The UMass Journalism Community Storytelling Award

The UMass Journalism Community Storytelling Award is designed to highlight student work that embodies the best traditions of journalism, public relations, and media scholarship in representing diverse voices and communities. The annual winning work will demonstrate intelligent and rigorous reporting, storytelling, and/or scholarship about underrepresented or overlooked individuals, groups, and/or geographies. As the journalistic pioneer and social justice crusader Ida B. Wells once wrote, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth on them.”

This competitive award is open to all current UMass Amherst journalism majors. The scope of original student-authored work that can be submitted for consideration to this competitive award is broad. It might include works of journalism published (e.g. textual, visual, audio and/or multimedia stories) in student or professional media, as well as academic papers and essays, published scholarly research, or public relations campaigns. The submitted work must have been produced or published during the calendar year before the application’s due date.

Award
$750
Deadline
04/15/2026
Supplemental Questions
  1. Please upload the work you would like to submit for consideration for this award, or provide a document with a link to that work (e.g., original article, YouTube, Google Drive).
  2. Why do you think this work represents excellence in community storytelling? What do you think is most powerful, impressive, and/or valuable about this work? (Max: 250 words)