UFCJC’s Student Project, “The Price of Plenty,” is the Recipient of a 2024 Online News Association Award
“The Price of Plenty,” a collaboration between the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) and the University of Missouri, has won the 2024 OnlineNews Association (ONA) David Teeuwen Student Journalism Award. The award honors a student package or project that expertly uses digital storytelling and technologies regarding a specific story or topic to inform its audience.
Funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative, “The Price of Plenty” was comprised of a team of 19 undergraduate student journalists from both universities reporting on fertilizer and its consequences from the ground up. The students spent five months creating reports on Florida’s “Bone Valley,” where earth movers strip-mine phosphate, on agrichemical plants, and along the Mississippi River Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone,” where fertilizer runoff threatens one of the world’s most productive fisheries. They also traveled from farm fields to legislative hallways to communities stuck next door to the industry.
UFCJC Environmental Journalist-in-Residence and Senior Lecturer Cynthia Barnett and Missouri School of Journalism Associate Professor Sara Shipley Hiles designed the course for journalism students to report on the cycle of fertilizer and its consequences.
UFCJC faculty and staff who assisted with production and editing include Matt Sheehan, Ethan Magoc and Kristin Moorehead. Additional support was provided by April Hines, Ryan Vasquez, Cally House and Ted Bridis.
In 2023, UFCJC’s “WATERSHED” received the ONA Student Journalism Award in the Portfolio Student Team category. The project was the result of a six-month investigation into Florida’s water quality to mark the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act and the Florida Water Resources Act.
The 2024 awards will be presented at the ONA Online Journalism Award Ceremony on Sept. 20 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Posted: August 23, 2024
Category: Alumni News, College News, Environmental News, Student News
Tagged as: Cynthia Barnett, Online Journalism Awards, Online News Association, The Price of Plenty
