprise writing.

Orso, Gallagher and Tully earned spots in the Hearst individu-al championships in Washington, D.C., in June.

Only eight students from the more than 500 writing entrants qual-ified for the individual championships.

“We continue to be impressed with the caliber of our students,” said Russ Eshleman, associate head of the Department of Journalism and co-coordinator of the College’s writing submissions. “The big thing, though, is their enthusiasm and persistence.

“They latch onto their stories and aren’t satisfied until they report the heck out of them. They really do be-come experts on their topics, whether they’re writing about complicated personalities or tricky issues involving NCAA recruiting or wrongly convicted prisoners. Very simply, they do good journalism.”

Three Penn State students have captured the individual writing crown in the championships in the past

eight years: Halle Stock-ton, who won in 2007; Andrew McGill, who placed first in 2010; and Orso, who won in 2014.

McGill earned second in the year-end indi-vidual championships in 2008; Paul Casella placed third in 2011; Horn garnered third in 2013; Gallagher fin-ished second in 2014;

and Tully placed third in 2014.The top-five place winners in each

of the writing competitions earn scholarships, with matching grants to the College of Communications.

The College also will receive a medallion and a $4,000 award for its second-place intercollegiate finish.

Judging the writing competition this year were: Marty Kaiser, editor and senior vice president, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; John Temple, former managing editor of The Washington Post and current senior fellow, John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship Pro-gram, Stanford University; and Mike Leary, senior vice president and edi-tor, San Antonio-Express News.

CHAMPIONS

Second-place finish in writing continues top results

1. Indiana2. PENN STATE3. Northwestern4. Arizona State

5. Missouri6. Georgia7. Florida8. Oregon

9. Montana10. Kent State

STANDINGS

Anna Orso (left) asks a question while Christina Gallagher (center) and Jessica Tully listen to U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) during a group interview as part of the 2014 individual national cham-pionships in Washington, D.C. (Photo by John Beale)

The College of Communications captured fourth place in the 2013-2014 intercollegiate multimedia standings in the William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program.

The finish is the College’s highest in that competition.

Schools can submit two entries in each of the three individual multime-dia competitions: narrative multi-media storytelling-features; news; and enterprise reporting. Schools can also submit two team entries in the multimedia storytelling –news category.

The final intercollegiate standings are calculated based on overall stu-dent performances.

Dave Cole led the College’s indi-vidual entries with a seventh place in news.

Jessica Paholsky earned an 11th place tie in news and Danielle Malmgren finished in a 20th place tie in enterprise reporting.

Coale Henderson and Siru Wen scored points in features and Pa-holsky scored points in enterprise reporting.

Abigail Johnson, Kristen Appleton, Mike Bordick, Hannah Bressi, Maria Bryant and Noelle Mateer earned sixth place in team reporting.

Kelly Tunney, Paholsky and Hay-ley Wildeson finished 16th in team reporting.

Will Yurman, co-coordinator of the College’s multimedia entries, said: “Our success in the Hearst multime-dia competition this year was due to the hard work of a number of students who produced stories that ranged from a lyrical piece on the dying art of film photography by Siru Wen, to two overseas stories – Dave Cole’s story on a family’s move to Shanghai in China and Jessica Pahol-

sky’s look at olive oil in Italy, to the annual adventures of two dif-ferent groundhogs in Pennsylvania.

“In each case, stu-dents were challenged to learn new technolo-gy while never forget-ting the importance of telling a compelling story.

“Many students, including Jessica, Kelly Tunney and Hayley Wildeson for their story on the Grange Fair and Mike Bordick, Hannah Bressi, Noelle Mateer, Abigail Johnson, Maria Bryant and Kristen Appleton for their story on Groundhog Day put in countless hours outside of class assignments simply because of their commitment to becoming better journalists. It’s extremely gratifying to see them all rewarded for their hard work.”

“The wide variety of Hearst cat-egories — from straight news to

long-form enterprise reporting — challenges students to be really versatile story tellers,” said Curt Chandler, co-coordinator of the College’s multimedia entries.

Chandler said work-ing on longer stories that involved travel, like “The Tale of Two Groundhogs,” was par-

ticularly valuable because it allowed students to ask questions, learn skills and apply the knowledge in an envi-ronment away from the distractions of daily campus life.

The College will receive a medal-lion for its fourth-place finish.

Lead multimedia judges were Cory Tolbert Haik, executive producer, news innovations and strategic proj-ects, The Washington Post, and Kate O’Brian, president, Al Jazeera Ameri-ca, New York.

