Meador wins Hearst writing competition
Senior Marissa Meador won the Hearst Journalism Awards Program’s national writing championship Thursday, earning a $10,000 scholarship and becoming the eighth IU student to claim the championship in 15 years.
Alongside seven other finalists, Meador spent Sunday through Wednesday in San Francisco reporting and writing her two winning stories: “‘It’s the tragedy of our industry’: Debt-saddled taxi drivers struggle to compete with new tech,” which she reported from the passenger seat of a cab, and “Biden executive order on asylum seekers a consequence of congressional inaction, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says,” based on a press conference attended exclusively by Hearst Program competitors.
Her taxi story was based on a contest prompt: “How are local companies developing new technologies that are changing how we live and work in this ever-evolving region of San Francisco and Silicon Valley?”
Rather than focusing on the companies creating the technology, Meador focused on the people affected — specifically taxi driver Mark Gruberg, who allowed her to ride along as he transported customers throughout the city, and explained the negative effects ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft, as well as self-driving taxis, have had on his livelihood.
Meador, who will be Indiana Daily Student co-editor in the fall, credited both her IDS experience and her journalism coursework — particularly narrative journalism courses with professors of practice Kelley and Tom French — with helping her develop the skills she used to win.
“The IDS was great to have that daily experience of working on a tight deadline,” she said. “The narrative writing that (Kelley and Tom French) taught was really helpful — thinking about how to put a human-centered approach to the story.”
College journalists are invited to participate in the Hearst national writing championship based on their performance in the program’s monthly competitions, which recognize the best published writing by college journalists in five categories: features, explanatory reporting, sports, personality/profile, and investigative reporting. Hearst invites the winners of those categories to compete in the championship, plus three “wild card” finalists who placed in but did not win any categories, but demonstrated promise based on all their submissions considered together. Meador was one of the “wild card” finalists.
“I was very surprised when I got the email,” she said. “I thought it was just the winners of the monthly competitions. I had already counted it out.”
Meador’s win came as no surprise to Tom French, who said she had already proven herself to be “one of the most impressive young reporters in our program’s history,” citing her work as lead reporter on the recent protests in Dunn Meadow.
“She’s disciplined, tenacious, and deeply serious in everything she does,” he said.
Meador is interning at the Bloomington Herald-Times this summer and wants to be a journalist after she graduates next year, with a particular interest in reporting on politics and government. She said the competition experience strengthened skills she’ll need in her career.
“It was just a really high-pressure deadline environment that I think is similar to how a lot of professional news outlets function,” she said.
Previous IU student Hearst writing champions are Caroline Anders (2020), Jack Evans (2018), Taylor Telford (2017), Alden Woods (2016), Samantha Schmidt (2015), Charlie Scudder (2013), and Danielle Paquette (2011).