2006 News: SABEW Student Winner on Front Page of Wall Street Journal

Emily Steel, the journalism student who won the SABEW student business journalism contest in 2006, had her first front-page byline on The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2006.

Steel, who is from Connecticut, won the student contest for a story she wrote while interning at the St. Petersburg Times in the summer of 2005. It detailed the salaries of executives at the largest non-profit organizations in the Tampa Bay area using information she found in Form 990 documents.

SABEW will be accepting entries for the 2007 Best in Business student contest beginning sometime in January. The winner receives a trip to the SABEW annual conference. The 2007 conference is being held May 20-22 in Orange County, Calif.

Steel's front-page story was called "At New Video Sites, Opening up the Box is a Ritual to Savor" and was about the recent phenomenon of people watching others open gifts such as a PlayStation3 on videos posted on the Internet.

"One of the sources I've been talking to for the digital marketing beat suggested it," said Steel about the story. "Things are going really well. I feel like I've started to develop some sources now and have a bunch of stories in the works. I love the group of reporters I'm working with -- and my editors are great too. And I am loving Christmas in New York. I really couldn't be happier!"

Steel, who graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May 2006, interned at the Journal this summer and was then offered a full-time job when the internship ended. She is part of the media and marketing team at the Journal based in New York.

Steel was a student member of SABEW at UNC-Chapel Hill, and she received a certificate in business journalism from its School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The 2005 student winner, John Frank, is now a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times. He is also a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate. Frank, who wrote his winning entry with Steel, won for a story about the resignation of the University's chief investment officer.