UNC J-school project wins SXSW Interactive Award for second year in a row

"Living Galápagos," an interactive multimedia website produced by students in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, won in the student category of the SXSW Interactive Awards presented March 12 in Austin, Texas. It marks the second year in a row that Carolina has won the award.

The project, which explores the impact of mankind on the Galápagos Islands, contains a mix of human interest and science-related content presented as a bilingual website. The site, created in 2012, continues the work of a 2009 project by the same name created by Hussman School students.

During spring break 2013, students, faculty and story coaches returned to the islands to produce new stories.

“Coal: A Love Story,” an interactive multimedia website which explores modern culture’s complicated relationship with coal, won the category in 2012.

The school's "Port City Stories" – a website featuring multimedia narratives produced in and around Wilmington, N.C., during the ninth annual Carolina Photojournalism Workshop – was also one of five finalists in the student category.

"For three consecutive years, two Carolina journalism school projects have been selected as finalists in the category "devoted exclusively to the student designers who are refreshing this industry with new talent and new ideas." In 2011, reesenews.org and “Now What Argentina?” were selected as student finalists. Finalists in 2012 included "Coal: A Love Story" and "Finding the Uwharries."