Brian Hardzinski will compete in the
Hearst Foundation's National Broadcast
News Championship, June 2008

Radio feature judged one of the five best in both the News and Features categories

Posted May 8, 2008

KGOU Radio producer and reporter Brian Hardzinski has been selected as one of the nation’s top five student radio journalists by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. Hardzinski, who graduates this month with a Broadcasting and Electronic Media degree, has been invited to San Francisco to compete against the other four finalists in the National Broadcast News Championship next month.

Hardzinski won the first round of 2007-2008 broadcast competitions in January, placing fourth in a field of 43 entrants in the Radio Features contest. His winning entry consisted of two features aired on KGOU’s Assignment: Radio program. One was about two curbside recycling entrepreneurs in Norman, and the other examined the use of video game consoles as a new platform for disseminating news.

Hardzinski then advanced to a semi-final round against other Radio Features winners and a second group of winners in a separate Radio News competition. He entered two new stories in the semi-finals. One was about a woman who attended the first Beatles performance in the U.S. on the Ed Sullivan Show, and the other reported on the Pride of Oklahoma’s participation in last year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

His latest entry was judged one of the five best in both the News and Features categories, qualifying him to participate in the June 2-6 National Broadcast News Championship. Hardzinski will spend several days in San Francisco, where he will report and produce a radio news report for the final round of judging.

Hardzinski will join Tiara Etheridge, a graduating senior majoring in Journalism, who will also travel to San Francisco next month to compete in the Hearst Foundation’s National Writing Championship. Etheridge placed second in the nation in the 2007-2008 Feature Writing competition.