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Ambitious students drive best-ever multimedia result

Kelly Tunney, at work here during the 2013 Keystone Multimedia Conference in Gettysburg, Pa., was one of many students who helped propel the College’s best-ever finish in the multi-media portion of the Hearst Journalism Awards Program. (Photo by Will Yurman)

1. Western Kentucky2. Nebraska

3. North Carolina4. PENN STATE

5. Missouri6. Syracuse

7. Arizona State8. Montana9. Oregon

10. San Francisco State

STANDINGS

The College of Communications earned sixth place in the 2013-2014 inter-collegiate broadcast competition of the Wil-liam Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journal-ism Awards Program.

Schools can submit two student entries in the radio competi-tion and two entries in each of the two monthly television competitions.

The radio competi-tion is for news and features. The first television monthly competition is for fea-tures and the second monthly competition is for news.

The final intercol-legiate standings are calculated based on overall student performances.

The broadcast team was led by Christian Heilman, who earned sev-enth place in television features and 14th place in television news.

Anita Oh earned a 16th place tie in television news and scored points in television features.

Eric DeBerardinis finished 16th in radio features and Caroline Goggin scores points in radio features.

Bob Richards, the Curley professor of First Amendment Studies, said: “Once again our students showed that radio can be used effectively to tell a story about a wide range of topics, from the difficulties student athletes experience when transfer-ring to other schools to a freshman who enjoys tracking the movement of squirrels on campus. Through

skillful interviewing techniques, our stu-dent reporters were able to allow the sub-jects to tell their stories compellingly in their own words.”

Steve Kraycik, direc-tor of student televi-sion and online opera-tions, also praised the students.

“It gives me a great deal of pride to see our students perform well in the Hearst program,” Kraycik said. “Their strong finish in the broadcast competition again shows they are doing top-quali-ty work and judges around the nation are recognizing their abilities. Our students also learn valuable les-sons from this experience, involving

competitive pressure, teamwork and quality control, which they take with them to their first jobs in the broadcast industry.”

The College will receive a medallion for the sixth-place intercol-legiate finish.

Judging the broadcast competition this year were: Marci Burdick, senior vice president

of broadcasting, Schurz Communica-tions Inc., Mishawaka, Ind.; Edward L. Esposito, vice president, Information Media, Rubber City Radio Group, Akron, Ohio; and Fred Young, re-tired senior vice president for news, Hearst Television Inc., New York.

CHAMPIONS

Strong story tellers lead sixth-place broadcast finish

Students associated with “Centre County Report,” the College’s weekly newscast, played a big part in entries that were honored in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program. (Photo by Dan Griswold)

1. Missouri2. Arizona State3. North Carolina

4. Nebraska5. Southern California

6. PENN STATE7. Montana

8. Northwestern9. Florida

10. Minnesota

STANDINGS

Jill Knight led the College of Commu-nications to a sev-enth-place finish in the 2013-2014 intercolle-giate photojournalism standings in the Wil-liam Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journal-ism Awards Program.

This marked the third consecutive year the College finished in the top-10 in photojournalism.

In 2011-2012, the College finished fourth. In 2012-2013, it claimed second.

Knight earned first place this year in the picture story/series category and 18th place in the news and fea-ture category.

Steve Osborn scored points in the news and feature competition, as did David Andrews in the picture story/series category.

Knight, a summer 2013 graduate, earned a spot in the national individual champion-ships last June in San Francisco.

Knight and Andy Col-well, who qualified for the individual photo-journalism champion-ships in 2012, are the only two Penn State photo students ever to

qualify for the Hearst national cham-pionships.

“I’m delighted to see our talented photojournalism students receive the national recognition they de-serve,” John Beale, who coordinates the College’s photojournalism entries, said. “Many of the Hearst winning entries represent months of hard work by dedicated student photojournalists.

“Jill Knight’s photo essay docu-

menting a mother and her surrogate, which earned first place, received national attention after it was pub-lished in the popular New York Times blog: Lens. Just months later, a second photo story by Jill was also published on the Times’ website.”

Knight was named 2013 Student Photographer of the Year by the North Carolina Press Photographers Association. She interned at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Charlotte Observer as an undergraduate. She is currently working at the Raleigh News & Observer and completing self-as-signed freelance photo stories.

The College will receive a medal-lion for its seventh-place finish.

Judging the photojournalism com-petition this year were: Steve Gonza-les, director of photography, Houston Chronicle; Sue Morrow, assistant multimedia editor, Sacramento Bee; and Jakub Mosur, freelance photog-rapher, San Francisco.

