Media School students sweep Keating awards
For the second year in a row, Media School students earned first, second and third place at the 30th annual Keating Feature Writing Competition and Excellence in Journalism awards this weekend with stories about food truck owners, religion and holiday celebrations.
Junior Taylor Telford won first place with a series of profiles on the customers of a small downtown store selling religious supplies. Junior Carley Lanich earned second with her story on a food truck owner from Brazil. Senior Hannah Alani came in third with her behind-the-scenes look at Indianapolis’ annual holiday celebration, City of Lights.
The competition is sponsored annually by the Indianapolis Press Club Foundation and requires students to report and write a feature story in five hours. This year, the writing challenge centered on “wheels,” allowing students freedom to approach the topic creatively.
Other IU finalists included senior Grace Palmieri, who won first place at last year’s Keating competition, senior Brody Miller and junior Briana Susnak.
The Keating Feature Writing Competition and Excellence in Journalism awards provide scholarship money to journalism students. Telford won $3,000 for her first-place story, while Lanich won $1,750 and Alani won $1,250.
The 10 finalists were selected from a pool of 43 student journalists from around Indiana by a panel of judges. They visited Indianapolis for the final writing challenge and a dinner featuring keynote speaker Eric Bradner, a CNN Politics reporter who spoke about his experiences reporting on the 2016 election.
The competition was named after the late Tom Keating, former columnist for the Indianapolis Star and Lilly Endowment executive.
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