Austin teen takes home first prize in C-SPAN documentary contest
Every year, TV network C-SPAN offers middle and high school students the chance to enter the realm of politics and current events through a short documentary contest StudentCam.
Nearly 3,000 students from across the U.S. entered this year's contest — which asked competitors what issue would serve as their first priority if they were a newly elected member of Congress — and one of the first-place winners was 16-year-old Carson Collins from Austin.
Collins, a homeschooled sophomore, earned the title of first prize winner in the high school west division with his documentary "A Perilous Purchase: CCP Ownership of U.S. Land." C-SPAN also named first prize winners for the high school east, high school central and middle school divisions, as well as one grand prize winner.
The first-place distinction comes with a $3,000 cash prize as well as airtime for Collins's documentary on C-SPAN. "A Perilous Purchase" is set to play on the channel at 6:50 a.m. ET April 20, and it will then continue to air throughout the day.
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"I think it's really lucky," Collins said. "I think the topic that I picked helped my video to stand out. A lot of other people will do kind of the same issues over and over again, and there are many hundreds of documentaries focusing on one issue, like minimum wage or immigration. This topic was a little bit more specific and a little bit more unusual."
Collins's roughly six-and-a-half-minute documentary tackles the issue of the Chinese Communist Party buying American land, with some purchases seemingly aiding in Chinese efforts to spy on the U.S.
"There's a corn mill... in I believe Grand Forks, Michigan, and the plant is going to be built I think within 50 miles of an Air Force base," Collins said. "There is a Chinese wind farm that is being built in southern Texas... and again, it happens to be very close to another U.S. military base. They're flying drones around this wind farm, and there's a suspicion that they're taking surveillance data of the military base."
Along with conducting his own research, Collins interviewed U.S. Representative Chip Roy, Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy foundation and Chris Clayton, policy editor for The Progressive Farmer. The teen's deep dive into the issue of Chinese-purchased land comes among recent discussions at the Texas legislature on banning foreign citizens from owning state property.
"Whether we like it or not, the United States economy is very tied to the Chinese economy," Collins said. "So I think it's kind of a broad solution to a problem that might need a more intricate solution. I think amending... the board on foreign investment to make it stronger and larger to better review these purchases might be a better solution than just trying to outright ban all individuals from China or any other country from buying land."
This year's competition wasn't Collins's first time entering StudentCam or covering a topic related to China. In 2021, Collins submitted a documentary on Confucius institutes in American schools and won first prize for the middle school division. Collins hopes to continue making documentaries with his own production company, which he's using his award money to help fund.
"I think in today's world, video is one of the most important mediums, especially in terms of getting in touch with youth," Collins said. "So I've started doing some work with a couple of entities... and I'd like to be able to help nonprofits and businesses to kind of put across their message on social media or YouTube."
Watch the award-winning documentary "A Perilous Purchase: CCP Ownership of U.S. Land"
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin teen takes home first prize in C-SPAN documentary contest
