Pulitzer Video Finalist Relying on UMaine Community in National Competition
Contact: Samantha Danis, 286-6013, or George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — A class assignment has propelled a UMaine broadcast journalism major into the semifinals of a national video-reporting competition, which includes a $10,000 international reporting grant as part of the top prize.
Judges for round one of the national YouTube and Pulitzer Center “Project: Report” 2010 contest named UMaine senior Samantha Danis of Biddeford as one of 10 semi-finalists out of 148 competition entries in early March. Her entry, a feature about someone who makes a difference, was a 2-minute, 36-second video, “A Day in the Life of Alice Fogg.” Fogg is an 82-year-old Naples, Maine woman who, on hearing of a shortage of pillows in Iraqi hospitals, has sewn, stuffed and sent more than 1,000 pillows to injured American soldiers.
“When I saw her video, I knew she had a pretty good shot at it. It was sort of stunning,” says Communication and Journalism faculty member Sunny Hughes, who encouraged Danis and other students in her broadcast journalism class to enter the competition as an assignment. “I think it’s a remarkable achievement.”
As a semi-finalist, Danis won a new computer and a high-definition camera.
Round two will determine five finalists, to be selected by public balloting on the YouTube competition website. Winners will be announced April 20, after the voting. The round two assignment was to create a second video, 5 minutes or less, telling a compelling local story with global impact that is under-reported or misreported by the national media.
Danis’ new video is scheduled to be accessible at http://www.youtube.com/projectreport today. The site currently has all 10 semi-finalists’ first-round videos available for viewing. From April 5-18, new videos will be available, along with a balloting function.
Videos of five of the 10 semi-finalists will be selected for the grand prize, an expense-paid visit to Washington, D.C. for a reception and public screening of their videos, a series of workshops and talks, and then overseas reporting assignment, funded by the $10,000 grants.
“An amazing opportunity is on the line, so it’s important for people to vote,” Danis says.
Danis’ semi-final entry features a Hampden Academy student, his family and Carrie Pierce, a part-time faculty member in the UMaine Division of Lifelong Learning, for a video on the plight of the deaf. She says she was both moved and troubled by the stories she heard from Pierce, who is Deaf, and the Hampden teen, who Danis says is hard of hearing.
“I think people who can hear take a lot for granted, and it’s something I never see on the news,” says Danis, who has been taking a sign language class with Pierce.
Danis says people who do not hear are treated differently, even shunned.
“I interviewed a 19-year-old high school boy and he talked about how he just doesn’t understand why most people don’t want to be friends with him,” Danis says. “He wonders if it’s because they think he won’t hear them and it would make having a friendship with him difficult. It’s a whole set of issues that most people who hear don’t even think about. I want to bring some light to that.
“I think I will have accomplished something huge if the next time someone stumbles upon someone who is deaf, that person will make an effort to say hello instead of turning away,” she says.
Hughes says CMJ 451 is the most advanced video production class the department offers and students have a different challenge each week.
“These students need to know how to become backpack journalists and need to know how to keep their eye on the ball,” Hughes says.