CHAMPIONS

Third consecutive top-10 photojourn performance 1. Western Kentucky

2. Ohio University3. North Carolina

4. Kent State5. Missouri6. Syracuse

7. PENN STATE8. Indiana

9. Arizona State10. Nebraska

STANDINGS

A photo series about Kristen Broome (left), who served as surrogate mother for her second cousin, Jamie Pursley, earned first place in the William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program. (Photo by Jill Knight)

CHAMPIONS

Jamie Pursley and Kristen Broome wait for a doctor’s appointment (top left). Pursley listens for the baby (top right) and later sees the baby, a boy named Liam, crown at birth (middle left). And, while Pursley took her son home, Broome went home with a bouquet of flowers and two weeks later met her husband, Lee, when he returned from a military deployment in Af-ghanistan. (Photos by Jill Knight)

CHAMPIONS

A weekly TV newscast produced by College of Communications students earned the top honor and a stu-dent news anchor was named best in the nation as Penn State again performed well in the prestigious Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Festival of Media Arts, a nation-wide competition honoring the best in faculty- and student-produced media.

“Centre County Report,” the half-hour news program produced by communications students each week during the academic year, was selected as Student Newscast Best of Festival — the top honor in the com-peititon — for the second year in a row. The honor comes with a $1,000 prize and a crystal award, which were presented at the BEA Conven-tion in March in Las Vegas.

The winning episode originally aired April 19, 2013, and included stories on Centre County survivors of the Boston Marathon bombings, security concerns due to the Boston bombings at the upcoming Penn State spring football game and a live on-set interview with NFL Hall of Famer Franco Harris. Mary Rogus, chair of the TV newcast division for BEA, congratulated the students on their work and called it “an excellent newscast.”

A Penn State student was named best anchor for the second year in a row as well. Johanna Rojas, from Miami, was named the top Television News Anchor.

The compilation of Rojas’s work for the award included anchor duties for stories about a fatal shooting and Meals on Wheels, as well as a stand-up report from the Penn State Dance Marathon and a report in Spanish about conditions for prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In addition, Willie Jungels, from Northfield, N.J., earned honorable mention regnition for his sports work. That included several live, on-location sports reports and duties as sports anchor during “Centre County Report.”

“I’m incredibly proud of our stu-dents’ work,” said Steve Kraycik, director of student television in the College of Communications. “The ‘CCR’ staff winning best newscast and best anchor awards two straight years is proof their hard work and professional-style productions are standing out among very strong competition nationwide.”

Dean Doug Anderson was pleased “Centre Country Report” claimed BEA’s top honor two years in a row. The individual recognition for Rojas and Jungels rounded out the effort.

“Our students set a high mark last year, and this group equalled that effort,” Anderson said. “With the leadership of Steve Kraycik, the dedication of our talented faculty in the Division of Broadcasting and

the hard work of our students, we’ve established some high standards.”

The BEA Festival of Media Arts has been honoring faculty and stu-dent work for more than a decade. Approximately 1,600 professors, students and media professionals are individual members of the BEA and some 275 college and university departments and schools are institu-tional members of the organization.

The BEA is the professional as-sociation for professors, industry professionals and graduate students who are interested in teaching and research related to electronic media and multimedia enterprises. The organization was established in 1955, initially as the Association for Pro-fessional Broadcast Education, with the current name being adopted in 1973. While the BEA organizational name reflects its historic roots in preparing college students to enter the radio and TV business, the mem-bers share a diversity of interests involving all aspects of telecom-munications and electronic media.

‘CCR,’ news anchor again earn top national awards

Students Adrienne DiPiazza (left) and Johanna Rojas with Steve Kraycik after accepting their awards at the BEA Festival of Media Arts. (Photo by Bill Gardner)

Four senior adver-tising majors in the College of Communica-tions at Penn State were recognized as national finalists in the Most Promising Minority Students program con-ducted by the American Advertising Federation.

The four students were among 50 na-tionally who were recognized through the program and selected for a trip to New York City to participate in career-related activities and to meet advertising industry leaders.

Students selected were: Kayla Ariza, Tobyhanna, Pa.; Jamal Atwell, Philadel-phia; Sarah Espinoza, Seattle, Wash.; and Sarika Patel, Cupertino, Calif. With four national finalists this year, Penn State has had 34 students honored in the program since 2006 — the second most of any university in the country. Twenty-seven were national finalists

and seven were named to the honor roll.

“It was really humbling to be able to spend a week with so many talented students who are just as interested as you are in the advertising industry and are hoping to do big things,” Patel said. She said the opportunity to meet with advertising industry leaders — with representatives from companies such

as Interpublic Group, Ominicom, Publicis, Wieden+Kennedy and WPP — was especially valuable.

