8A NEWS SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20. 2008
Graduate wins feature-writing award
BY JOE PREINER
jpreiner@kansan.com
Thor Nystrom never thought about how people would react to his "Depth Reporting" final project. He also never thought his personal story of battling with mental illness would earn him thousands of dollars.
Nystrom, 2008 graduate, placed second in the 49th-annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program for feature writing. The awards, which
were announced by the Foundation Tuesday, were the result of judging stories from 110 colleges and universities across the nation.
It is the second competition in which Nystrom's project, "To Hell and Back," has earned him both money and national recognition. Nystrom's story placed first in a Rolling Stone Magazine college writing contest in October. That award netted Nystrom, Minnesota native, $5,000. The Hearst award added an additional $1,500 to Nystrom's grand total. Despite the accolades his story has received, Nystrom said it was more important for him to know he had written the story in the manner he had promised himself.
"The triumph, and really the award, for me was just actually writing the story." Nystrom said. "To have it be recognized at this point is just icing on the cake."
Linda Lee, professor of journalism, had Nystrom in her "Ethics" class the semester his story appeared in The University Daily Kansan. She said the story had taken her by surprise.
"If you didn't know him, it was a
Nystrom placed third in sports writing in the Hearst competition last year and considered the top-three finish to be an unbeatable feat. He said the second-place finish in feature writing was exciting, but came with a
If you didn't shocking story" Lee said. "And if you did know him, it was even more shocking." Lee said she thought of Nystrom as an All-American kid, someone who had every
@ KANSAN.COM
■ Read Nystrom's story online at http://www.kansan.com/stories/2008/may/05/hell_and_back/?news.
thing in life go his way. She said reading the story had evoked many emotions.
"Id be remiss if I said I wasn't disappointed that I didn't win." Nystrom said.
Lee, who is a self-admitted fan of Nystrom, said the award came
"I was so proud of him, and so sorry for him," Lee said. "And so grateful to him for having the courage to put his story on paper."
as no real surprise.
"It was so honest, so brave and so good." Lee said. "He deserves every laudatory award he gets."
Edited by Becka Cremer
ECONOMY
Senate cancels showdown vote for automakers' bailout
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY JULIE HCSHFELD DAVIS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Auto industry executives, from left, General Motors Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner, Chrysler Chief Executive Officer Robert Nardelli, and Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, testify on Wednesday on Capitol Hill before a House Financial Services Committee.
WASHINGTON—ADemocratic Congress, unwilling or unable to approve a $25 billion bailout for Detroit's Big Three, appears ready to punt the automakers' fate to a lame-duck Republican president.
Caught in the middle of a whoblinks-first standoff are legions of manufacturing firms and auto dealers — and millions of Americans' jobs — after Senate Democrats canceled a showdown vote that had been expected Thursday. President George W. Bush has "no appetite" to act on his own.
U. S. auto companies employ nearly a quarter-million workers, and more than 730,000 other people have jobs producing the materials and parts that go into cars. About an additional 1 million work in dealerships nationwide. If just one of the auto giants were to go belly up, some estimates put U.S. job losses next year as high as 2.5 million.
"If GM is telling us the truth, they go into bankruptcy and you see a cascade like you have never seen," said Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) who was working on one rescue plan Wednesday. "If people want to go home and not do anything, I think that they're going to have that on their hands."
NATIONAL Endangered species could lose protection
The rules eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, allowing the federal agency in charge of building, authorizing or funding a project to determine for itself if it is likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants.
The automakers — hobbled by lackluster sales and choked credit — are burning through money at an alarming and accelerating rate about $18 billion in the last quarter alone. General Motors Corp. has said it could collapse within weeks, and there are indications that Chrysler LLC might not be far behind. Ford Motor Co. has said it could get through the end of 2008, but it's unclear how much longer.
despite the more than 250,000 comments received since it was first proposed in August.
WASHINGTON — Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Obama can reverse them.
A Nov. 12 version of the final rules obtained by the Associated Press has changed little from the original proposal,
The rules must be published Friday to take effect before Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. Otherwise, he can undo them with the stroke of a pen.
Current regulations require independent wildlife biologists to sign off on these decisions before a project can go forward, at times modifying the design to better protect species.
The Interior Department rushed to complete the rules in three months over the objections of lawmakers and environmentalists who argued that they would weaken how a landmark conservation law is applied.
The regulations also bar federal agencies from assessing emissions of the gases blamed for global warming on species and habitats, a tactic environmentalists have tried to use to block new coal-fired power plants.
Tina Kreisher, an Interior Department spokeswoman, could not confirm whether the rule would be published before the deadline.
As is its custom when it takes up cases, the court elaborated little. However, the justices did say they want to address what effect, if any, a ruling upholding the amendment would have on the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that were sanctioned in California before election day.
SAN FRANCISCO California's highest court agreed Wednesday to hear several legal challenges to the state's new ban on same-sex marriage but refused to allow gay couples to resume marrying before it rules.
The California Supreme Court accepted three lawsuits seeking to nullify Proposition 8, a voter-approved constitutional amendment that overruled the court's decision in May that legalized gay marriage.
Associated Press
All three cases claim the measure abridges the civil rights of a vulnerable minority group. They argue that voters alone did not have the authority to enact such a significant constitutional change.
Gay rights groups and local governments petitioning to overturn the ban were joined by the measure's sponsors and Attorney General Jerry Brown in urging the Supreme Court to consider whether Proposition 8 passes legal muster.
BY LISA LEFF ASSOCIATED PRESS
Court to hear lawsuits against Proposition 8
NATIONAL
The initiative's opponents had also asked the court to grant a stay of the measure, which would have allowed gay marriages to begin again while the justices considered the cases. The court denied that request.
The justices directed Brown
Oral arguments could be scheduled as early as March, according to court spokeswoman Lynn Holton.
Both opponents and supporters of Proposition 8 expressed confidence Wednesday that their arguments would prevail.
and lawyers for the Yes on 8 campaign to submit arguments by Dec. 19 on why the ballot initiative should not be nullified. It said lawyers for the plaintiffs, who include same-sex couples who did not wed before the election, must respond before Jan. 5.
But they also agreed that the cases present the court's seven justices — six of whom voted to review the challenges — with complex questions that have few precedents in state case law.
The lawsuits argue that voters improperly abrogated the judiciary's authority by stripping samesex couples of the right to wed after the high court earlier ruled it was discriminatory to prohibit gay men and lesbians from marrying.
The measure represents such a sweeping change that it constitutes a constitutional revision as opposed to an amendment, the documents say. The distinction would have required the ban's backers to obtain approval from two-thirds of both houses of the California Legislature before submitting it to voters.
"If given effect, Proposition 8 would work a dramatic, substantive change to our Constitution's 'underlying principles' of individual on a scale and scope never previously condoned by this court," lawyers for the same-sex couples stated in their petition.
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