York Vision winners: Linda Nylind, Jon Bentham, Sam Walton, Jonathan Bray, Louise Burns, Rob Harris and Cathy Baldwin
York University has proven itself to be a hotbed of journalistic talent at this year’s Guardian student media awards.
Its newspaper, York Vision, scooped the Newspaper of the Year award for the second consecutive year, and two of its writers picked up individual prizes.
Rob Harris, the newspaper’s editor, was named Reporter of the Year and overall Student Journalist of the Year at the ceremony in London last week.
The judging panel, which included Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and editor of The Sun, Rebekah Wade, said his article on a York lecturer who was suspended after a child pornography conviction, could have appeared in the nationals.
Harris revealed that the newspaper received boycott threats from students who feared that the tabloid stylenewspaper would over-sensationalise the story. But he said that its “balanced coverage” had won through. And an exclusive about the university’s plans to increase the student intake by 50 per cent was covered several months before local rival the Evening Press.
Harris, who juggled the demands of editing the newspaper with studying for a politics degree, said that the prizes were a just reward for all the days he went without sleep.
“But I obviously did it for the love of journalism as well,” he added.
As part of his win, he will undertake a six-week placement at The Guardian and six weeks at Sky News. His York Vision colleague, Jon Bentham, collected the Student Travel Writer of the Year award.
Student BMJ, published by the British Medical Journal, won the Student Magazine of the Year for the second year running. Thomas Whipple from the Cambridge Student won the trophy for student feature writer.
The prizes were handed over by television presenters Colin Murray and Edith Bowman.
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