“Attending the Most Promising Minority Students program was an amazing experience,” Ariza said.

The AAF’s Most Prom-ising Minority Students program connects the advertising industry with the nation’s top minori-ty college seniors. The event provides opportu-nities to recruit fresh tal-ent, to further prepare

advertising’s best young prospects and to help the industry’s workforce better reflect the multiculturalism of society.

The program honors students and enhances their knowledge and under-standing of the advertising industry by offering networking, interviewing and industry immersion opportunities with industry professionals.

CHAMPIONS

Four selected in ‘Most Promising Minority’ program

Penn State’s four honorees in the Most Promising Minority Students program were (left to right): Sarika Patel, Sarah Espinoza, Kayla Ariza and Jamal Atwell.

Journalists from the College of Communications swept the student division in radio and television, and fared well against media profes-sionals in a separate division during an annual contest sponsored by the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcast Assocation.

The contest accepts entries from across the state, with non-student work separated by market size. All Penn State entries in the student divisions came from COMM 466 Pub-lic Affairs Television Reporting and final projects completed in COMM

360 Radio Reporting. Work from the student-produced news program “Centre Country Report” and the sports magazine show “In the Game” was entered in the medium-market television division.

Place winners were: STUDENT RADIO & TELEVISION

RadioFirst: Jesse Steinberg, “Fighting Childhood

Obesity”Second: Thomas Simmons, “Gays in Scouting”Third: Sarah Brojak, ”Future of Solar Energy”

Television First: Sam Ashton, Will Jenkins, Ryan

Blaschak, Sean McDermott and Sean Cauley,

“Preventing Traumatic Brain Injuries in Youth Sports”

Second: Priscilla Balseca, Joyann Jeffrey and Tashima Mitchell, “Researchers Link Pesticides to a Global Honey Bee Crisis”

Third: Tashima Mitchell, Tejah Larkin and J.D. Intrieri, “Distracted Drivers Prompt Public Safety Debates”

MEDIUM-MARKET TELEVISIONSports Feature

Third: Patrick Woo, “Healing Newtown,” ComMedia

Sports PhotographyThird: Willie Jungels, “Chambers Fires Back

After Loss to Pitt,” Centre County ReportNews or Sports Talk Program

First: “In the Game” (Episode 204), ComMedia

College sweeps AP’s Pennsylvania student broadcast contest

Penn State again dominated the Region 1 2013 Mark of Excellence Awards competition coordinated by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Students from the University claimed eight first-place finishes, with 23 honorees overall — far more than any other school.

The awards honor the best in stu-dent journalism.

SPJ’s Region 1 comprises Connecti-cut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, SPJ promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry; works to inspire and edu-cate the next generation of journal-ists and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press.

Penn State’s regional winners were:NEWSPAPERS

Breaking News ReportingWinner: “NCAA leaves door open for further

sanction modifications,” John Stuetz and John McGonigal, The Daily Collegian

Finalist: “Hearing for Spanier, Curley, Schultz scheduled today,” Olga Hajishengallis, Sam

Janesch and Brittany Horn, The Daily CollegianFinalist: “Conneaut Lake Park fire to hurt

community financially,” Jessica Tully, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

General News ReportingFinalist: “An answer for peanut allergies

may be in the pipeline at UPMC,” Jessica Tully, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In-Depth ReportingFinalist: “For Innocent Inmates Set Free, Life

