Journalism students’ environmental stories getting published on Planet Forward

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STORRS — UConn journalism students are enjoying wider readership of their environmental stories by publishing on Planet Forward, an outlet for college students housed at George Washington University. It focuses on informing the public on innovative ideas to help improve the planet.

The UConn students’ stories covered a range of Connecticut climate-change stories and appear on Planet Forward along with work by students from across the United States who contribute written work, podcasts, videos, infographics, and more, focusing on telling stories “that would move the planet forward.”

Jonathan Kopeliovich reported on marine biologists at UConn Avery Point who are studying the effects of noise pollution on ocean life. 

Madeline Papcun, a junior Journalism major, talked to farmers in the Mansfield, Conn. area, asking them how they are adapting to wild swings in rain and drought from year to year.

Amanda McCard reported on UConn researchers who predict and study the movements of bobcats and mountain lions. 

UConn senior journalism major Samara Thacker’s piece examined a movement to reduce waste and emissions at UConn athletic events. 

Jet Windhorst interviewed farmers and UConn researchers for a story about climate’s effect on soil quality.  Zareen Riza’s piece looked at farmers and mental health.

Wallace’s student research assistant Claire Lee, a biology major, attended the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in November in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. She published a piece on discussions there about ocean acidification.

Associate Prof. Scott Wallace, an environmental journalist whose book “The Unconquered” is about the Amazon, has encouraged many of his students to cast their nets wider and submit to Planet Forward. “It’s a great opportunity for students to get published, especially from an honorable publication,” Wallace said.

McCard, a sophomore studying environmental science and journalism, said her story on wild cats began as an assignment for Wallace’s Newswriting I class. 

“I sent them an email and they got back to me the next day,” said McCard, who writes for the Daily Campus and contributes to HER Campus magazine. McCard said this was her first time being published outside a school publication. “I would love to do more environmental pieces,” she said. 

Kopeliovich, a junior majoring in digital media design and filmmaking, said Wallace told him about Planet Forward during the fall semester’s environmental journalism (JOUR 3046E) class.

 “I decided to submit my second story in his class,” Kopeliovich said, “because I didn’t like my first story.” Wallace “always gave us notes on how we could improve our stories, and after some editing I felt confident in turning it over to Planet Forward,” Kopeliovich said.

Students also can submit their stories to Planet Forward’s annual competition, Storyfest. Grand prize winners will travel to Iceland from July 15-20 with Lindblad Expedition aboard the National Geographic Resolution. The trip will include seminars and guidance to help shape the journalists’ careers.

In April 2023, three UConn students joined with Prof. Wallace to attend the Planet Forward Summit in Washington, D.C.

Prof. Scott Wallace poses for a selfie with students Zareen Reza, Sophia Dover and Skyler Kim at the 2023 Planet Forward Summit in Washington, D.C.

 

—by Crystal Elescano

Political Journalist and News Entrepreneur Jake Sherman Encourages Students: ‘Be Really Good at One Thing’

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Jake Sherman, the journalist, author, and co-founder of Punchbowl News, speaks with UConn journalism and entrepreneurship students about the future of the press in a moderated discussion held at the Toscano Family Forum on April 11, 2023.

Jake Sherman got some really good advice from a fellow reporter when he joined the newsroom at the Wall Street Journal.

“Don’t try to be a generalist,” he shared. “Find your niche, and be really good at one thing, and people will always need you around.”

Sherman offered that advice – and his thoughts on the current state and future of journalism in the United States – to more than 70 journalism and entrepreneurism students who attended a moderated discussion with the political journalist and author, held at the Toscano Family Ice Forum’s Blue Line Club on Tuesday afternoon.

For more than a decade, Sherman has worked in his own niche, covering national politics with a focus on reporting on the U.S. Congress, congressional leadership, and the politics of legislating. He worked for 11 years as the top congressional reporter on Capitol Hill for POLITICO and the co-author of POLITICO’s Playbook newsletter. But after watching the news organization grow from a newsroom of 20 to a worldwide operation of more than 500, he decided to leave.

And to launch his own online political news venture, forcing him to wear a familiar hat – that of the journalist – and a brand new one: that of the entrepreneur.

“It was a huge risk,” he said. “But I think, in life, you know when it’s time to take a risk.”

Continue reading the full story at UConn Today

Frankie Graziano ’11 is new host of WNPR’s political roundtable ‘The Wheelhouse’

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Frankie Graziano '11, is the new host of "The Wheelhouse" on WNPR, Connecticut Public Radio. The show, featuring a roundtable of political commentators, is back by popular demand after a 2-year hiatus.
Graziano has been a member of the Connecticut Public newsroom since 2012, when he first worked on sports production for CPTV. He's covered news and politics for WNPR. He's a native of Torrington who lives in Glastonbury with his family. He once advised our aspiring journalists not to fear being embarrassed to get the story.

