MTSU electronic media students brought home top honors in multiple statewide categories at the recent Tennessee Associated Press Broadcasters College Career Day and Tennessee AP College Broadcasters Award ceremony.

The event, hosted by MTSU’s College of Mass Communication, saw MTSU students win first-place awards for Best Radio Feature Story, Best Radio News Story and Best TV Public Affairs and second-place finishes for Best TV Feature Story and Best TV Sports Story.

The winners announced at the April 27 event were:

• Senior Shawn Anfinson, Best Radio Feature Story for “My Homeland: A Guide to Tennessee Songs” and Best Radio News Story for “Meningitis: Nearly a Third of Tennessee Adolescents Not Vaccinated.”
• Senior Michelle Potts, junior Kelsey Lebechuck and senior Russ Johnson, Best TV Public Affairs for leading a team of more than 100 in the live election-night coverage of “VOTE2012.”
• Sophomore Katie Myers, second place in the Best TV Feature Story and Best TV Sports Story categories for “Underwater Treadmill” and “Blue Raider Football,” respectively.

The judges praised Anfinson’s work as “nicely crafted” and said he “has a relaxed, very conversational style that never leaves the listener behind.”

The Nov. 6 presidential election coverage, which was headquartered in the Center for Innovation in Media in the college’s Bragg Mass Communication Building, became a special campus event alongside its Student Union ballroom remote location.

“This coverage plan rivals some commercial newsrooms. The plan was ambitious and executed well,” the TAPB judges said. “The panel of experts, combined with live shots, ticker and results, made this a complete night of election coverage.”

The awards were presented at a luncheon that followed morning panel discussions on “The Scoop on Finding Your First Journalism Job” with recent MTSU grads now working in the industry and “The Good News about the News Business” with area radio, TV and social media professionals. The afternoon featured one-on-one sessions with more media professionals.

“It was outstanding to see our students competing with those from Vanderbilt, UT-Knoxville, Lipscomb, UT-Martin, Tennessee State and other schools from the region,” said Dr. Roy Moore, dean of the college.

“I spoke with several of our students and alumni at the TAPB event, and they spoke highly of the role the Center (for Innovation in Media) either played in their education here or how they wished such a center existed when they were here.”

The Center for Innovation in Media, which opened in January 2012, houses operations for all student media outlets — the student newspaper, Sidelines, TV station MT-10 HD and radio station WMTS-FM 88.3 — as well as WMOT 89.5FM, MTSU’s 100,000-watt public radio station.

The Associated Press Media Editors recognized the Center for Innovation in Media last year for its efforts to converge MTSU student media and foster collaboration across media platforms.

For more information on the Department of Electronic Media Communication at MTSU, bookmark its blog at http://emcmtsu.com.