University of Illinois journalism students won five Student Silver Dome Awards at the Illinois Broadcasters Association Student U conference Oct. 6 in Normal, Illinois.

First place:
Best TV sports package
Cassie Chaplinsky (Memorial Soccer Match)

Best TV news package
Cassidy Williams (Homer Tornado)

Second place:
Best Longform TV program
UI-7 Election coverage
Julia Hinders, Kelsey Lubatkin, Lauren Hicks, Caitlin Weaver, Chris Kennedy, Dakota Karson, Zach Prelutsky, Billy Hatfield and Gwen Pepin

A new scholarship in the Department of Journalism will honor journalism alum Dave Shaul, long-time WCIA news director. Lecturer John Paul spoke with WCIA’s Jennifer Jensen about Shaul’s legacy. See the story here. 

Donate to the fund here.

STORY NOTE: During spring break 2017, 13 College of Media students and one journalism instructor visited 11 media outlets in New York City on a career and internship trip. The following summary was written by students Shahzmeen Hussain and Fatima-Tul Farha.

University of Illinois seniors Peter Bailey-Wells and Michal Dwojak tied for 11^th place in the sports writing category in the 57th annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program.

Bailey-Wells also tied for 11th place in last year’s Hearst sports writing competition.

Corinne Ruff, a 2015 alumna of the University of Illinois College of Media, has won the 2016 David W. Miller Award for Young Journalists, which The Chronicle confers on one of its interns from the preceding year.

The award, which carries a $3,000 prize, is based on three articles submitted by each intern and judged by a committee of Chronicle editors and reporters. This year, members of the Miller Award Committee agreed, was a particularly "tough vote," as several interns submitted strong portfolios of their work.

Elaine Quijano of CBS News will moderate the 2016 vice presidential debate. It will take place on Oct. 4 at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

Quijano is weekday anchor on CBSN and also anchors the Sunday CBS Weekend News. As a correspondent with CBS News, her reports regularly appear on “CBS This Morning,” “The CBS Evening News” and “CBS Sunday Morning.”

Learn more here.

Brett Lerner and his father, Rich Pomerantz, used to spend a lot of time watching ESPN. The two joked about Lerner being the next Mike Greenberg. During Lerner’s time at the U of I, he displayed the skill and determination required to make that kind of career possible – even though Lerner wasn’t an athlete and didn’t have any high-level connections.

Lerner’s time was cut short in October of 2015 by a car accident. He was on his way to do what he loved most – cover a sporting event.

By Ryan Wilson

When Ros Dumlao was in Northside College Prep High School in Chicago, she watched as her school’s varsity women’s basketball team won the Public League’s Chicago Conference North title and made it to the state Regional Finals. But they did not make it into her school’s student newspaper, The Hoof Beat.

NBC 5 in Chicago announced the hiring of Ash-har Quraishi ’97 JOURN, as a general assignment reporter, effective immediately. He most recently was chief Midwest correspondent for Al Jazeera America.

Award-winning journalist, Steve Osunsami ’93 JOURN, has been nominated for a National Emmy award, in the category Best Story in a Regular Scheduled Newscast, for reporting on the police shooting of Walter Scott in South Carolina.

Osunsami is a correspondent for ABC News and is based in Atlanta. He contributes reports to a number of ABC News broadcasts and platforms.