The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) announced this week the national winners of the 2013 Mark of Excellence Awards, recognizing collegiate work published or broadcasted during 2013.

The awards honor the best in student journalism. As such, judges were directed to choose only those entries they felt were outstanding work worthy of a national honor.

A group of UO journalism students, led by Professor Carol Ann Bassett, took first place in the category of online in-depth reporting for their multimedia project titled “Along the Route of the Whale.”

The project was part of a UO Study Abroad program called “Nature & Culture: Multimedia Storytelling in Uruguay.”

The UO project beat entries from The Medill Justice Project, Northwestern University and News21 staff, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University.

To learn more about “Along the Route of the Whale,” visit http://www.routeofthewhale.org/