Students earn SPJ Mark of Excellence Award

UNC Charlotte journalism students won a 2014 Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists at the SPJ Region 2 conference held at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

The students received “Best Independent Online Student Publication” for a website created from student work for the 2014 course “Covering Poverty in America,” conceptualized and taught by senior lecturer Cheryl Spainhour.

The website is a culmination of compelling news stories, profiles, commentary and photography that examined poverty 50 years after President Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of the “war on poverty” in his 1964 State of the Union address.

Filmmaker and adjunct lecturer William Davis collaborated on the project, and members of his class “Community-Based Film Production” contributed film and webpage design.

“We wanted to know if the 50-year ‘war’ has had any impact on our country’s homeless and impoverished people,” Spainhour and Davis wrote. “We learned it hasn’t — that in some areas, it has only grown and deepened. We also learned about the unquenchable hope expressed by those who are struggling and those who are on the front lines, trying to make a difference.”

The students watched documentaries, read about the issues and interviewed, filmed and photographed people who are homeless and hungry and the people working to help them.

“The class of journalism students, in collaboration with a class of film studies students, researched poverty and listened to folks’ talk on the ways they battle poverty in programs for feeding and housing the poor and homeless in the Charlotte, North Carolina area,” Spainhour and Davis wrote.

The students featured initiatives that included the Niner Food Pantry, UNC Charlotte Community Garden, Habitat for Humanity, Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, Friendship Trays, Loaves & Fishes and the Angels and Sparrows Soup Kitchen.

Photo: Journalism student Chelsea Tubridy (left) with Cheryl Spainhour at the SPJ Mark of Excellence Awards.