Two University of Central Oklahoma students celebrated success at the Broadcast Education Association’s (BEA) annual Festival of Media Arts competition, taking home second-place at the virtual event held in March.
The BEA awarded Central’s UCentral News second place in the TV newscast category, specifically naming Amanda Siew, a professional media major from Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, and Kyle Tangco, a senior professional media major from Edmond, Oklahoma, for their work as producer and director of the honored newscast.
“The students have been amazingly adaptive and resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Desiree Hill, Ph.D., UCentral News advisor.
“They created work recognized among the best in the country, despite – and maybe because of – everything they are coping with.”
The pandemic radically altered the workflow of the UCentral newscast. Siew returned to Malaysia and attended UCO remotely during the fall semester, but continued to work as a producer for UCentral News by utilizing Zoom and other tools to communicate with team members.
"It feels very surreal to be able to place nationally for our newscast, especially for a show I produced remotely,” Siew said.
“The team has worked so hard to adapt to our ‘new normal,’ and I’m grateful that our hard work has been recognized.”
The 2021 Best of Festival winners were selected from a pool of over 1,300 entries, representing over 250 colleges and universities from around the country in the following competitions: audio, documentary, film and video, interactive multimedia, news, scriptwriting, sports and two-year colleges.
For more information about UCO, visit www.uco.edu.