Two up-and-coming young writers from Donegal have scooped prizes in the 2019-2020 NewsBrands Ireland Press Pass student journalism awards.
Both students are Transition Year pupils at Moville Community College, who worked under the guidance of Ms Anne Browne.
Peter Grant won the top prize in the Sport category for his ‘Winner Wonderland’ report on Borrisoleigh V Kiladangan.
Peter Grant
Nathan Connolly was awarded third in the Features category for his article about living as a transgender person, entitled ‘Transitioning‘.
Nathan Connolly
Press Pass is a Transition Year student journalism and news literacy programme run by NewsBrands Ireland and Local Ireland.
The free programme has been running for over seven years and completed by 80,000 students. Participating schools receive free newspapers, a Teacher’s Lesson Plan, and a specially created student workbook.
Students are encouraged to engage with the newspapers in the classroom, to analyse them and then to create their own original journalism, the best of which is entered into a national competition.
The judging panel comprises of a group of leading newspaper journalists, which is chaired by Michael Foley, Professor Emeritus of Journalism, TU Dublin. The Press Photographers Association of Ireland (PPAI) judged the photojournalism category.
Speaking about the awards, Prof. Foley said: “Through Press Pass, we hope students have learnt something about news and information, about whom you can trust and how you can evaluate the information being constantly thrust at them. We hope the programme will make students aware of why journalism matters and why democracy depends on good journalism.”