A lack of diversity in tech start-up workers, the politics around World Cup reporting and a photo essay on a dementia patient’s struggles with losing his memory have all been honoured at the UTS Journalism Society’s inaugural Student Journalism Awards Night.
Hosted at UTS’s The Loft bar on May 7, more than 20 people gathered to celebrate the year’s best stories by UTS journalism students.
JSOC President Bianca Drummond Costa.
Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields, Bloomberg’s Ed Johnson, and 2SER station manager Paula Kruger judged the five categories, from dozens of entries submitted by UTS journalism students.
“I was super happy to see so many people turn up in support of each other and support student journalism,” said Journalism Society president Bianca Drummond Costa.
“It’s really encouraging to see how many student submissions we have and how it can only get bigger and bigger as it goes on. It was a really beautiful night.”
Students Patrick Brischetto and Yasmine Alwakal won two awards each, while Rodger Liang and Sarah Abdi-Hashi’s investigative story was the highest scored piece.
Winners were each awarded a $50 gift card, and JSOC aims to make the event a yearly fixture.
“Looking to next year, we definitely want to expand the reach of the competition,” Drummond Costa said. “We want to receive more submissions and get some more judges.
“Now that the kinks in the planning have been smoothed, next year I’m hoping we can add some more amazing things in. I’m also super grateful to Activate UTS for having sponsored this project, because it would’ve been super hard to do it without them.”
Read the winning articles below:
Best Article by a First Year Student: Nick Newling – ‘Freefalling’: A family’s descent into TSC
Best Feature/Opinion Piece: Patrick Brischetto – How do we cover the World Cup that we’ve spent 12 years trying to ignore?
Best Interview: Yasmine Alwakal – Life as a ‘living mannequin’
Best Investigative Story: Rodger Liang & Sarah Abdi-Hashi – Old Boys Club: What they don’t tell you about Australian start-ups
Best Photojournalism: Yasmine Alwakal – I’m losing my marbles
Best Sports Journalism: Patrick Brischetto – The Sydney Derby is back with a vengeance, and the Wanderers just might be too
Main photo by Sam Kosack: From left to right, Rodger Liang, Patrick Brischetto, Yasmine Alwakal, Nick Newling, Paula Kruger, Ed Johnson and Bianca Costa Drummond.
