Broadcast Student Wins National Competition

Published: March 03, 2004 | Author: Renee Ballenger and Jon Smith | Read Time: 2 minutes

Russell Wilde, a Southern Utah University senior communication major with an emphasis in broadcasting, has won the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Student News Competition.

The Broadcast Education Association announced earlier this week on its website that Wilde won the BEA’s Best of the Festival award for his television news coverage. The national competition brings student work from all over the country including schools such as Northwestern, University of Alabama, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Arizona State and many others.

Wilde entered a compilation of television news stories he shot, wrote, and edited for SUTV News, Southern Utah University’s cable television station that live news, sports, and weather each weekday. The stories Wilde entered included the dramatic coverage of a highway patrol car being hit by a sleepy semi-truck driver and also the Zion Inn Motel fire in downtown Cedar City.

Jon Smith, an SUTV adviser, as well as an associate professor of communication and department chair, received a preliminary phone call last week from a competition official with inquiries into Wilde’s qualifications and experience. When Smith informed Wilde that he had been selected as the award recipient, Wilde said, “I have been able to win awards in radio, but I had never been able to break into television. This is great to be recognized for my television work.”

The BEA Festival received a record number of entries this year. All entries were reviewed by a panel of professional judges. Wilde will be recognized in a gala event in Las Vegas, NV at the Festival Awards Ceremony and Screening, part of the annual convention of the Broadcast Education Association, on Saturday, April 17.

Wilde is a regular student reporter for SUTV News and he also does professional news coverage in the Cedar City area for KCSG, a PAX affiliate in St. George, Utah. Wilde can often be seen in the hallways with his video camera and laptop video editor that he uses to produce many of his stories. In the spring of 2003 he completed a television news internship in Texas.

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