Senior PM students honored for excellence, passion in journalism

    The Ball State University Journalism Workshop honored three editors of the Focus newspaper staff for their excellent reporting, writing and news leadership skills during a four-day Summer Media Academy, July 10-13.

    The PM students honored with Ernie Award certificates are:

• Erica Irish, the co-managing student newspaper editor, for Excellence in News Leadership;

• Emma Davidson, copy editor, for Excellence in Reporting; and

• Hannah Gunnell, Page 6 editor, for Excellence in News.

    Instructors in the Media Academy, who are award-winning journalism teachers and professors, selected the Ernie Award winners. Each winner received a certificate illustrated with an Ernie cartoon–a bright yellow bug-eyed exclamation point. Students who receive the award stand out for excellence, just like an exclamation point draws attention for a sentence, workshop organizers explained. Ernie Pyle was a famous, Pulitzer-Prize winning World War II correspondent from Indiana best known for writing heartfelt columns about every-day American military men serving abroad.

    Emma won a second award–the H.L. Hall Student Choice Award. In each class, peers voted for one student they especially admired for journalistic spirit and passion. The award is named for Hall, a long-time journalism educator, textbook author and Kent State University adjunct professor. He has received many awards, including National Journalism Teacher of the Year.

  Awards are a long-standing tradition of the media workshops at Ball State, which celebrated a 50-year anniversary this summer. The workshop classes are designed to help students learn top quality high school journalism writing, reporting, design, photography, social media, videography, and website production.