CoJMC student wins fifth place in national competition

Tuesday, February 20, 2018 - 9:30am

by Alli Inglebright

CoJMC student Chris Bowling won fifth place in the 2017-2018 Hearst Enterprise Reporting competition. Bowling, a senior studying journalism, competed against 122 entries from 70 journalism programs and received a $1,000 scholarship.

“Coming in fifth place in the enterprise category of the Hearst awards means a lot to me,” Bowling said. “The fact that judges would consider my story in the top percentage of the best enterprise stories from college campuses across country is a pretty gratifying feeling.”

Bowling’s work, “Oil and Water: Nebraska’s Toxic Debate,” examines the Keystone XL Pipeline and why Nebraska should or should not allow the passage of the pipeline. Bowling looked at the issues from different angles including, geological, political, cultural and economical.

“Probably the most interesting aspect of the story is the connection between landowners and Native Americans, specifically the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, in fighting the pipeline,” Bowling said. “Here are two sides you’d never imagine joining forces—white landowners and Native people who were forced off this land 150 years ago—but they find common ground in their dedication to protecting the land and its resources.”

Winning the Hearst award has shown Bowling that when he puts effort and care into his work people will notice.

“It’s more important to me that people outside of these award competitions see the stories because that’s ultimately the end goal, but these competitions often become a good way to reach a wider audience,” Bowling said.

Hannah Trull, junior journalism and Spanish student, also won seventh place and a certificate of merit for her story, “From Endless Pines to Oil Mines: The Alberta Tar Sands.” Her work examines the destruction of the Canadian environment for pipeline distribution.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program is composed of 14 monthly competitions in which students from accredited journalism programs nationwide compete for awards in five categories: writing, photojournalism, radio and television, multimedia and a cumulative intercollegiate award. The monthly competitions culminate in a national championship round held in San Francisco every June.

After these two recent wins, the CoJMC is in second-place in the year long Hearst Journalism Award competition.

According to the Hearst Journalism Awards Program website: “The program was founded in 1960 to provide support, encouragement, and assistance to journalism education at the college and university level. The program awards scholarships to students for outstanding performance in college-level journalism, with matching grants to the students’ schools.”

Chris Bowling
Chris Bowling won fifth place in the 2017-2018 Hearst Enterprise Reporting competition.