Young Journalist Wins State Awards for Epoch Times, NTD Reporting

Natasha Holt, a recent University of Florida journalism graduate, is an animal lover whose reporting has also earned national acclaim.

TV and print reporter Natasha Holt accepts two first-place honors for journalism at the 2025 Sunshine State Awards in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Sept. 6, 2025. Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times

After winning a national journalism award earlier this year, student journalist Natasha Holt won a pair of state awards for reports that The Epoch Times and its sister media outlet, NTD, published during her college internship last year.

On Sept. 6, Holt was awarded first place in two categories of the Sunshine State Awards, Florida’s largest, longest-running statewide journalism competition, run by the Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Holt and other winners were honored during an awards ceremony at the NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Competing in the student division, Holt, 23, of Alachua, Florida, earned recognition for reporting that was inspired by her love of animals.

She won first place in the multimedia category for a two-minute NTD report on researchers protecting endangered sea turtles, coupled with a detailed Epoch Times feature on the same topic.

For those stories, Holt interviewed researchers who monitor the turtles’ nesting sites, set up barriers to prevent humans from disturbing them, and use tracking devices to understand the turtles’ behavior.

Holt’s other first-place win was in the video category. She filmed, edited, and narrated a four-minute August 2024 NTD report titled “Wild Ponies Raise Funds for Local Fire Department in Chincoteague, Virginia.”

In that report, Holt called the annual pony roundup “a rich slice of Americana that draws more than 50,000 visitors.” The roundup was made famous by the 1947 children’s book by Marguerite Henry, “Misty of Chincoteague.”

Holt explained that Chincoteague “is sandwiched between Virginia and the island of Assateague,” the ponies’ home. Under a century-old government agreement, “saltwater cowboys” round up the ponies and guide them to swim across a channel to Chincoteague. The animals are then sold at auction to support the local volunteer fire department.

Holt’s report ends with a poignant quote from 11-year-old Aurora Menges, who was the winning bidder for one of the ponies: “Every pony deserves to be loved by a little girl ... and every little girl deserves to love a pony.”

Holt said she cares deeply about the ponies and people of Chincoteague. She also cherishes wildlife such as sea turtles in her home state of Florida.

“It was a special blessing to be able to share positive, uplifting stories about those topics with the world,” she told The Epoch Times after receiving her awards. “It’s been refreshing to contribute in a place where managers stress the need for neutrality, accuracy, fairness, and balance.”

The SPJ Florida chapter has been running the Sunshine State Awards since 1994 to celebrate excellence in journalism, an SPJ statement said.

Judges from outside the Florida market scoured nearly 1,000 entries to select winners across six professional divisions. A seventh division was limited to Florida’s college and university students, such as Holt.

Holt received a journalism degree in May from the University of Florida, with a specialization in broadcast news and a focus on political science. Holt hopes to further her education with a law degree that she plans to use in a career in media.

Her mother, longtime journalist Nanette Holt, said that besides being proud of her daughter’s award-winning work, she’s “even more proud of the kind of person she is—full of kindness, compassion, and integrity,“ which ”flows into her journalism.”

“Seeing her so committed to fairness, balance, neutrality, and accuracy gives me great hope,” Nanette Holt said. “Our world desperately needs more journalists committed to those principles.”

Earlier this year, an Epoch Times version of Natasha Holt’s pony roundup story won the Travel Journalism category of the Sigma Delta Chi Awards in a national SPJ contest.

She shared that award with her mother, who coauthored the feature. A third recipient of the award was Richard Moore, an Epoch Times assistant national editor who shot photographs to illustrate the story.

The award marked the third national honor for Epoch Times journalists this year.

In April, reporter Eva Fu won an award for exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses, and reporter Dan Berger earned recognition for chronicling efforts to support Jews in war-torn Israel. Their awards came from the Religion Communicators Council.