UNC Charlotte Student Niner Media Advising and Support hosted 200 student journalists from 17 North Carolina colleges and universities on Feb. 25 for a daylong workshop.

Professionals from several Charlotte news organizations –– including the Observer, Axios, WSOC-TV, WFAE and QNotes –– spoke on audience development, local news coverage, graphic design, feature writing and more. Several UNC Charlotte alumni led sessions. 

The North Carolina College Media Association also announced its annual awards at the workshop, and UNC Charlotte came away with several.

Niner Times and Nova won Best of Show awards for online news and literary-arts magazine, respectively.

First place awards went to Sunnya Hadavi for design and Miguel Sanchez-Nuñez for photography. Bryson Foster won second place for sports writing.

Hadavi and AJ Siegel won third place for news writing. Brandon Mitchell placed third in magazine fiction writing.

Honorable mentions went to Zoya Zalevskiy for illustration, Meadow Pacheco for photography and Bethany Ivan for feature writing.

"We were excited to offer this opportunity to universities from across the state," said Kelly Merges, director of Student Niner Media Advising and Support. "It is always rewarding to see students receive awards for their hard work and dedication to their media organizations."