NABJ Awards USC Annenberg’s Eric Burse Student Journalist of the Year
Washington, DC – The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announces that Eric Burse, a student at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, is the 2012 Student Journalist of the Year. Burse will be honored this summer amongst other honorees at NABJ’s 37th Annual Convention and Career Fair, the largest annual gathering of minority journalists in the country.
Burse is studying broadcast and digital journalism and political science. He decided to attend the USC in 2009 because he knew in Los Angeles he could receive a well-rounded education in one of the most global markets in the world.
“NABJ is extremely proud to honor Eric with this award. He is an impressive young man with a proven passion for journalism. His resume speaks for itself. He is certainly deserving of this honor,” NABJ President Gregory Lee Jr. said.
Burse has served on the staff of USC’s Daily Trojan as a photographer and he eventually moved to the role of entertainment beat reporter establishing “J. Eric’s Entertainment Buzz Report,” which ran twice weekly in the daily publication.
He also worked at USC’s Annenberg TV News station as a studio technician, assignment desk editor and, most-recently, as an on-air multimedia journalist. He also appears as a political correspondent on the USC’s Trojan Vision Platform TV show. In November 2011, Eric covered the trial and conviction of Michael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray at the L.A. Superior Courthouse. He covered the opening of the Martin King memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C. He has also covered visits to Southern California by President Barack Obama and Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. Locally, his reporting has focused on community topics including the Los Angeles’ public school system negotiations with the local teachers union, the California budget crisis, the revelation that former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child out of wedlock, and most recently the death of acclaimed music icon Whitney Houston.
“I am extremely honored to receive the NABJ Student Journalist of the Year recognition. This award means a great deal to me – far more than I can express. I share this award with other student journalists who are working just as hard as I am to achieve success in an industry we all look forward to joining,” Burse said. “I look forward to supporting NABJ just as much as the organization has supported me to through high school and college.”
This is the second consecutive year that a USC Annenberg student receives this honor, after broadcast journalism student Ashley Williams in 2011. Ernest J. Wilson III, Dean and Walter H. Annenberg Chair in Communication and Professor of Political Science, says USC proudly accepts the accolades.
“Annenberg is delighted that one of our own best students has been selected for this prestigious award,” Wilson said. “On the heels of the welcome recognition of our many diversity initiatives by the AEJMC, I am proud that our school is educating the best and the brightest from communities of color. This must be a central element of who we are as journalists in the 21st century.”
Burse is an active member and a scholarship recipient from the National Association of Black Journalists. He has participated in the student projects workshop at the NABJ national convention twice. He is also active in the Southern California NABJ chapter. He interned at CNBC’s Los Angeles bureau in 2011 and currently interns at the NBC Burbank bureau where he gains experience with the Today Show, Nightly News with Brian Williams and Dateline.
In his free time, Burse volunteers with the Urban Media Foundation in South Central Los Angeles. He teaches journalism classes to disadvantaged youth who have an early passion for media and communications.
NABJ’s 37th Annual Convention and Career Fair will take place June 20-24 in New Orleans, LA. For additional information, ticket sales, registration, please visit www.nabj.org.
An advocacy group established in 1975 in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest organization of journalists of color in the nation, and provides educational, career development and support to black journalists worldwide.