Congratulations, Frankie!

UConn Journalism offering summer multimedia journalism camp for high school students

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This July, the University of Connecticut’s Department of Journalism will offer a one-week residential high school journalism summer camp, continuing an initiative started by the Connecticut Health Investigative Team (C-HIT) 12 years ago. 

Students between ages 15 and 18 from across the U.S. are eligible to participate and urged to apply. This year’s camp runs from July 9-15, 2023 on UConn’s Storrs campus in partnership with the UConn Pre-College Summer program. The multimedia journalism workshop will provide students with a foundation in news reporting, interviewing, newswriting, photography, video storytelling and podcasting. 

“Basically, we give the students a crash course in multimedia journalism,” said Lynne DeLucia, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former assistant managing editor at the Hartford Courant who co-founded C-HIT and the high school journalism camp with the late Lisa Chedekel. Chedekel was an award-winning investigative journalist who passed away in 2018 at the age of 57. The two set up C-HIT as a non-profit independent news site dedicated to in-depth public service journalism and funded by foundation grants and individual donors.

“When we launched C-HIT in December of 2010, we knew we wanted to start a program that would get high school students a good introduction to this craft,” DeLucia said. “Our mission has always been to train this younger group to just be empowered, and give them some skills and maybe instill a little bit of confidence in them.”

C-HIT garnered many journalism awards for its deep-dive stories on health, safety, and medical issues, which were regularly published by Connecticut media outlets. The non profit news organization ended its 12-year run at the end of 2022. Its stories, including a wide selection of student work completed at the camps, remain online and will be archived.

The summer journalism camp, which took place on UConn’s Storrs campus numerous times, will continue here. In the past dozen years, the summer workshop has trained 330 high school students in multimedia journalism skills. This year’s program will be taught by Julie Serkosky, associate professor-in-residence in UConn’s Department of Journalism. 

Serkosky said her aim is to lay a foundation of good practices. “Journalism is the best job I’ve ever had, and everything’s different every day,” she said. “We want to get high school students interested in that and excited about it, so that if it’s what they choose to do, they’ll be responsible and ethical journalists.”

Working journalists teach sessions. Teachers and speakers during the 2022 workshop included Kate Farrish ‘83, an award-winning reporter and editor and assistant professor at Central Connecticut State University; Ayah Galal, Hartford Bureau Chief at WFSB News; Patrick Raycraft, a former Hartford Courant photojournalist, Sabrina Herrera ‘14, community engagement and social media editor at Connecticut Public; and Bonnie Phillips, editor of ecoRI News and an adjunct journalism instructor at UConn.

Stories produced by the high school students covered a wide range of news and personalities. New Haven student Trinity Ford interviewed the coordinator of UConn’s Rainbow Center. Bowie, Maryland student Sydnee Assan investigated what’s changed 10 years after the Sandy Hook tragedy. Milford student Melissa Santos reported on abortion laws in Connecticut and Oregon since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Other stories covered sexual assault threats, climate change, music programs and more.

DeLucia said the camp’s aim has always been “to embolden students to challenge authority, ask questions, get answers, and translate complex subjects into compelling multimedia stories.”

The students also meet and work with others from economic and racial backgrounds different from their own. “That interaction provides for meaningful discussions about current events and the role of the media — as well as friendships,” DeLucia said.

Kate Ariano is a 2022 UConn Journalism grad who attended the C-HIT camp as a high school student in 2017.

"Had it not been for the opportunity to be fully immersed in all facets of news writing, reporting, and making connections with peers and professors at UConn, I may not have realized the potential I had as a young writer," Ariano said. "My confidence in my ability to tell stories is founded on the lessons I learned in just one week with professors that would go on to be mentors for my next four years of college. Prepared is an understatement to how ready I was to start at UConn after the camp."

She added, "If you want to learn how to become a master storyteller; if you want to learn how to connect with your community to make a difference through your words; if you want to succeed as a writer, UConn Journalism is where you do it. And it all starts with the high school summer camp." 

The total cost of the seven-day program is discounted at 50% for students who take the 2023 multimedia journalism course. The cost is $1175.  If accepted, the final payment for the program is due by June 5. Thanks to a generous donation from C-HIT and supporters of the high school summer journalism program, eligible campers with financial need can receive free tuition. DeLucia said that a majority of the 330 students the camp has trained so far had received full or partial scholarships. Students should contact the UConn Pre-College Summer Program at pcs@uconn.edu for more information. 

The application fee of $45 will also be waived for applicants of the multimedia journalism course. Use Waiver code: UCJOURNALISM.  

