Penn State student’s Joe Humphreys video earns Murrow Award

From Penn State

University Park, Pa. — A video feature about legendary Penn State fly-fishing instructor Joe Humphreys earned a national student Edward R. Murrow Award — the first such award for a segment from the “Centre County Report” newscast.

The three-minute-long segment, “Trout and Tradition: The Legacy of Joe Humphreys,” – which can be viewed below – by reporter Haley Jacobs aired during an Oct. 11, 2024, episode of the student-produced newscast.

“Centre County Report” is produced by students in the capstone broadcast journalism course in Penn State’s Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. The weekly program airs live on YouTube and across Pennsylvania on WPSU-TV (PBS), reaching 29 counties and 500,000 television homes.

It also streams throughout Pennsylvania as the result of partnerships with KDKA-TV (Pittsburgh), KYW-TV (Philadelphia) and WNEP-TV (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre). Newscasts also stream in the Baltimore area in partnership with WJZ-TV.

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The newscast has won numerous regional and national awards and has been named the best college newscast in the nation seven times in the past 11 years.

This is the first national Murrow Award, though.

“This is an incredible honor for Haley and our entire Centre County Report news team,” said Steve Kraycik, an associate teaching professor in the Department of Journalism and director of student television in the Bellisario College.

“The Murrow Awards are the pinnacle of success and respect for broadcast journalism nationwide, and we’re very proud of the effort our students are giving every year to learn their craft.”

Jacobs started her broadcast journalism career with WINK News in Fort Myers, Florida, after she graduated from Penn State in May.