As a student paper, we fully support giving students as many journalistic opportunities possible. But we fundamentally believe a focus on awards in student journalism is harmful and misrepresents what a good journalism education is.
Awards in journalism are fun to win, but any good journalist knows, good stories don’t always garner the attention they deserve. Especially in community journalism, some of the most important stories may go completely unnoticed by larger awarding-giving bodies.
As of late, we have noticed increased attention in the School of Media and Journalism toward proudly promoting the awards won, which isn’t inherently bad, but winning award should not be the reason we teach students.
Teaching students that awards are a good benchmark for determining if a journalist’s story is good can have harmful implications.
If we believe that stories that won awards are uniquely better than those that don’t, we discredit a large body of journalistic work that has a real impact — and does not give credit to many small town journalists who often go unnoticed.
Our own backyard of North Carolina has so many stories that remain untold, many of which may never be noticed by award giver or by larger media organizations. As a bonus, through aggressively covering local issues, we show an increased benefit to the people of the state — especially the voters who are skeptical to why UNC needs a school of journalism.
Local stories are incredibly important and impactful. Through journalist covering what matters, regardless of how likely it is to gain national attention, trust in the media will grow.
