The winning film category entry, “Addis, My Father,” was directed by Diva Muanza, a second-year graduate student in the department’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in filmmaking program, under the leadership of Montre Missouri, Ph.D. “Addis, My Father,” is about the silence maintained between a father and daughter who work in an empty clock & antique repair shop. Howard University is the only HBCU with an MFA program.

All production award entries in journalism were produced in the capstone broadcast journalism class, NewsVision, under the instruction of broadcast news veteran Jennifer Thomas, M.A., associate professor, and journalism sequence coordinator for the Department of Media, Journalism, and Film. The intensive course is one of two capstone courses required of all journalism majors and features enterprise reporting in diverse communities for broadcast and/or online platforms. Other students in the Spring 2023 NewsVision cohort for best newscast were Braxton Babb, Victoria Baker, Summer Brown, Robyn Evans, and Trevonae Williams.

 “NewsVision is an integral part of our collegiate journalists’ academic trajectory, as it is the culminating course that mirrors daily expectations and deadline-driven outcomes of working in the broadcast journalism industry,” said Thomas, a  former CNN executive producer and AEJMC Scripps Howard Teacher of the Year. “Our goal is for them to easily transition from classroom to newsroom and control room under our school’s motto, ‘Excellence Without Excuse,’ and to diversify the media landscape. Thankfully, we have been successful. Our alumni are award-winning media professionals on the local and national level, entrepreneurs, and communications scholars.”

NewsVision is a partnership between the Cathy Hughes School of Communication and WHUT-TV, the Howard University public television station which broadcasts to more than 2.5 million viewers in the Washington metropolitan area. Their work is also distributed through the Howard University News Service and in partnership with the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a coalition of more than 200 Black press outlets across the country.

Photos of NATAS Student Production Awards Source: https://www.capitalemmys.tv/

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About Howard University

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 14 schools and colleges. Students pursue more than 140 programs of study leading to undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced one Schwarzman Scholar, three Marshall Scholars, four Rhodes Scholars, 12 Truman Scholars, 25 Pickering Fellows and more than 165 Fulbright recipients. Howard also produces more on-campus African American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit www.howard.edu.

About the Department of Media, Journalism and Film

The Department of Media, Journalism and Film is the largest unit in the Cathy Hughes School of Communications at Howard University. Its faculty and alumni include award-winning, internationally renowned filmmakers, journalists, media producers, documentarians, and research scholars. The department offers one of the top MFA programs in film and the only one at an HBCU. It was named as having one of the best university cinematography programs. USA Today and College Factual has ranked the journalism program among the top 20 nationally, and the National Association of Black Journalists ranked the program as No. 1 in the United States. The Broadcast Education Association honored WHBC student radio with the Signature Station Award. Howard is one of two universities in Washington and among seven HBCUs accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

Media Contact: Sholnn Freeman; sholnn.freeman@howard.edu