Cronkite student wins Hearst broadcast award

For the third consecutive year, a student from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University has won the national television championship in the prestigious Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

Shayne Dwyer took home first place in the national television broadcast news championship sponsored by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. Dwyer of Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, received a $5,000 award for first place, and an additional $1,000 for the Best Use of Television for News Coverage Award, which he accepted during a Thursday evening dinner reception at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Dwyer is the third consecutive Cronkite student to capture first place in the Hearst broadcast news championship, following John Genovese in 2013 and Dan Neligh in 2012.

Dwyer was chosen as one of five national finalists based on his performance in a series of monthly competitions over the past academic year. For the championship in Washington, he produced a story on how the political landscape has changed via technology.

“This was one of the best experiences of my life,” said Dwyer, who graduated from Cronkite three weeks ago. “The Cronkite School gave me the confidence to prepare me for this competition. My experiences in the Cronkite Washington News Bureau gave me a major advantage.”

For his story, Dwyer secured exclusive interviews with famed Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, CNN journalists John King and Chris Frates, and former Arizona congressman Jim Kolbe. Dwyer said he spent two days producing the story.

“Shayne’s first-place finish is a crowning achievement to his extraordinary career at Cronkite,” said Cronkite School Dean Christopher Callahan. “We are extremely proud of his tremendous accomplishment and know the best is yet to come for this outstanding journalist.”

Dwyer was an active multimedia journalist and anchor for Cronkite NewsWatch, an award-winning student produced newscast that reaches 1.4 million households on Arizona PBS four nights a week. He also spent four months in Cronkite’s Washington bureau, where students report on important public policy issues to Arizonans.

As a student, Dwyer interned at Comcast’s corporate headquarters in Philadelphia, editing Web content for the cable company. He also worked at U-Haul's international headquarters, specializing in social media and video. In addition, he spent four years with the Sun Devil Athletics media relations office. This month, Dwyer is starting a 10-week internship with Thomson Reuters in New York.

The Cronkite School placed sixth overall in the national Hearst Journalism Awards for 2013-2014, with top-five finishes in broadcast and print. The school has finished in the overall top 10 nationally for the past 13 years, including two first-place finishes and six top-five finishes.

The Hearst Journalism Awards, often called the Pulitzer Prizes of college journalism, were established by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation in 1960 to provide support, encouragement and assistance to journalism education at the college and university level. More than 100 accredited journalism schools across the country compete in the annual competition. The program distributes more than $550,000 in scholarships and grants annually.