Think Globally, Report Locally Winners

Personal stories of girls from abroad now living in Oregon, the tale of a woman in West Virginia whose well is polluted and a report on a mill in Texas using recycled products to produce paper are the three winners in the 2008 Think Globally, Report Locally video contest. 

This national high school video competition was sponsored by the United Nations Foundation’s The People Speak and the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation. Students were challenged to find a local angle to one of four global topics and produce one-to-two minute videos. International video for use in each entry was supplied by the United Nations.

And the winners are:

Gold Award: Sarah Allen and Cara Strever

Century High School, Hillsboro, OR

 “Growing Up Girl”

Teacher: Keith Allen


Silver Award: Daniel Matics and Jon Bradley

Roane County High School, Spencer, WV

 “More Than An Inconvenience”

Teacher: Janet Kerby

 

Bronze Award: Christian Hacker and John Fuerst

Texas High School, Texarkana, TX

 “A Community Voice”

Teacher: Charles Aldridge

 

Judges commended Gold Award winners Sarah Allen and Cara Strever, “Growing Up Girl,” for finding a strong local angle for a global story in their own community. One judged singled out “the quality of the thought” in the video “and the poise of the young women interviewed.” 

Silver Winner, “More Than an Inconvenience,” was called “... very well told.. [Daniel and Jon] found a great local angle that keeps interest throughout.” 

Bronze Winner “A Community Voice” by Christian Hacker and John Fuerst was termed “a good job all around and “good use of interview with the plant spokesman.”

Gold, Silver and Bronze winners and their teachers will win trips to New York City for the United Nations Youth Leadership Conference July 17-19.

SchoolTube has produced a special winners’ video compilation that can be seen on http://www.schooltube.com/reportlocally.aspx, RTNDF’s high school broadcast journalism website: www.hsbj.org  and the United Nation’s The People Speak website, www.peoplespeak.org.

Final Judges for Think Globally, Report Locally Contest were:

  • Victoria Baxter, director of The People Speak at the United Nations Foundation, sponsor of the Think Globally Report Locally Contest. The People Speak is a campaign to engage young people on the global issues that will shape their futures. The People Speak website www.thepeoplespeak.org.

 

  • Craig Duff, Knight International Journalism Fellow currently the Journalist in Residence at Princeton University. Craig has produced documentary and long-form news reports for CNN, the Discovery Channel, the New York Times (where he was lead video journalist), the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

 

  • Jon Sawyer, director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, was a longtime reporter and Washington bureau chief for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has reported from some five dozen countries and was selected three years in a row for the National Press Club's award for best foreign reporting.

 

  • Marjorie Rouse, vice-president for Europe, Eurasia for Internews Network. She  has worked for many media outlets developing long and short format programming. From 1988 to 1995 Rouse was based in Moscow, covering the international stories for NBC News.

 

In addition to the Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards, Think Globally, Report Locally offered an Excellence Award and Early Entry Awards.

The Excellence Award is given to the school with the highest number of points for all entries combined. The 2008 Excellence Award winner is Jersey Village High School, Houston, Texas. Judges were impressed with the breadth and quality of the school’s 13 entries. Five of those entries were among the 10 contest finalists. Excellence Award prize is $250.

Early Entry Awards winners will receive Sony NSC-GC1 Web Camcorders. Early Entry prizes go to:

             Worthington Kilbourne High School, Columbus, OH for “March: National Women’s History Month” by Emma Hein – first entry submitted,  March 20, 2008.

            Bob Jones High School, Madison, AL, for multiple entries received in April and May 2008, particularly “John 4:14” by Wyatt Hutchison and Brian Forroux.