{"id":230108,"date":"2016-06-16T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T20:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=230108"},"modified":"2016-06-16T06:00:12","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T20:00:12","slug":"nmis-heo-colleagues-win-national-journalism-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/nmis-heo-colleagues-win-national-journalism-award\/","title":{"rendered":"NMI\u2019s Heo, colleagues win national journalism award"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heo\"
Heo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Former Saipan resident Ji Hoon Heo joined five other journalism students from University of Mississippi in becoming one of the winners of the 2015 Mark of Excellence national award given by the Society of Professional Journalists, the oldest and largest journalism society in the country.<\/p>\n

The six students are from Ole Miss\u2019 Meek School of Journalism and New Media. The award is for Best Use of Multimedia by college student journalists for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina\u2019s 10th year anniversary of slamming the Mississippi Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n

Brittany Clark of Redondo Beach in California, and seniors Payton Green from Pascagoula, Pass Christian\u2019s Sereena Henderson, Maggie McDaniel from Augusta in Georgia, and Quinton Oliver Smith from Eagle River in Alaska joined graduate student Heo in the MSKatrina project team.<\/p>\n

Heo, in a story posted on Ole Miss\u2019 website, said he had experienced strong typhoons as he grew up in one of the islands of the CNMI in the Western Pacific, but \u201cnever anything like Hurricane Katrina.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember hearing about it on the news when I was a kid, but I wasn\u2019t aware of the details until I came to Mississippi. That\u2019s when I heard the raw stories about [Hurricane] Katrina,\u201d said Heo, a many time CNMI national tennis team member.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thankful that we won this award and have such a great support system in our journalism school that allows us to produce good content,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Journalism professors Nancy Dupont and Deb Wenger advised the group and also led their trip to the site hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast last fall.<\/p>\n

Dupont said she and her students Green and Henderson, being native of the Gulf Coast, \u201cknew the initial effects\u201d of one of the most devastating hurricanes in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much focus was on New Orleans with the 10th anniversary approaching [last year]. We at the University of Mississippi wanted to focus on Mississippi and we found fantastic stories of people who rebuilt their businesses, churches and their lives,\u201d said Dupont.<\/p>\n

Tourism rebuilding, a lone house left standing in a neighborhood, a memorial service, and an appearance by former president George W. Bush were the stories the MSKatrina project team covered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing for us in the Meek School to think our students are doing excellent work, but it\u2019s another entirely for professionals to review the work and agree,\u201d Dupont said. \u201cIt validates our efforts, brings honor to our students and puts the Meek School in the national spotlight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2015 Mark of Excellence national award honors the best student journalists in the large and small school divisions in the country whether in newspapers, magazines, art\/graphics, radio, television, and online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Saipan resident Ji Hoon Heo joined five other journalism students from University of Mississippi…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":230110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,7410,12047,12048],"class_list":["post-230108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-hurricane-katrina","tag-ji-hoon-heo","tag-meek-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}