DIT wins big at oxygen.ie National Student Media Awards

Seven DIT students won 6 of the 23 awards presented at the oxygen.ie National Student Media Awards on Wednesday - the largest number of winners from any one college.  Six of the winners are studying in DIT's School of Media, and one is taking a postgraduate diploma in Legal Studies.  There were over 900 entries in this year's competition, from colleges all over Ireland and a total of 23 award categories.  In addition to the six winning entries, DIT students also had a further 16 entries short-listed.

The winners, photographed below, were Ciara Bailey who won the award for Film Script of the Year and Catherine McLernon who won the award for Radio Production, news and current affairs for her documentary 'She's on her way'; Colm Quinn and Liam O Cathasaigh, who won the award for TV Production of the Year with 'Breakaway'; Barry Fowler who took the Short Story Smedia; Lilian Forberg the Fuji Photorapher of the Year Award and Cormac Toomey, currently a postgraduate student in Legal Studies, won the Sports Writer award for contributions to his former college newspaper, University Observer.

National journalists and broadcasters including The Irish Times Editor Geraldine Kennedy, Group Education Editor Irish Independent John Walshe, Irish Examiner editor Tim Vaughan, as well as Myles Dungan and Colin Murphy from RTE were among the judges for the awards this year. Over 1000 students and members of the media attended the award ceremony, which was hosted by comedian Barry Murphy.

The National Student media Awards were launched by oxygen.ie five years ago. Managing Director of oxygen.ie, Colman Byrne, said "It's great to see this national event go from strength to strength with more entries from more colleges each year. The increased support of the national media gives the awards a real sense of occasion and increases their value for the winners. The event fosters and encourages the best in young Irish journalists and media students and gives them the opportunity to gain recognition from those who are already successful in this industry."

As well as their award, some of the winners will also be given the chance of work experience in a national newspaper.

 For more details and the full list of winners, go to www.oxygen.ie