The Indiana Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists supports the development of quality journalists by awarding scholarships to high school seniors preparing to study journalism at an Indiana college or university.
Each year, the chapter awards two scholarships of $2,500 each.
Special emphasis is placed on finding promising students from populations that are underrepresented in America’s newsrooms.
If you are interested in applying for a scholarship, click here or the logo above for the application.
2010 Scholarship Winners
The Indiana Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is pleased to announce its 2010 scholarship winners, Michelle Hu of Carmel High School and Emily Theis of Southport High School.
Hu and Theis were chosen based on a combination of their grades, extra-curricular media activities and an essay on the topic, “As a future journalist, how do you think journalists can make a difference?”
Each earns a one-time scholarship of $2,500. The chapter’s scholarships are funded by proceeds from the annual Best in Indiana Journalism competition.
Michelle Hu is a senior in the top three percent of her class at Carmel High School. She was a National Scholastic Press Association Multimedia Story of the Year finalist. In 2009, she was one of 42 attendees of J Camp, a prestigious multicultural experience for aspiring high school journalists sponsored by the Asian American Journalists Association. Michelle has worked for three years in leadership roles on Carmel’s student newspaper, HiLite. This year she served as editor-in-chief, overseeing an 80-member staff. She is also Youth Director and editor for Y-Press, a youth news media outlet. James Streisel, Michelle’s newspaper adviser at Carmel, says this about her: “She understands the news and, more importantly, the role of the media in covering that news. She understands her audience and what that audience needs and wants to know to be informed, educated and entertained.
Emily Theis is a senior at Southport High School, where she ranks seventh out of 480 students. She spent a year as a features reporter on her school paper and was promoted to managing editor of content this year. She has attended the National Scholastic Press Association’s national convention in Washington D.C. as well as Ball State University’s annual J-Day convention. Last year, Emily received not one, but two first place awards in a contest sponsored by the Women’s Press Club of Indiana. The awards were for coverage of the environment and feature writing. Her journalism teacher at Southport, Mike Klopfenstein, says Emily is one of the best student writers he’s ever advised: “She writes with impressive mastery of language and flow, and she takes pride in her ability to tackle big projects, constructing complex pieces of writing that require synthesis of massive amounts of information.”
Here are their winning essays:
Michelle Hu’s winning essay
Journalism was never in my plans until high school, but from the moment I realized how interesting it was, I’ve prepared myself for a career in the field since. For my sixteenth birthday, instead of asking for something many teenagers typically ask for, I wanted an SLR camera to learn photography. I developed my skills through practice, and I view professionals’ photos on Time.com daily to find out what my own style is. Not only that, but I’ve been teaching myself how to use audio equipment and video recorders (I’m quite an amateur, but improving nonetheless) and learning as much as possible about each media form.
I’ve done this merely because I know that’s what the industry expects these days: a jack-of-all-trades. When I attended a competitive, multicultural journalism camp in Boston this past summer sponsored by the Asian American Journalists Association, all the professionals there encouraged us to move into a medium we had never explored before. I initially signed up for print journalism; instead, I ended up writing two stories and producing an audio slideshow.
I’d like to think I know where journalism is going, and that I’m well prepared for it. I hope to become a Middle East correspondent after majoring in Political Science and studying Arabic… and hopefully, I can give a voice to the millions of unheard men and women in the region. Though many say that print journalism is dying out, news certainly is not, and I hope to jump on the opportunity of technology as soon as possible. With the release of the iPad, the future of print rests perhaps on the success of the tablet computer. Sports Illustrated has already developed a sample issue and I just know that all of my work for the past four years and next four years will surely prepare me for the revolution of journalism.
Emily Theis’s winning essay
Journalists have been typically associated with a pad and pen, a text-laden front page “EXTRA,” and an inquisitive, investigative nature that pursues truth. Perhaps the only facet of this “typical journalist” that will endure is the final one: the driving force behind a passion for getting the facts. As the world of information changes, journalists can make a difference by using this information to help build a sufficiently and accurately informed society.
Although the development and boom of the Internet has dramatically increased the amount of previously newspaper-specific information available, it has not resulted in a better-informed society. In fact, the result has been quite the opposite. It is the job of the evolving journalist to present the information in a way that the public can trust and access easily. Journalists are responsible for sifting through the piles of extraneous and inaccurate information that are now floating about the world and sorting them into reputable and concise reports. Although this methodology is not yet clearly defined in the ever-changing world of technology, the pure necessity of its determination will keep the journalistic industry afloat, in whatever form it takes. News corporations are already utilizing the public’s methods of communication with downloadable pages and quick updates on Twitter. The journalism of the future will, and must, follow these footsteps and bring the public the information it needs to hear the way it wants to hear it.
Journalists have a simple job to change the world by informing it – accurately. Problems cannot be fixed unless they are recognized as problems, and people can’t draw correct conclusions without correct information. In the ever-evolving arena of information, it is the job of the journalist to change the inaccurate internet and gossip-driven world and therefore change the world itself.