Graduate Student Finalist In Online Journalism Awards

SJMC graduate student Becky Larson is a finalist in the Online Journalism Awards (OJA). This prestigious competition recognizes excellence in online journalism through awards from professional and student categories. During the Spring semester, Becky’s project, LoudAustin, was developed in Dr. Cindy Royal’s Advanced Online Media: Coding and Data Skills course. The course explored storytelling with data about the music community in Central Texas. It was funded through the Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education from the Online News Association, Excellence and Ethics in Journalism Foundation, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund and the Rita Allen Foundation.

For this project, Becky identified noise complaint data through the City of Austin Open Data Portal and visualized the data that was tagged “loud music” in several different ways: by month, top four zip codes and through an interactive presentation that allows users to input their own zip codes. The project demonstrates a strong grasp of programming and Web development techniques that are in great demand in modern media organizations.

“Becky did a fantastic job assimilating a range of new skills and identifying a relevant data set. Her project demonstrates the power of data-driven storytelling and proves that programming skills can and should be taught in mass communication programs,” Dr. Royal said. “Her project is the only finalist in the category utilizing innovative data.”

Other Student, Small Teams category finalists include projects from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Southern California. The winners will be announced at the 2015 ONA Conference and Online Journalism Awards Banquet on Saturday, September 26, in Los Angeles, Calif. Good luck, Becky!