TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Two student publications from The University of Alabama’s department of journalism recently were honored as among the top in the nation by the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication at the group’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Alpine Living, the department’s international travel magazine, won three awards from AEJMC’s Magazine Division. The publication, published every other year by students who travel abroad to produce service journalism, was awarded honorable mention in the General Excellence category. The magazine competed against 27 other student magazines from the nation’s top journalism programs.
The editor of Alpine Living Issue 5 was Amanda Sams, a 2013 Journalism graduate from Meridianville, near Huntsville. Sams led a 23-member student team to Spain and Portugal in March 2013.
Two individual articles from the magazine also were recognized. Sophia Jones, a journalism senior from Montgomery, won first place in the Consumer Magazine Article Service and Information category for her story, “The Footsteps of a Legend: Tracing Hemingway Through Spain.” Alan Alexander, a journalism senior from Mountain Brook, won an honorable mention in the same category for his article, “La Rioja: The Heart of Spanish Wine.”
Dateline Alabama, the department’s student-run digital news site, also received honors at the AEJMC meeting from the Newspaper and Online News Division. Dateline Alabama received an honorable mention in the Newspaper Project Award category, which recognizes publications produced by students and professors in journalism classes.
Seventeen students in the Community Journalism course served as editors, reporters and visual journalists for the site, which the students redesigned and re-launched during the Spring 2013 semester. While producing their own news content, Dateline students also edited and published the work of their peers in the department of journalism.
The published work included special projects by master’s students in the community journalism graduate program. Graduate projects by Sara Milledge, of Birmingham, and Leah Cayson, of Fulton, Miss., won honorable mentions for video and multimedia projects in April in the national College News Design Contest, sponsored by the Society of News Design. Milledge and Cayson are August 2013 master’s graduates from the department.
Dr. Kim Bissell is the faculty adviser for Alpine Living, and Dr. Scott Parrott is the faculty adviser for Dateline Alabama.
The journalism department is a unit within UA’s College of Communication and Information Sciences.
Contact
Misty Mathews, UA media relations, 205/348-6416, mmathews@ua.edu
Source
Dr. Jennifer Greer, journalism department chair, 205/348-6304, jdgreer@ua.edu