May 20, 2014 — Jenna Jaynes is one of five winners of the first BTN LiveBIG Student Solutions Journalism Awards. Her winning entry was about how a Native family works to keep its language and culture alive.
BTN challenged students from 12 Big Ten universities, along with soon-to-join University of Maryland and Rutgers University, to tell compelling and important stories through the BTN LiveBIG Share a Solution program. Students submitted 57 stories featuring people who were creating credible, documented solutions to social problems and making a positive impact in their communities. Stories were shared on BTN LiveBIG as well as through BTN LiveBIG social media channels.
Jaynes graduated in May 2014 with an emphasis in broadcast journalism. Jaynes, daughter of Dennis and Patricia Jaynes of Bartlett, Ill., interned at WBBM-TV (CBS Chicago), WRMN 1410 and Batavia Access Television and has worked as an assistant producer on “Native Daughters: Oklahoma,” a documentary at the college. She was a member of the CoJMC Student Advisory Board as well as the National Broadcasting Society. She is the recipient of a Broadcast Education Association Founders Scholarship.
David Bornstein, co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network and one of the judges said, “These young students show great promise, and their stories show the appeal of solutions journalism. They are telling compelling stories and as they advance in their careers, we hope they will become even more rigorous in their analysis of the solutions they cover.”
The BTN LiveBIG Student Solution Journalism Awards program builds on a growing movement called Solutions Journalism, in which reporters investigate efforts to solve some of the world’s most vexing social problems and detail how or why an approach is working.
The stories were evaluated by judges including New York Times journalists Tina Rosenberg and David Bornstein, pioneers in solutions journalism. Bornstein and Rosenberg co-author the “Fixes” column in The New York Times “Opinionator” section.
Other judges included Charlyne Berens, associate dean and professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications; Lucy Dalglish, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland; Steve Miller, professor of television and media at Rutgers University; and Jake Wood, University of Wisconsin alum and Badger football player who has been featured on BTN LiveBIG.
