2020 Beacon alum wins Snowden Ethics Award

Dora Totian (’20) leads a training session at Beacon Boot Camp training in August 2019. She recently won the Snowden Ethics Award.

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Dora Totoian, 2019-20 Beacon Opinion Editor and reporter, has won one of two annual Snowden Ethics Awards, given each year to select interns in the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism. The Snowden program, named after a former editor of The Oregonian and Oregon Journal, places young journalists in paid summer internships in media organizations around Oregon.

Journalistic ethics are a main focus of the competitive Snowden program, which is based at the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. The summer internship program accepts applications from students from any Oregon college or university who have completed a basic reporting course or worked at a campus publication. (Dora started as a reporter at The Beacon her freshman year.)

During her internship, Dora worked as a reporter at the News-Register in McMinnville, where she managed to (safely!) cover a wide variety of stories including the COVID-19 pandemic at a local level, wildfires, protests and politics. Infused in the daily challenge of reporting on community events and issues are ethical case studies that require Snowden interns to reflect on issues journalists confront in their work.

No one who worked with Dora at The Beacon would be surprised that among the 18 Snowden interns, Dora stood out for her ethical practices and reflections.

Below is video of the announcement of her award, which, due to the pandemic, occurred at a virtual reception on Zoom. Typically, this event is a catered affair at the UO Agora Journalism Center in downtown Portland.

Hear what UO Associate Professor of Journalism and Snowden Program Co-Coordinator Nicole Dahmen said about Dora:

“Her writing was excellent, her thought process and ethical reasoning were solid. In addition, she raised ethical questions for us to consider and think about.”

-Nicole Dahmen, UO journalism professor on Dora Totoian

This was the second time in recent years a Beacon staffer has won the Snowden Ethics Award.

2017-18 Editor-in-Chief Rachel Rippetoe won the award after her Snowden internship at the Eugene Register-Guard during the summer of 2017.

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Beacon a finalist for College Media Association’s Best Campus Engagement award + Best Editorial, Best Sports Column

Update: Kyle Garcia took First Place for Best Sports Column. Dora Totoian took Second Place for Best Editorial. The Beacon engagement efforts led by Natalie Nygren, Ally Weberg, Dora Totoian and Claire Desmarais won an Honorable Mention.

Also, The Beacon received two Honorable Mentions in the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) 2020 Pacemaker Individual Awards for Story of the Year in the following categories: Ernie Pyle Human Interest Profile- Mia Werner for this story ; Sports Feature- Kyle Garcia for this story

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The Beacon is a finalist in three categories in the 2019-20 Pinnacle Awards sponsored by the College Media Association (CMA).

This year for the first time, CMA invited entries for Best Campus Engagement. The Beacon is in the finals along with student media at the University of South Carolina, Texas State University and Southeast Missouri State University.

Engagement encompasses social media, crowdsourcing, events and other ways The Beacon interacts with the UP community. With the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down campus last spring, audience engagement was even more challenging. But Beacon leadership rose to the occasion, leaning in to the virtual landscape.

Below is a summary of The Beacon’s 2019-20 engagement efforts led by Natalie Nygren, Ally Weberg, Claire Desmarais and Dora Totoian.

beacon-community-engagement-report-2019-2020-1Download

2019-2020 Opinion Editor Dora Totian is a Pinnacle finalist for Best Editorial. Other finalists in that category are from the University of Alabama, California State University – Fullerton and Auburn University.

Last year’s Sports Editor Kyle Garcia is up for Best Sports Column. Other finalists come from the University of Miami, UCLA, University of Pennsylvania and University of Kentucky.

CMA will announce the Pinnacle winners Oct. 23.

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