The 2025 Campus News Awards presentation ceremony, hosted by China Daily Hong Kong, was held at City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan) on December 1^st, 2025. Students from the Department of Communication (DCom) of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) at Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University (BNBU) once again achieved remarkable results. Among the 19 English reporting awards this year, DCom students won 10, continuing the outstanding performance in this competition in recent years (11 awards in 2024, 13 awards in 2023, and 13 awards in 2022). BNBU also received the “Best Organization Award.”

China Daily is the country’s largest English-language newspaper, aiming to tell China stories to the world. In 2025, the competition, in its 14th round, received more than 1,000 entries, which were applauded by judges as being “with a level of quality approaching that of professionals.”

The list of Awardees from DCom

BNBU won the “Most Active Participation” award (left: Dr. Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman, the head of DCom; right: Mr. Zhou Li, the chief editor of China Daily Hong Kong)

Group photo of teachers and students from DCom attending the award ceremony

Award-winning students’ feelings and insights from participating in the competition

The work “Legal Gap and Silent Victims: The Crisis of Minor Sexual Abuse in China” by Xu Bohan and Li Enqi, year-four students from Media and Communication Studies (MCOM) has won the championship in the Best News Reporting category in this competition. Their work, by comparing a large amount of legal and regulatory information and interviewing lawyers involved in relevant laws, reveals the vague definition of “sexual assault” in the law, and explores the phenomenon of “boys being sexually assaulted and finding it difficult to protect their rights”, discussing deeply into the reasons behind it. Xu Bohan said that participating in this competition gave him a new understanding and insight into news reporting. “News ethics in news reporting are very important. I think we should not ignore the underlying moral issues just for an eye-catching topic.”

Xu Bohan and Li Enqi in front of the award-winning works (from left: Xu Bohan, Li Enqi)

The work of Duan Xuan, a year-four student of MCOM, titled “Psychiatric Label Under Assembly Line Diagnosis: The Medical, Legal and Social Dilemmas Behind Misdiagnosis”, has won second place in the Best News Page Design category. Her work focuses on the individual groups that are overlooked and harmed by the mental health medical system, concentrating on the hidden yet widespread medical phenomenon of “assembly line diagnosis”, and revealing the real consequences brought about by the oversimplification and abuse of mental illness diagnosis.

When discussing the gains from participating in the competition, Duan Xuan shared: “I realized that a news topic often goes beyond the surface phenomena. During the investigation of mental misdiagnosis, I gradually understood that news writing not only needs to present individual experiences, but also needs to inquire about the underlying systems and legal responsibilities. This taught me to start from a single event and extend it to a holistic consideration of medical norms, patient rights, and legal protection. It also made me clearer about the role of news in public discussions.”

Duan Xuan is in front of the award-winning work

The work “Consuming and Marketing the Trending New-Style Tea” by Chen Kewei, a year-four student of Public Relations and Advertising (PRA), won the championship in the Best Business News Reporting category. His in-depth news report focuses on a popular consumption trend: new-style tea beverages. By collecting secondary data, visiting offline stores of various new-style tea brands, and interviewing consumers, scholars, and professors, Chen’s work analyzed a trend in the current new-style tea market: many new-style tea brands incorporate Chinese cultural elements (such as historical stories and the Twenty-Four Solar Terms) into their marketing activities. New-style tea brands promote Chinese tea culture globally through their overseas expansion.

“Previously, it was mainly students from MCOM who participated and won. As students from a sister major within the same department, I also entered the competition based on the training and guidance I received in Public Relations Writing and Advertising Copywriting courses,” said Chen. “This award has made me realize that there are commonalities among the various programs in communication studies. Whether it’s advertising and public relations copywriting, or news reporting writing, all require creative planning, extensive data collection and research, as well as subsequent writing and repeated revisions.”

Chen Kewei is in front of the award-winning work

For those students who plan to participate in the competition in the future, these four awardees all encourage everyone to “dare to try and believe in yourself”. As Mr. Zhou Li, the deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily and the chief editor of China Daily Hong Kong, said in his speech, in the face of the rapid development of AI technology, journalists must have the courage to face changes and must believe in the power and warmth conveyed through their words.

Reporter: Kewei Chen

Photo: China Daily Campus News Award