Miles Doran, a recent UF graduate, won the Hearst National Television Broadcast News Championship and a $5,000 prize in New York City June 11.
The championship chooses the top student reporters from a series of monthly competitions held during the school year. At the championship, the students are given on-the-spot news assignments with no information given beforehand.
Doran has gone to the Hearst championships twice before, both times in San Francisco. In 2008, his sophomore year, he received fourth place in radio news. The next year, he earned third place in television news.
This time was different.
“I already had some contacts in the city which helped me,” he said.
Doran, who graduated April 30 with a degree in telecommunications, said he was more prepared this time around because he was already living in New York City working for CBS.
“This year, it was about security in New York after the Times Square bombing attempt a month or two ago,” he said.
Contestants filmed the news on June 9 and edited on June 10.
Despite being familiar with the city, Doran still met obstacles.
“We didn’t have a car, and we had to lug all this equipment through the subway and taxis,” he said. “That made it a little bit more challenging. It was also raining that evening. . . but everything turned out all right.”
He said he never doubted that his story would come through.
Tom Krynski, WRUF’s news director and one of Doran’s mentors, said Doran’s success was not surprising.
“He enjoyed it so much,” Krynski said. “It wasn’t work to him. It wasn’t a burden to him to do something special.”
While working for Krynski, Doran competed against professionals and students to win a national Edward R. Murrow Award. His story outlining the inner workings of security at UF football games won for best use of sound and also earned first place in a Society of Professional Journalists’ competition for in-depth reporting.
Doran’s curiosity, work ethic and ability to look at things differently help him find stories, Krynski said.
“He was willing to give up other things to do what he loved to do,” Krynski said.
Although Doran worked for WRUF’s radio station and WUFT’s TV station as a student, his interest in broadcasting started before he hit college.
He shadowed people in meteorology in third grade, according to his mother, Wendy Doran, of Palm Harbor. He also accompanied his father, who works in marine transportation, tracking storms in Puerto Rico.
“We basically told him if you want to get something going you need to be the one to do it. He worked tirelessly,” Wendy Doran said.
Although people told Miles Doran he couldn’t get an internship in high school, he finally got one working for WFTS, an ABC news station in Tampa.
Five years later, Doran works for CBS as a digital journalist, shooting, editing and producing content.
“I’m loving what I’m doing right now, and I’m just trying not to mess it up,” he said.