Register here: http://s.uconn.edu/journalismcamp

In keeping with C-HIT’s long-standing mission to make the workshop accessible to all students, a special fund for donations has been established by the UConn Foundation. Please consider donating so that all who apply can participate. Donate here: https://s.uconn.edu/campfund

Assistant Professor Martine Granby awarded $35,000 ITVS grant

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UConn Journalism Assistant Prof. Martine Granby has received a $35,000 grant from The Independent Television Service (ITVS). The funding will help Prof. Granby produce a documentary feature about intergenerational silence and the stigma shrouding Black women's mental health. 

The film is a personal essayistic documentary feature examining three generations of Black women as they deconstruct the binary of their own mental health, illness and wellness. The film reimagines the past a form of trauma recovery.

ITVS was mandated by Congress in 1988 “to encourage the development of programming that involves creative risks and that addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities.” It partners with filmmakers to bring untold stories to public broadcasting.

Learn more: https://itvs.org/films/Untitled-Martine-Granby-Project

 

 

Scenes from our March 2023 Local News Job & Internship Fair

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Here are some scenes from our local news job and internship fair on Saturday, March 25. Our students met many editors, shared resumes, and learned about opportunities in southern New England. Local news is alive, well, and necessary. Thanks to all the newsroom representatives who came out to Storrs, including WFSB News, WTNH News, FOX 61 News, Western Mass News, CT Public, Lakeville Journal, CT Examiner, Record-Journal, Connecticut Mirror and Lakeville Journal. 

UConn's student Society of Professional Journalists chapter and UConn's student-run news organizations were also recruiting at the event: The Daily Campus, UCTV News and WHUS News.

Crawford’s essay on truth featured on cover of UConn Magazine

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“Can Truth Triumph: Journalism Professor Amanda Crawford on Sandy Hook, Alex Jones, and Our Culture of Disinformation" is featured on the cover of Spring '23 UConn Magazine.

The latest issue of UConn Magazine leads with a personal essay by Assistant Professor Amanda Crawford, who has spent the last few years digging into a many-chambered labyrinth  of modern society: the 2012 Sandy Hook tragedy, gun violence and attitudes about gun control, online misinformation and conspiracy theories.

In the UConn Magazine piece,  “Can Truth Triumph: Journalism Professor Amanda Crawford on Sandy Hook, Alex Jones, and Our Culture of Disinformation,” Crawford describes how she got interested in mass shootings and conspiracy theories. Over the past few years, she has published pieces on the Sandy Hook aftermath and conspiracies and those who supported them in many outlets, including the Boston Globe, CNN, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Conversation. She is writing a book about Sandy Hook and its aftermath.

After UConn Magazine invited Crawford to contribute, she decided to write a more personal reflection. “I told them I had an essay I had been working on that described why I started focusing on conspiracy theories and mass shootings in my research,” she says. “I started writing it because I was really trying to explain and understand my own feelings around the marketplace of ideas.”

The piece begins with a dream she had while suffering influenza during a boating trip off the coast of Mexico. In the dream, the wind seemed to signify how wanton lies had taken over the public dialogue. “All the winds of misinformation,” she writes. “A tempest of fake news and propaganda. Winds of hate. Winds of willful and wanton ignorance.”

That dream was one way her mind was working out her thoughts on the problem. Crawford says, “I remain very torn over the solution to online misinformation. I’m not, as some have misread, advocating for censorship here but rather trying to parse out my own feelings about free speech in the digital era.”

One thread of Crawford’s research has been following how Sandy Hook father Lenny Pozner was trying to advocate for his son’s memory while receiving multiple threats to his safety. Crawford says that the conflict between free speech and the harm done by lies spread on the internet lie “really at the heart of the existential issues the U.S. faces.”

She asks, “Can we protect both truth and free expression?”

A Conversation With Political Journalist & Entrepreneur Jake Sherman on 4/11

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In today's media landscape, the connectivity between entrepreneurship and journalism is undeniable.

Empowering journalists to create and sustain independent news organizations and produce innovative and high-quality journalism is crucial to driving innovation, experimentation, and the development of sustainable business models in the rapidly evolving ecosystem.

Join us on Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 3:30 p.m. for a conversation with Jake Sherman, Founder of Punchbowl Media, about entrepreneurship, journalism and future of news.

Sherman is the co-founder of Punchbowl.news/ - an online political news daily and membership-based news community which focuses on the individuals who power the U.S. legislature.

Sherman is a regular contributor to NBC News and appears almost daily across all of the network’s platforms.

He was previously POLITICO's top congressional reporter on Capitol Hill and co-author of POLITICO Playbook. He chronicled all of the major legislative battles of the Obama and Trump presidencies, and has traveled the country and the world, reporting on power and politics.

The event will be held in the Blue Line Club of the Toscano Family Ice Forum, UConn's brand-new indoor ice rink facility. It will be moderated by UConn Journalism major Sophia Dover.

