upstart magazine and its contributors have been recognised at the 2016 Ossie Awards.
Announced on Friday at the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) conference in Brisbane, La Trobe’s Media and Communication students won the award for Best Innovation in Journalism at the annual Ossie Awards for a collection of multimedia stories produced as part of their assessment in the third year subject, Multimedia Journalism.
The Ossie Awards, named after journalist Osmar S. White, are organised by JERAA with senior journalists and editors judging the main award categories.
When handing upstart the best innovation award, judges commented on how the Atavist platform integrated multiple technologies into easy-to-read pieces of journalism.
“The stories were simple, traditional journalism made more vivid through the seamless integration of video, images, social media and sound,” one judge remarked.
“I say seamless because the technology was in no way distracting, but only helped tell the story.”
The judges paid particular attention to the piece Depression in the AFL: The Toughest Opponent, produced by Dominique McCusker, Caitlin Nobes, Corey Kennedy and Tiarne Swersky.
“I was very impressed with all the entries, but particularly with the story on depression in the AFL, which used a very wide variety of different types of media to tell the story, while also maintaining many of the best traditions of journalism, including beautifully shot, honest interviews on a very difficult topic,” the judge said.
upstart contributor and second-year La Trobe student Jesse Robinson was also acknowledged by the judges, receiving a highly commended in the Best Text Based Story by an Undergraduate Student (less than 750 words) category for his piece Calls for financial support for nursing students.
“This is a story that clearly strikes a nerve with thousands of nursing and midwifery students, but most likely significantly more in many other industries too. An important issue for all students brought to a broader audience.” the judges said.
Founding editor of upstart magazine, Erdem Koc, said the publication takes great pride in being recognised by JERAA.
“It’s wonderful to see the Ossie Awards recognise the excellent work produced by La Trobe University’s journalism students this year,” he said.
“The innovation prize speaks volumes of the creative work done by journalism students at La Trobe, who are not only producing industry-standard material, but are using new technology and new story-telling methods as well.
“Jesse Robinson’s piece on upstart this year about the struggles faced by nursing students is now the most read article on the site, and shows how La Trobe students have strong editorial judgment and interviewing techniques, as well as a desire to give a voice to those who largely go unheard.”
