Cronkite students earn honors at Hearst Championships

Three May graduates of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University received honors in the national championships of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program.

Dan Neligh won first place in the national television broadcast news championship. Neligh, of Lakewood, Colo., received a $5,000 award.  

J. Weston Phippen, of Salt Lake City, won third place in the competition’s national writing championship. He was awarded $3,000.

Nathan O’Neal was a finalist in the national television broadcast news championship, earning a $1,500 award. O’Neal, of Globe, Ariz., also was honored with a $1,000 award for best use of television for news coverage.  

Neligh, Phippen and O’Neal qualified for the 52nd annual Hearst Championships in San Francisco June 4-7 based on their performance in a series of monthly competitions over the past academic year. At the championships, finalists were given spot assignments by professional journalists who judged their work there and during the past year.

“Dan, Weston and Nathan represent the very best of the Cronkite School,” said Cronkite Dean Christopher Callahan. “We are tremendously proud of all they’ve accomplished over the past four years. They continue the strong Hearst tradition at Cronkite.”

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 around the country compete in the annual competition. This year’s entries numbered more than 1,000.

The program distributes more than $550,000 in scholarships and grants annually.

The Cronkite School has finished in the top 10 nationally in the Hearst Awards for the past 10 years, including first-place finishes for the 2008-2009 and 2006-2007 academic years. The school has placed first in the intercollegiate broadcast competition two out of the past three years and three out of the past six years.