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Recent DePauw grads win Edward R. Murrow Award
A journalism project that included 2019 DePauw University graduates Brooks Hepp and Tilly Marlatt has won the Student Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Digital Reporting.
It’s the third consecutive year the Carnegie-Knight News21 investigative reporting project at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University has been so honored.
The 2019 winners will be recognized at the Edward R. Murrow Awards black-tie event hosted by the Radio Television Digital News Association on Oct. 24 in New York City.
Hepp and Marlatt were among among 38 journalism students from 19 universities whose work last summer resulted in “Hate in America,” a package of multimedia stories focused on acts of intolerance, racism and hate crimes across the country.
Their work -- 12 digital stories, a 43-minute documentary film and a five-episode podcast -- won the the prestigious national award in the college category. The students conducted more than 300 interviews in 36 states.
Last month the project was announced as a winner of the 2019 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.
“I’m continually in awe of the work by young reporters in the Carnegie-Knight News21 program,” said Jacquee Petchel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who serves as executive editor for Carnegie-Knight News21. “This project on hate crimes in America was particularly challenging. The students navigated often difficult and uncomfortable situations, yet they excelled at telling great stories.”
An English (writing) major, Hepp served as editor-in-chief of The DePauw this past semester and is past sports editor. He was also active in WGRE and the Tiger football team and interned with the Reporter-Times of Martinsville, Indiana. He just began a job as a reporter at Michigan’s Battle Creek Enquirer.
Marlatt was a Media Fellow who was a national winner of a Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Active in DePauw student media, she interned with the Zionsville Times Sentinel and radio’s Bob & Tom Show. In 2017 she was awarded a scholarship from the Indiana Broadcasters Association. Marlatt has taken a reporting job with Terre Haute’s WTHI-TV.
Since 1971, the Radio Television Digital News Association has been honoring outstanding achievements in broadcast and digital journalism with the Edward R. Murrow Awards. Among the most prestigious in news, the Murrow Awards recognize local and national news stories that uphold the RTDNA Code of Ethics, demonstrate technical expertise and exemplify the importance and impact of journalism as a service to the community.
Murrow Award winning work demonstrates the excellence that Edward R. Murrow made a standard for the broadcast news profession.