NYIT LI News Tonight Students, Staff Members and Alumni Garner PCLI Awards
Old Westbury, N.Y., July 31, 2007: Students, staff members, and alumni of New York Institute of Technology’s (NYIT) nightly cable newscast LI News Tonight were recently honored for excellence in journalism by the Press Club of Long Island (PCLI), a chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, at their annual dinner at the Woodbury Country Club.
Chief Correspondent Carol Pack (B.F.A ’86, M.A. ’87), News Director Ken Eckhardt, and former student reporter Krista Watzel earned the top prize in the Television - Public Affairs category for a special report about Alzheimer’s disease. Eckhardt, Pack, and former student reporter Naveen Dhaliwal won the second- and third-place prizes in the Television - Business/Economic/Financial category for stories on community revitalization projects and the dangers posed by certain species of marine life, respectively.
LI News Tonight student reporters and NYIT alumnae Kandi Lynn, Andrea Fasano, and Jennifer Rampersad, who all earned their Masters of Arts in communication arts from NYIT in May 2007, each received a $1,000 scholarship by PCLI and Newsday for their outstanding contributions to local college journalism. Scholarship recipients are judged on examples of their work, a personal essay on career goals, and a letter of recommendation from their professor.
PCLI also presented Press Club awards to nine LI News Tonight alumni: News 12 Long Island’s Shari Einhorn (M.A. ’94); Dave Garden (B.F.A. ’98); Elizabeth Hashagen; Christine Insinga (B.A. ’00); Jim Lunning (B.F.A. ’96); Vincent Shields (B.F.A. ’96); former News 12 staff member Michael DelGiudice (B.F.A. ’84, M.A. ’86); and WNBC-TV journalists John Albertson (B.F.A. ’87); and Greg Cergol.
“The number of Press Club awards won by interns and alumni helps to confirm what we already know, that NYIT’s LI News Tonight internship program provides the training ground for some of the best news reporters and camera people in the New York area,” says Eckhardt.
The first broadcast of LI News Tonight aired on cable television in 1983. The television news program was the first local news show on Long Island and helped launch the careers of hundred of news professionals.
Note: All NYIT alumni who worked for LI News Tonight are recognized by their degree and graduation year in parentheses. All other names mentioned are only LI News Tonight alumni.
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