Celebrating UNC Hussman student award wins at the 2020 Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas
by Barbara Wiedemann
Winners of the 2020 Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC) awards competition were announced this month. In a long and proud tradition for the school, UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media walked away with the bulk of this year’s student awards for the region — placing in 11 categories, including a full sweep of every available radio award. The student awards ceremony starts at 34:27 into the ceremony below.
SWEEPS
Talented graduate Annabeth Poe ’20 (above, at left) took home first place in both the radio feature and radio news reporting categories; and the crackerjack Carolina Connection weekly news team won first place for best student radio newscast.
“My Dad and I watched the awards ceremony while we had breakfast,” said Poe. “It was so exciting to hear my name—twice!” She added, “But I love Carolina Connection so much. So I'd have to say that THAT win was the most exciting win for me.“
UNC students also owned television’s “Best Student Sports Story” category with a first place win for 2019 graduate Cambria Haro (above, center) for her story on former Carolina football student-athlete Jake Lawler, a 2020 Hussman alumnus; and a second place award to 2020 alumna Caroline Bowyer (above right) for her story of a high school soccer star’s new “normal” after suffering a jet ski accident. Hussman also took home first place awards in coveted group television categories for broadcasts by Carolina Week and Sports Xtra teams.
RADIO
The Ken White Best Student Newscast award went to the Carolina Connection news team guided by lecturer Adam Hochberg, a 15-year NPR correspondent and influential Hussman instructor. The students (producers/anchors Brian Keyes and Savannah Norris; reporters Jared Weber, Aurora Charlow, Giulia Heyward, Josh Conner, Miranda DiPaolo and Ben Rappaport; director Zeerak Khurram; and technical director CeeCeeHuffman) put together this February 29, 2020, broadcast that feels almost like a time capsule now. Most notably, the spread of the coronavirus was just beginning to affect Chinese-Americans in the Triangle, as well as UNC students overseas. Stories on Super Tuesday; college debt relief; Charles Scott, UNC’s first African-American scholarship athlete; high intensity interval training; and a lighthearted look at Leap Year rounded out the broadcast.
“Putting together a winning weekly newscast, like radio’s Carolina Connection or television’s Carolina Week or SportsXtra means you can’t have any weak links,” said Charlie Tuggle, Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and the man behind the Carolina Sports Xtra franchise. “Every part of the broadcast has to be strong, from the writing to the recording, the planning to the editing to the anchors’ delivery to every story in the lineup. It all has to look and sound as professional as possible.”
Recent graduate Annabeth Poe ’20 received two first place awards for her radio reporting.
“Founded in 2015, Stockyard Cowboy Church uses the culture of the Old West to help people find God,” said Poe as she introduced her student feature story from Siler City about one of the more than 60 cowboy churches now operating in North Carolina.
Poe’s second first place win recognized her student news report on Tar Heels who can’t afford food on a regular basis.
“A 2017 survey found that one in five UNC students is food insecure,” Poe shared in the broadcast below, alongside informative interviews with a student, a researcher and a student leader at Carolina Cupboard, a student-run community food pantry trying to address those needs.
TELEVISION
First place for student TV news producing went to Grace Wilson ’22, Edward Trentzsch ’21 and a slew of students on air and behind the scenes who produced Carolina Week for a November 2019 broadcast that looked at everything from policing on campus to N.C. Governor Roy Cooper’s budget vetoes to a story on Warren Cricket Farm 40 miles south of Raleigh. Stembler lecturer Lynn Owens, who received her doctorate from Hussman in 2006 and advises the Carolina Week production, brings both broadcast journalism chops and a depth of teaching experience to the school.
Alongside her student sports story win on Jake Lawler, Cambria Haro ’19 also accepted a first place award for student feature reporting for “Holocaust Remembrance,” her story of an Auschwitz survivor who shares his first-hand account of the Holocaust with students across the state of North Carolina.
“It’s impressive what multi-talented students like Cambria have accomplished during the challenges of a global pandemic,” said Tuggle. He noted that Haro, a transfer student who came to Carolina in 2017 and now works as a production assistant with Fox Entertainment, has radio and television newscasting and sportscasting work on- and off-camera recognized nationally and regionally by the Hearst Journalism and RTDNAC awards programs.
Recent graduate Payton Tysinger ’20, a news production assistant at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, received second place for his student news reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian on Abaco Lodge in the Bahamas.
Katie Clark ’20, Amy Cockerham ’20 and Molly Horak ’20 received a second place nod for “They Were My Best Friends,” their student multimedia report detailing some of the heart-wrenching injuries and even fatal accidents that occurred at a North Carolina intersection with a high crash frequency.
Hayley Boland ’19, currently reporting from KUMV-TV in North Dakota, received a first place award for student photography for her work in the video “Slavery in North Carolina: Stagville Historic Site,” about what was once one of the largest plantations in North Carolina.
A first place win for best student sportscast went to the trio of Chip Sweeney ’21 (executive producer), Anna Blount ’22 (assistant producer) and Edward Trentzsch ’21 (director) for a March 2, 2020, edition of Sports Xtra. The three were juniors and a sophomore at the time.
“We were younger in terms of age, but not necessarily experience,” said Sweeney. “All three of us had been around the shows for a few years, so we had a semester or two to understand how the shows operated and what they needed to be like to succeed from a technical and aesthetically pleasing standpoint.”
The sportscast was deliciously filled with everything from in-depth analysis to the kind of puns you can only find in sports coverage (Hoos Your Daddy! Freshly-squeezed Syracuse basketball!). It opened with an analysis of three of Carolina’s at-the-time undefeated teams, including an interview with field hockey player Erin Jenkins in the studio. Sports Xtra closed that week with a moving story on a Campus Rec class instructor on a fitness journey that includes battling an eating disorder. It was one of Sports Xtra’s final shows before Carolina's spring break 2020, when students were sent home for safety reasons due to the coronavirus pandemic.
THE LEGACY CONTINUES
Today, Carolina Connection, Carolina Week and SportsXtra go on, but just like all media around the world, with new parameters.
“More than anything, I think the pandemic has taught me how to be flexible with live production and in general,” Sports Xtra’s Sweeney reports. “We’ve had to jump through a number of hoops through the digital semester and it would have been so easy to quit at any step along the way. But thanks to the hard work of everyone involved with the shows, we were able to produce not just shows, but technically sound, quality shows that I think will help people recognize that what we do at the Hussman school is unlike anything you can do anywhere else.”
Poe, who worked with mentor Adam Hochberg’s radio students as a volunteer teaching assistant this semester, is certain there are more RTDNAC wins down the road.
“Sending my work in to RTDNAC was such an incredible opportunity to put my work out there and to promote the school at the same time,” said Poe. “So of course I was going to say ’yes’ to that. If I can give back in any way towards all that I've received from UNC Hussman, I'll continue to do it.”