WFUV Sweeps Awards, again.

Once again, the news and sports departments of WFUV took home a bevy of awards this past spring.

"While WFUV is known as a music-formatted station, we are enormously proud of our award-winning news and sports departments," said WFUV general manager Chuck Singleton.

The New York State Associated Press announced that the station had earned first place in three professional categories. News & Public Affairs Director George Bodarky received two of them: Best News Special Documentary and Best Interview. In addition, Bodarky received special mentions for Best News Series, Best Spot News Coverage, and the Art Athens General Excellence of Individual Reporting award.

The other first place award went to one of WFUV’s student journalists, Alex Smith, FCRH '14, for Best Sports Coverage. In the student competition for The Memorial Award for Best News Story, Kris Venezia took first place.

Earlier this year, The Alliance for Women in Media Foundation presented a Gracie Award to Morlene Chin for Outstanding Host in the Entertainment/Information category.

The Society of Professional Journalists also took notice. The Mark of Excellence Awards went to three WFUV student journalists. Bobby Gubin won a regional award for Radio Feature, as did Alex Smith for Radio Sports Reporting. Connor Ryan won a regional award for the Radio In-Depth Reporting category and is now a national finalist.

Fordham Student Journalists Take Home Awards

The Observer, Fordham College at Lincoln Center's student newspaper, and WFUV, 90.7 FM, were recently honored by the Society of Professional Journalists for their work.

WFUV earned first place awards for the categories best all-around radio newscast and radio in-depth reporting, the latter for “NYC's Bike-Share Program” by Connor Ryan. The station also won third place in the category radio sports reporting, for "Al Michaels: Seizing the Moment” by Kyle Kesses.

The Observer took home eight mark of excellence awards, for breaking-news photography, breaking-news reporting, editorial writing, feature photography, general column writing, general news photography, general news reporting, and sports writing.

Ian McKenna, the paper's managing editor, won the general news reporting and breaking-news reporting categories for his coverage of the Fordham College Republican's Ann Coulter speaking invitation and revocation. McKenna shared the editorial writing award with Opinions Editor Monique John and Editor-in-Chief Harry Huggins.

McKenna, a sophomore who will take over as editor in chief next year, said the staff's embrace of online journalism was a factor in paper's success.

"We haven’t been waiting for the two week cycle to print things. Harry Huggins really pushed us to join everyone in the 21st century. So I think that really riled everyone up to do their best work and more frequent work, because the more work you do, the better it works," he said.

Photography was another area where the paper excelled, with Tavy Wu, Weiyu Li, and Charlie Puente winning honors for breaking news, feature, and general news photography, respectively. Like McKenna's Ann Coulter story, Wu's picture of Riverside Park during Hurricane Sandy was published on short notice.

"We didn’t force him to go, because that would be unsafe. He decided to take it upon himself to get a picture," said McKenna.

"So in that way it was sort of related to our breaking news protocol, but also, we have a really great photo advisor who edits for Bloomberg, so I think that influence, along with this influx of new people really helped us." 

He also credited paper's advisor, Elizabeth Stone, Ph.D., professor of English, with helping make it a winning year.

"Dr. Stone was very supportive in editing and tailoring our articles. Without her push for both online and good journamislm, we wouldn’t be here," he said.

—Patrick Verel

Beth Knobel and Mike Wallace: Advice to New Journalists

Beth Knobel, assistant professor of communication and media studies at Fordham, and broadcast legend Mike Wallace have written a book for beginning journalists, Heat & Light. The book also has its own website: www.heatandlight.org.

Knobel is the former Moscow bureau chief for CBS News, and has won Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards for her reporting. Follow her on Twitter at FordhamCMS.