UAF journalists top 2010 Alaska Press Club awards
May 14, 2010
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5/14/10
Members of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Journalism Department have, for the second year in a row, claimed the Alaska Press Club’s prestigious Public Service Award.
The statewide journalism organization awarded the 2009 honor to the UAF journalism department’s coverage of the Alaska Stryker Brigade stationed in Iraq and to the Skagway News for its coverage of the high cost of medevac flights. UAF journalism student and 2010 graduate Molly Dischner worked at the Skagway News during the summer and wrote the medevac stories.
Members of the UAF journalism department accepted the awards at the Alaska Press Club’s annual awards banquet in Anchorage last weekend. UAF professor Brian O’Donoghue and his students won the 2008 public service award as well. The Public Service Award is one of a handful of Alaska Press Club awards that are open to all media outlets in the state.
UAF students, publications, websites and alumni won multiple awards, in addition to the Public Service Award. Judges in several categories praised the high quality of the work by the UAF journalism department.
Gary Cohn, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who judged the Public Service Award said that the UAF journalism department is to be congratulated for its “creativity, determination and excellent work” in covering soldiers living and working in Iraq.
“We were not surprised to see so many fine entries from the UAF journalism school,” wrote Kelley Benham, a judge from the St. Petersburg Times.
ON THE WEB: Visit the College of Liberal Arts Facebook note for a full list of UAF-affiliated winners.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For the list of all Alaska Press Club award winners, visit http://www.alaskapressclub.org/images/uploads/apc_2010_winners.pdf.
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