SJMC students once again made an impressive showing, including two first-place awards, in two national contests whose winners were announced Oct. 30-31.

In the Associated Collegiate Press awards:

• Amanda Horvath, JO’15 and Faith Brar, JO’15, won first place for multimedia story of the year for a story on nitrates in Iowa’s rivers for Urban Plains. Both graduated in May; Amanda was a Broadcast News major, Faith a Magazine major.
• Greta Gillen, a senior Magazine and Graphic Design double major, won first place in magazine spread design for “Traffic Trap” in Drake Magazine.
• Rachel Collins, a Radio-TV Producing major who graduated in May, won honorable mention for environmental portrait for Drake Magazine.

In the College Media Association Pinnacle Awards:

• Melissa Studach and Kendall Wenaas collected three Pinnacle awards for Drake Magazine.
• Drake Magazine won second place in best feature magazine, third place for photo illustration (Cole Norum), and third place for photo package (Morgan Cannata).
• Urban Plains won second in best viral video, for Drake’s world-record Nerf gun fight.
• KDRA won third place for best podcast.

The awards were announced at the National College Media Convention in Austin, Texas. Drake’s competition included publications from Northwestern, Stanford, and Temple, among others.

Also at the convention, Associate Professor Jill Van Wyke led three sessions on livestreaming with Periscope, ethics and accuracy in breaking news, and live-blogging.

—Submitted by Kathleen Richardson, Dean, School of Journalism and Mass Communication