Outside Presents its Own Challenges,” Jessica Tully, The Lion’s Roar

Finalist: “The Journey of Jim Thorpe,” Leah Polakoff, The Lion’s Roar

Feature WritingWinner: “After the Sorrow, Newtown is

Determined to Recover,” Kristin Stoller, The Lion’s Roar

Finalist: “Digital Revolution,” Julia Kern, The Lion’s Roar

Sports WritingFinalist: “Steel Heart,” John Stuetz, The Daily

CollegianEditorial Writing

Finalist: Katie Murt, The Daily CollegianGeneral Colum Writing

Finalist: Brittany Horn, The Daily CollegianSports Column Writing

Winner: Anna Orso, The Daily CollegianART/GRAPHICS

Finalist: “Flood” by Jill Knight, ComMediaGeneral News Photography

Winner: “Color Run,” Anna Ungar, ComMe-dia

Finalist: “Paterno Memorial,” Dave Cole, ComMedia

Feature PhotographyFinalist: “A Big Splash,” Lucia Sofo, The Daily

CollegianSports Photography

Finalist: “Jubilation,” Kelly Tunney, ComMe-dia

TELEVISIONGeneral News Reporting

Winner: “Typhoon Haiyan,” Caroline Goggin, Centre County Report/ComMedia

In-Depth ReportingFinalist: “Controversial Mascots,” Tristan

Plunkett, Centre County Report/ComMediaSports Reporting

Winner: “Healing Newtown,” Patrick Woo, In the Game/ComMedia

News and Feature PhotographyWinner: “Bellefonte Mansion,” Caroline Gog-

gin, Centre County Report/ComMediaFinalist: “Drive-In Theaters Fighting to Stay

Open,” Christian Heilman, Centre County Re-port/ComMedia

Sports PhotographyWinner: “Healing Newtown,” Patrick Woo, In

the Game/ComMediaFinalist: “Behind the Scenes at Beaver

Stadium,” Willie Jungels, Centre County Report/ComMedia

Best All-Around NewscastFinalist: “Centre County Report”

ONLINESports Reporting

Finalist: “Clairton gets Bear’d up for foot-ball,” Dave Cole, Katherin Rodriguez, Steve Osborn, ComMedia

CHAMPIONS

Eight first-place finishes, 23 finalists in SPJ competitionPhotographer Anna Ungar’s “Color Run” was the winner in the General News Photography category.

CHAMPIONS

It’s one of the more coveted oppor-tunities available to college students with an interest in communications and sports — and Penn State stu-dents have put the University’s mark on it regularly.

Twenty-four Penn State students in the past seven years have earned internships through a competitive application process conducted by Major League Baseball.

Through the MLB.com program, interns work as backup beat writers for a specific team, producing daily stories and videos during the season. In addition, other students work in the MLB office in New York City.

Four students earned assignments in 2014: Steve Petrella covering the

Boston Red Sox, Stephen Pianovich covering the Pittsburgh Pirates, Mike Esse working with MLB.com and Tyler Feldman working for MLB Network.

Penn State students have worked across the country through the program.

Other teams to which students have been assigned include: Balti-more Orioles, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Los Angeles An-gels, Los Angeles Dodg-ers, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis

Cardinals.Coordinators of the MLB program

consistently point to Penn State’s approach — with a combination of classroom work, co-curricular activ-

ities and internships — as a strong training ground for their hands-on internships.

The College of Communications and the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism emphasize that approach every day.

“We’re proud of the opportunities our students earn,” said John Affleck, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of the Curley Center. “We’re glad they are in a posi-tion to get such valuable experience.”

The Curley Center, created in 2003, explores issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, out-reach, programming and research. The Center’s undergraduate curric-ular emphasis includes courses in sports writing, sports broadcasting, sports information, sports, media and society, and sports and public policy, which is cross-listed with the Penn State Dickinson School of Law.

Penn State top site for MLB internship program picks

University crafts strong bond with Dow Jones program

Schools with the most students selected for the MLB internship program since 2008.

1. PENN STATE (24)2. Florida (14)3. Illinois (12)

4. Arizona State (10)5 (tie). Michigan State (9)

5 (tie). Kansas (9)

MLB INTERNS

With another College of Commu-nications student selected for an internship through the Dow Jones News Fund Editing Intern Program this summer, Penn State has contin-ued its run of success in the respect-ed program.

In the past 11 years, 61 Penn State students — the second most of any school in the country —have been selected for the program.

This year’s participant, Ebony Mar-tin, earned her degree in December 2013, and was assigned an intern-ship with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Martin was selected from hun-dreds of applicants nationwide who will work at media outlets across the country beginning in mid-June.

Martin earned her degree in jour-

nalism with a minor in African and African-American studies. During her time as a student, she served as vice president of the Penn State Black Caucus and as a resident assistant. She was also a reporter for The Daily Collegian, and active on campus com-missions for diversity and women.

Students selected for the program attend eight-day training programs on college campuses before com-pleting paid internships for a mini-mum of 10 weeks. At the end of the

full program, interns who return to college as full-time students the following fall receive scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $1,800 from the Dow Jones News Fund.

Students qualify for consideration for the internships by scoring high on a standard editing test designed by the Dow Jones News Fund staff and administered under controlled conditions on the students’ home campuses. Final selections are made by directors of the training programs based on the test, reference checks, an essay and the student’s academic record.

The Dow Jones News Fund is a nonprofit foundation supported by the Dow Jones Foundation and other communications companies.

In the past 11 years, 61 Penn State students have

been selected for the Dow Jones News Fund

Editing Intern Program.

CHAMPIONS

Student winners and faculty members accept awards earned by the College of Communications during the Hearst Journalism Awards Program. In 2013-2014, Penn State earned its third consecutive overall national championship in the competition called “the Pulitzers of college journalism.”