A video by student broadcast journalists at the Hutchinson Career and Technical Education Academy at Hutchinson High School has received national recognition.
Juniors Brooks Armstrong and David Sotelo produced the video “Our Time is Now” on U.S. immigration policy for the C-Span StudentCam 2014 competition. The juniors placed third regionally and received a prize of $750 for their efforts. Overall, there were 2,355 videos from about 4,800 students submitted and only 150 received a prize. The students were from 46 states and the District of Columbia.
The video by Sotelo and Armstrong is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNqKmOIkN6w.
The winners of the 2014 StudentCam competition were announced Wednesday, March 5, during C-SPAN’s morning call-in program, Washington Journal.
Since Armstrong and Sotelo won third prize, HCTEA will receive $125 to spend on digital equipment for the school. Leann Gleason teaches broadcast journalism at HCTEA.
The most popular topic for student videos in 2014 was the economy. Sixteen percent of entries were about economic issues such as poverty, unemployment and the national debt. Another 14 percent were about gun legislation while 13 percent were about education.
This year C-SPAN doubled the number of student prizes and total prize money awarded. High school students competed on a regional level with the U.S. being divided into three regions – west, central and east. Middle school students were judged on a national basis. Grand prize winners were selected nationally among all regions and grade levels.
The annual competition is sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation. Videos were evaluated by a panel of educators and C-SPAN representatives based on the thoughtful examination of the competition’s theme, quality of expression, inclusion of varying sides of the documentary’s topic and effective incorporation of C-SPAN programming.