Journalism students celebrate awards night with local media

By Guoliang Fu

 

More than 20 MediaPlex students were honored last week for excellence in writing, editing, and on-air presentation in a ceremony that also named St. Clair College’s journalist of the year.

MediaPlex Faculty Member Shelley Divnich Haggert organized the Journalism Award’s Night (JAN), calling it a great opportunity for young journalists to celebrate their hard work.

“Our students can get together and wrap up the year, acknowledge the effort they put in last and this year, and get ready for next,” Haggert said, adding the evening gave attendees an opportunity to appreciate reporters form CBC, CTV and Windsor Star for their help over the past year.

Media Convergence Coordinator Veronique Mandal acknowledged students and local media both contribute to the program.

“It’s very important to us (that) we have support from people of the local media,” said Mandal. “They are the ones who take our students to internships, help students with their outcome assignments, and give a helping hand.”

University of Windsor professor and Windsor International Film Festival Executive Director Vincent Georgie was the evening’s guest speaker and shard his perspective on interviewing CNN’s Anderson Cooper who was in Windsor recently.

“I’m not a journalist, but one thing I was so amazed by in the journalists here is how they prepare the content and tech,” said Georgie. “I didn’t realize to what point all of these (students) were trained on everything.”

Attendees were asked what journalism means to them.

Windsor Police Chief Al Frederick said that journalism for him is a story of humans and their interaction with others, and it is people telling their stories through reporters.

Shelley said she too considers journalists as story tellers who tell the story of a person, a community or a country.