University Park, Pa. — Four Penn State students were selected as members of an inaugural list honoring the nation's top collegiate journalists.
UWIRE, a free membership organization for college student media, selected members of its "UWIRE 100" from more than 500 nominations submitted by students and educators at 132 colleges and universities across the nation. A panel then evaluated each candidate based on demonstrated excellence in a field of collegiate journalism.
Penn State's four honorees tied the University for second nationally with Iowa. Only the University of North Carolina, with five, had more students on the 100-person list.
"This is journalism at its most pure," said Ben French, vice president and general manager of UWIRE. "The 100 best student journalists in the country-hard workers, big thinkers and gifted storytellers-nominated by their peers and advisers for their potential to shape the media industry in the years ahead."
Penn State's honorees were: Adam Clair, a junior from Langhorne; Kevin Horan, a senior from Willow Grove; Ryan Pfister, a junior from North Wales, Pa.; and Halle Stockton, a senior from Erie. All four served as editors or in senior-level positions at The Daily Collegian during the recently completed spring semester.
Individual bios and samples of the students' work may be found at http://www.uwire.com/UWIRE100/uwire100.html online.
The announcement of the "UWIRE 100" ended a three-month national search for the country's top 100 collegiate journalists. The selected students have excelled in a particular journalism medium, have a proven commitment to the journalism field and have the potential to help revolutionize their industry. The 100 students hail from 66 different schools, ranging from small liberal arts colleges to large state universities.
UWIRE, founded in 1994 and operated by CBS College Sports Network, identifies and promotes the brightest collegiate content creators and delivers their work to a larger audience. It recently re-launched uwire.com, which now features the first online career networking community dedicated exclusively to college journalists and aspiring media professionals.
The site enables young media talent to interact, share user-generated content and deliver their work to a national audience through UWIRE's Syndication Service, which distributes more than 2,500 news articles each week to a variety of national content partners, including CBS News, The New York Times and magazines such as Billboard and U.S. News & World Report.