The students of the School of Journalism and Communication of Nanjing University won three prizes as announced at the award ceremony of the “2019 Campus Newspaper Awards,” hosted by China Daily and held in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on December 1, 2019.
Fifty universities in Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan submitted 1,009 entries in total, and Nanjing University won awards of Best in Overall Design (Chinese Category), Best in News Page Design (Chinese Category), and second runner-up award of Best in Scientific News Reporting (Chinese Category).
The award ceremony of “2019 Campus Newspaper Awards” (Photo: Deng Yong’an/China Daily)
All the winning works were from the student magazine, Future Editors’ Office · Data Journalism, with Professor Bai Jing as their coach.
In the era of big data, the way of producing and presenting news has changed. Based on data mining and data analysis, data journalism is a new way to present news with recourse to information visualization tools in news production. To keep up with the new trend, teacher Bai Jing has offered courses like News Visualization Design since 2018 for both undergraduate and graduate students of the school to improve their ability to visualize news. With frequent case studies, she instructs the students step by step in the production and presentation of data news, including topic selection, data mining, data analysis, and news visualizing methods. She also encourages the students to complete a data journalism through teamwork, and finally, excellent reports are published in the magazine Future Editors’ Office · Data Journalism.
Tian Yuan, Lu Yifan and Wang Yuxian dug deep into the issue of whether areca-nuts can cause cancer, and their data news report, “Areca Nuts: Refresher or Cancer Cause?” has documented the possible harm of long-term intake of areca-nuts from different angles, including the traditional areca-nuts processing, the cancer-causing aspects of areca-nuts, the production and consumption of areca-nuts and the big events about areca-nuts. This report won the second runner-up award of Best in Scientific News Reporting (Chinese Category) in the competition.
Professor Xia Qiong, of the School of Journalism and Communication of Wuhan University, commented, “The topic is novel, and the report can answer the public’s questions about areca-nuts. The analysis is thorough and convincing.”
Award recipients of Best in Scientific News Reporting (Chinese Category) (Photo: Deng Yong’an/China Daily)
The other report, “Why Soybeans is Trump’s Card in the Trade War with China instead of Wheat or Corn?” won the winner award of Best in News Page Design (Chinese Category), and the magazine that included this report won the winner award of Best in Overall Design (Chinese Category). The report was written by Fan Kun, Hu Xiaoqi and Zeng Xianwen and was typeset by Fan and Zhang Qun. He Xuchu, an associate professor and dean of the Department of Journalism and Communication Studies, Fu Jen Catholic University, was one of the judges, and he praised the work by saying, “The page design of Future Editors’ Office · Data Journalism is clear and unique. A lot of charts and graphs are contained in the magazine. They enrich the presentation forms, decorate the pages and make the news report interesting and well-founded.”
Award recipients of the Best in News Page Design (Photo: Deng Yong’an/China Daily)
Award recipients of the Best in Overall Design (Chinese Category) (Photo: Deng Yong’an/China Daily)
At the award ceremony, Zhou Li, an editorial board member of China Daily Group, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily Asia Pacific,congratulated the winning students and universities. He also expressed his expectations for the media industry and said, “As new technologies like big data and artificial intelligence are bringing new chances and challenges to the industry, journalists need to make efforts to improve their professional abilities. They need to find more, see more, think more, and write better.”
“The changes in the industry mean higher requirements for journalism students,” he said. “As prospective journalism practitioners, only by sticking to your goals, adapting to new circumstances and trends, and learning new skills can you avoid being left behind by the era.”
Zhou Li, an editorial board member of China Daily Group, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily Asia Pacific, addresses in the ceremony. (Photo: Deng Yong’an/China Daily)
“Journalists are not simply information spreaders,” said Zhou Mo, a financial reporter at China Daily Hong Kong Edition who shared her thoughts about her job with the student journalists. “They are also information receivers. Never underestimate the influence of any news report. It might bring a silver lining to a person, an industry, or a group. So, we should be empathetic in interviews, and we should verify the information with different people in order to present the reports most objectively and authentically.”
Zhou Mo, a financial reporter at China Daily Hong Kong Edition, shares her thoughts. (Photo: Deng Yong’an/China Daily)
Besides the award ceremony, the organizer also arranged visits to Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneur Hub and Huawei Company for the teachers and students.
Tian Yuan, one of the award winners and a second-year graduate student at NJU’s School of Journalism and Communication, said, “Today, I read many great reports from different universities. I’m impressed most by the various reports on social reality, and I regard it as an honor and inspiration to participate in this competition and to have the chance to display my own work together with so many excellent peers.”
“Campus Newspaper Awards” was started in 2012 by China Daily, and this year was the eighth session. The awards are intended to encourage university students to actively take part in campus news reporting and to hone their news writing and multimedia production skills.
At the same time, the competition serves as a communication platform for journalism students from Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
It is learned that this year saw 1,009 submissions from 50 universities, such as Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, Sun Yat-sen University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, University of Macau, Fu Jen Catholic University, Shih Hsin University and so on.
A panel of 70 judges, including the political leaders, business leaders, scholars and veteran journalists from Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, decided on 84 winning works after evaluation.
Links to the winning works:
“Areca Nuts: Refresher or Cancer Cause?”
https://media.nju.edu.cn/74/da/c21821a423130/page.htm
“Why Soybeans is Trump’s Card in the Trade War with China instead of Wheat or Corn?”
https://media.nju.edu.cn/74/d8/c21821a423128/page.htm
Publication date: 2019-12-01