For the second year in a row, a student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has been recognized in a national competition described as the Pulitzer Prize for collegiate journalism.
Jules Jackson, a double major in art and communication, placed 19th in the 2022-2023 Hearst Multimedia Narrative Storytelling Competition. Now in its 63rd year, the awards program recognizes outstanding performance in college-level journalism.
In his project, “Movements of the Mill,” Jackson used video, photos and a written story to focus on the Pop-up Project, a nonprofit Chattanooga dance company, as it developed its own multimedia production. “If These Walls Could Talk” explored the history of the former Standard-Coosa-Thatcher Mill, a now-abandoned cotton mill built in Chattanooga in 1916.
Jules Jackson
“I am basking in the glow and conceptualizing it and processing it still,” Jackson said. “It’s hard to believe, but it’s a huge honor. I’m really happy and ecstatic.”
Jerrod Niles, who graduated from UTC in May 2022 with a degree in communications, won a Top 10 spot in the 2021-2022 Hearst Multimedia Narrative Storytelling Competition with “The Field Below,” a storytelling project about artist Amanda Brazier, who painted a mural with pigments made from the soil.
Jackson’s award-winning project was produced for the UTC Rising Rock, both a multimedia storytelling platform and a UTC special topics communication course.
The Standard-Coosa-Thatcher Mill, located on Watkins Street between East 18th and 19th streets, recently was purchased by Collier Construction, which plans to convert it into a mixed-use housing development.
“But before they do that, the Pop-up Project was commissioned to do a performance, a dance performance in the mill, kind of about the history of that space and the history of the labor in that space,” Jackson explained.
Videotaping a rehearsal of “If These Walls Could Talk” kept the Rising Rock crew on their toes as the dance company moved through the mill, he said.
“They were rehearsing in different rooms, so we had to run around following them; just pick up our equipment and go whenever they wanted to change locations,” Jackson said. “We were flying by the seats of our pants, but it turned out really great, and it was a great experience.”
The Hearst Multimedia Narrative Storytelling Competition was established in 1960 and named after long-deceased newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
