Student Spotlight
News21 Students Announced
By Erin Donnelly
In Oklahoma, natural disasters hit close to home. We know that the effects of these disasters are felt long after the storm is over and the way they are responded to make for some of the most important stories. This year, in true Oklahoma spirit, four of Gaylord College’s best and brightest are participating in the most prestigious investigative journalism program in the country to learn about investigative reporting on disaster recovery.
The program is called News21 and is part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education hosted each summer by the Arizona State University Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The program began in 2005 and gathers the top 24 students from 19 journalism programs in the U.S., Canada, and Ireland, with 12 ASU students.
OU’s fellows are supported by grants from the Oklahoma City-based Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. The four Gaylord students who were chosen are: Sarah Beth Guevara, journalism major and Gaylord Ambassador; Drew Hutchinson, journalism major and news reporter for the Oklahoma Daily; Bailey Lewis, journalism major and Honors College student; and Brigette Waltermire, journalism graduate and U.S. Defense Information School and Air University graduate.
The selection process for News21 is highly competitive as students have to compete for their spots against undergraduate and graduate students from other journalism schools across the nation and in other countries. The Gaylord application process included review by an internal selection committee followed by an intensive panel interview portion, requiring months of preparation and research on the interviewees’ end.
“You definitely had that heart in your chest, heart in your throat moment,” Sarah Beth Guevara said on the interview.
The selected students are currently in the first phase of the News21 program, which entails a weekly elite journalism class taught virtually by Cronkite professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Jacquee Petchel. The class has learned from a host of guest speakers as well.
“It’s been incredible to get to hear from some of the most amazing journalists in the world,” said Guevara.
Every year News21 has a different focus, and this year it’s natural disasters. Throughout the duration of 16-week seminar, the students learn to examine the way the government, at the federal and local levels, allocates the billions of dollars spent on disaster recovery. The students are doing background research on every major natural disaster federally declared over the past five years. So far, the group has covered disasters in every single state, except for three.
“We are extremely comprehensive,” said Guevara. “We have a lot of work to do, but have gotten a lot done.”
After completing the taught course, the students will enter the summer portion of the program, a paid fellowship in which they will split into broadcast or writing tracks, and be given their assignments to investigate specific natural disasters. The students will travel in pairs across the country, and outside of the U.S., to places like Puerto Rico, New Orleans, and California. The Cronkite school in Arizona will remain “home base.”
The News21 journalists will be posting daily blogs throughout the summer about their experience, which the public can follow along with. Meanwhile, they will be developing their comprehensive packages. Each student’s story and multimedia will be published in full on the project’s own destination website in the fall so people can see the projects in their entirety.
