The 14th edition of the award winning multimedia news project from journalism students at University of Limerick focuses on the theme of resilience.
Exclusive stories on a 20-year-old Ukrainian student’s journey to Ireland, the recent launch of a campaign to secure retirement village resident’s rights and the struggle of newly diagnosed HIV patients to access specialist treatment, all feature in this year’s publication.
Data obtained by Limerick Voice Digital Editor William Kellett revealed how the website reached over 28,000 readers since October, 2021.
The multi-media news project involved 25 final year Journalism and New Media and Journalism Masters Students in UL. Over 250 stories were published across multi-media platforms; 23 podcasts were broadcast along with a number of TV and radio news bulletins. Limerick Voice Twitter platform had 263,300 impressions by April 2022.
“Limerick Voice has been an invaluable experience, offering student journalists the opportunity to get their name out there. Working together as part of a team has given us a glimpse of the real-life working environment of any media organisation,” explained Martin Mongan, Limerick Voice Editor.
“The theme of Limerick Voice this year is resilience, which, in my opinion the people of Limerick have in abundance. Our stories on the Save Our Village campaign, meeting a Urkainian family now residing in the mid-west and highlighting Limerick’s heroic wheelchair hurlers, all feature extraordinary people who have conquered every barrier they have faced.”
William Kellett, Digital Editor added: “The highlight of working on Limerick Voice has been getting to put our own stamp on this iconic newspaper and digtal platforms. The opportunity to leave a personal touch on a well-established online news platform has been highly rewarding and personally, a great privilege.”
Limerick Voice Sports Editor Jamie Dowling said the 10 sports pages in this year’s edition have a strong focus on regional stories “Our aim was to highlight the resilience of local sportspeople. Post COVID-19, we saw the re-emergence of local and county sport. It was a pleasure to bring heart lifting stories to the people of Limerick once again,” he said.
UL Lecturer in Journalism and New Media, Kathryn Hayes, who oversaw the multi media project said the experience of working on Limerick Voice website and newspaper provides vital real-life experience for students.
“Now in its fifteenth year, Limerick Voice is an award winning multi-media news project which continues to grow. We are extremely proud of what our students continue to achieve and these skills will really stand to them as they prepare to enter the highly competitive work force.”
“We are very proud of our alumni who are now successfully working as journalists in newsrooms across the world”.