Dave Ottalini 301-405-1321
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Student journalists from the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism (pictured right) took home top honors at the recent Society of Professional Journalist's (SPJ) Region 2 Conference. Overall, students from the Merrill College and the UMD student newspaper – The Diamondback – took home 27 awards, including 9 first place awards – more than any other school in the region.
SPJ's Region 2 comprises Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Honorees received award certificates at the Region 2 Spring Conference in Norfolk, Va., and first-place winners will move on to the national MOE competition among category winners from the 12 SPJ regions.
National winners will be notified in the late spring and will be recognized at Excellence in Journalism 2013 in Southern California, Aug. 24 to 26. The awards are judged by professionals with at least three years of journalism experience.
The awards honor the best in student journalism. As such, judges were directed to choose only those entries which they felt were outstanding work worthy of such an honor. If the judges determined that none of the entries rose to the level of excellence, no award was given. Any category not listed has no winner.
School divisions are based on student enrollment, which includes both graduate and undergraduate enrollment: Large schools have more than 10,000 students, medium have 9,999 to 5,001 students, and small have fewer than 5,000 students.
For the full list of UMD awards, visit the Merrill College website here.