Register to attend here: s.uconn.edu/jakesherman

Pre-journalism students get glimpse into news industry through FYE course

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Members of the Fall 2022 UConn Journalism First Year Experience (FYE) class, with instructor Lisa Caruso '90.

UConn Journalism introduces its newest students to the varied fields of journalism with its UNIV 1810 course: Introduction to Journalism Practice. 

The course is one of a wide range of First Year Experience courses (FYE) at UConn. FYE started in 1999 to help new students adjust to college and succeed here. Sarah Scheidel, who until recently was managing FYE through her work in the Office of First Year Programs and Learning Communities, has said that the small classes (capped at 19), caring instructors and peer mentors influence students’ decisions to remain in school after the first year. 

First-year retention rates at UConn were 85% in 1998, the year before the FYE program started. They are now at 92%, according to the latest report. 

UConn Journalism’s FYE course is taught by alumna Lisa Caruso '90, the department’s educational program coordinator. The one-credit course is open to first year pre-journalism students and first-year transfer students.

The course exposes students to the many ways journalism is practiced. “We also introduce them to the faculty and different media outlets on campus,” Caruso said. 

Students have taken tours of the newsrooms at the UConn student newspaper — the Daily Campus, UConn’s radio station WHUS-FM, and the student-run television station UCTV. 

Current and past students in Caruso’s class say the once-a-week 50-minute sessions help them get involved with campus outlets and see career choices. Journalism faculty members take turns visiting the class, speaking about their specialties in photojournalism, broadcasting, print, digital and environmental journalism, and documentary filmmaking. 

Freshman Alec Beane said he learned something new every week. “We learned about broadcasting, which I was interested in,” Beane said. “The guest speakers were really helpful because I didn’t know about different types of journalism like photojournalism.”

Beane said he plans to take broadcasting and sports journalism courses next semester. He already is working as an anchor in UCTV’s sports department thanks to Caruso’s help. He is thinking of double majoring in journalism and sports management. 

Sophomore Jalen Allen, a journalism and communications major, said the class helped him identify his interests in public relations and journalism last year. He working in advertising at UCTV. “I got connected with them after I toured the station,” he said. “I found the class helpful because I want to get into PR. This class introduced me to different people and got me familiar with the department.” 

Caruso requires that students create LinkedIn accounts. “Since they’re first-year students, a resume isn’t ideal since they are just starting to gain experience,” she said. 

Beane found this helpful. “I check in every week on Linkedin to see if there’s anything new like a connection or opportunity that is available,” he said. “Our instructor had us all connect with her.”

Caruso’s leadership has made a difference, Beane said. “She is really getting us to where we need to be.” 

by Crystal Elescano

War in Ukraine: Hear from region’s journalists during virtual panel March 2

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Ukraine, Russian journalists share struggles of wartime reporting

UConn students are invited to attend a free virtual discussion at 11 a.m. ET on March 2 with Russian and Ukrainian journalists to discuss the ongoing challenges to their work. The journalists will discuss their daily struggles under fire, threats from the Russian government, and efforts to seek asylum abroad and maintain a journalism practice.

The online event is hosted by the National Press Club’s Press Freedom Committee and the National Press Club Journalism Institute.

One year into Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, journalists in both countries have responded valiantly in insisting on their right to provide independent, accurate, and piercing news coverage that serves the public’s interests.

As so many of the region’s journalists have pushed themselves to the limit in covering the war and its many ramifications, the physical, mental, and emotional toll is growing. Ukrainian journalists have worked to provide coverage of the war’s ruinous impacts on their communities despite risks to their personal safety, emotional trauma, and uncertain financial prospects. And Russian journalists have made the difficult decision to leave their families, flee Russia, and make a new life abroad rather than submit to the Kremlin’s propaganda machine demands.

Speakers include:

Elizaveta Kirpanova, who worked as a special reporter of the Russian independent newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” for the past five years. In her articles, she covered problems in health care, education system, charity, and immigration. The Russian government recently revoked the newspaper’s media license for its position on the war in Ukraine.

Olga Rudenko, the editor in chief of The Kyiv Independent. Prior to 2022, she was the Managing Editor of The Kyiv Post.

Anastasia Tishchenko, a human rights reporter and news presenter with Radio Svoboda, RFE/RL’s Russian Service based in Prague since 2021. She joined RFE/RL in Moscow in 2017 as a reporter covering the deteriorating rights situation in Russia. She also has spent significant time in Ukraine.

Jessica Jerreat, who leads Voice of America’s award-winning press freedom coverage, will moderate the discussion. With a background in press freedom and international news, Jerreat has worked for organizations including the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and The Times of London. She has a master’s degree in War, Media, and Society from the University of Kent at Canterbury, with a focus on propaganda, the press, and conflict.