Two annual scholarships of $1000 each will be awarded to University of Texas at Austin students who are on the staff of The Daily Texan newspaper. The scholarships are being made possible by award-winning photojournalists John McConnico of Texas and Jean-Marc Bouju of France, both former Daily Texan staffers. The first recipients will be announced on October 4, 2019 at The Friends of The Daily Texan annual Hall of Fame dinner.
Without The Daily Texan student-run newspaper, McConnico and Bouju may never have met and shared overlapping, award-winning careers in photojournalism. The Daily Texan nurtured them, just has it has thousands of students who have descended the dark stairwell to its busy basement office. McConnico taught Bouju how to load film on steel reels and not to let the world weigh him down. Bouju encouraged McConnico to be serious about photojournalism and to take risks to get the best images. No two people on the Texan’s photography staff were anything alike, yet all shared the desire to tell other people’s stories.
John McConnico
It is likely each of them would have chosen other professions, if they hadn’t joined the Texan. Because of the Texan, they chased one another around the globe for more than a decade, first to Central America, then to South Asia and Africa. They were both part of the Associated Press (AP) team that won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography for coverage of al Qaeda’s bombing of U.S. embassies in East Africa. They reveled in traveling the world, learning languages, experiencing many cultures, and filing photos to the AP, which reaches half of the planet’s population every day.
In honor of their friendship and commitment to journalism, McConnico and Bouju created an annual scholarship fund of $2,000 to help promising Texan staffers pursue their dreams. The award will be divided into two different categories: Print (News, Life and Arts, Opinion, Sports) and MultiMedia (Copy, Design, Photo, Video, Audio, Comics, Social Media). Up to $1000 will be awarded to each category.
Jean-Marc Bouju
Recognizing this is a difficult time for journalism and journalists, they want to encourage young people to choose careers in journalism so they will continue the Texan’s tradition of creating truth seekers and storytellers, just as the newspaper has since 1900. The scholarships should go to the staff members who are in the most need and whose life may change because of what they experienced at the newspaper.
The award will be presented at the October 4 Friends of The Daily Texan annual Hall of Fame dinner in the Texas Union Ballroom. Registration for the event is open at https://friendsdailytexan.wildapricot.org/event-3409008.
BIOS
John McConnico, of Fort Worth, Texas, won the 1997 World Press Photo second-place prize for spot news for coverage of a hurricane in Puerto Rico, and was part of the AP team that won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography. McConnico earned a bachelor’s of journalism in 1987 and a Master of Arts in 1994 from the Department of Journalism. He worked at The Daily Texan from 1989 to 1992.
Jean-Marc Bouju won many photojournalism awards, including the 2004 World Press Photo of the Year for an image of an Iraqi father comforting his 4-year-old son while they were in the custody of U.S. forces in Iraq. He also won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography and 1999 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography as the major contributor to two packages of photos by the Associated Press. Bouju came to the University of Texas through an internship at the University of Nice, in his native France. He worked at The Daily Texan from 1991 to 1993 and was a master’s student in photojournalism.
About The Daily Texan
The Daily Texan has been serving The University of Texas at Austin community since 1900. It is the largest and most award-winning college publication in the nation, and its alumni have won 25 Pulitzer Prizes. The newspaper is part of Texas Student Media, a department of the Moody College of Communication.