Loyalist College third-year journalism students Nick Ogden and Meaghan Bury get ready to host the Journo Awards Wednesday evening. Photo by Selena Steele-Clough, QNet News
BELLEVILLE – The achievements of Loyalist College‘s Journalism students will be recognized on Wednesday night.
This is the first year that the Journalism – Online, Print and Broadcast program is hosting an awards show to celebrate the hard work that students have put in during the past school year. You can watch it in a Facebook Live broadcast at QNet News’s Facebook page, starting at 6:30 p.m.
Loyalist is already home to a couple of annual awards shows, including the Sparkie Awards for the Film and TV Production students.
Marisa Dragani, a journalism professor at Loyalist, told QNet News that she got the inspiration to do an awards show for the Journalism program by watching the Sparkies.
“I was just blown away by the quality of the students’ work,” said Dragani. “More so, I was impressed by how the program came together that night to honour and celebrate the success of the students.”
Now Dragani said that it’s “our time” to represent the success of all the students in the Journalism program.
“This award show is going to be about coming together as a program to highlight the amazing work that each student has worked on this year,” she said.
Nick Ogden and Meaghan Bury, third-year students in the Journalism program, stepped up to the plate to host the big night.
Ogden told QNet News that he’s very excited to host alongside Bury and that they both have some twists up their sleeves.
“Without giving too much away, Meaghan and I have had a lot of intense conversations about the jokes we’re going to say that night,” he laughed. “We are lucky that a lot of people in the program have a very good sense of humour as well as our faculty so we can kind of take some jokes a step further.”
There’s been a lot of stress and pressure to put on a great show for the students, faculty and parents, Ogden said, but as soon as 6:30 p.m. hits on Wednesday he is going to have the biggest smile on his face.
“Any opportunity that I get to be on stage with a microphone and make people laugh means the world to me,” said Ogden.
Bury said she is just hoping the night goes well and that it continues as a yearly celebration for future students.
“We really do need a little celebration here. We all work very hard,” said Bury. “We are here for long days, and we need to celebrate the work that we have put in.”
As for the third-year students, who will graduate this June, Bury said she thinks it’s going to be a very good farewell to them.
“So many families are coming, and all the teachers will be there. It’s going be a night filled with laughs and celebration to say goodbye to the third years.”
There will be nine awards that third-year students are eligible to win, including best TV news anchor, best multimedia story, best breaking-news story and journalist of the year.
There will also be awards for best first- and second-year student.
The Journo Awards start on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Shark Tank Pub at Loyalist.
Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door.
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