Print student places in Hearst competition;
win puts UM J-School in Top 10

By Rachel Cook
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Lizz Rauf

Daniel Person

Daniel Person was anxious as he prepared to interview UM President George Dennison last spring in wake of the firing of UM Provost Lois Muir.

“Dennison’s always a little intimidating to interview … under those circumstances [interviewing him] was particularly stressful,” Person said. “I knew I had to get the story right then.”

Person, a senior in print journalism, received 11th place in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program in the Spot News Writing competition for the story he wrote on March 22 for the Montana Kaimin on the Muir firing. Seventy-five students from 48 journalism programs competed in the spot news writing competition.

The Hearst competition has been called “the Pulitzers” of college journalism. It is a yearlong competition in writing, photography and broadcast in which students can receive scholarships and earn points for their placement. Journalism schools are then ranked according to those points. With Person's win, the UM J-School had nine winners and placed eighth in the overall ranking, the seventh time in the last decade that the J-School has finished in the Top 10.

In individual competitions, the J-school tied for seventh place with the University of Maryland in writing and placed ninth in broadcast news.

"I was very excited [to win the award]," Person said. A day after learning that Muir would not be returning as provost after June 30, Person learned that Dennison fired Muir, he said. He hurried to her office to question Muir as she was literally "packing her bags," he said.

"I like how we really didn't let either party … just say sound bites," Person said of his story. "The story broke through the sound bites and got to the deeper causes and issues that were going on."

Person is currently doing an internship at The Missoulian. He graduates this spring and is planning to go to Washington D.C. to participate in a program at the Institute on Political Journalism, Person said.

“I am stoked,” he said.

The top three overall intercollegiate journalism programs in the 2006-2007 competition were Arizona State University, University of Missouri and University of Florida.

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