Bringing Together Journalists and College Students for News Engagement

Our Campus Consortium team works to inform, equip, and inspire students as they prepare themselves for careers against the backdrop of climate change, emergent technologies, international conflicts, and impending elections. Throughout this fall semester, we connected Pulitzer Center grantees and community experts with over 2,500 collegiate students to engage with today’s most pressing news stories through class visits, presentations, conversations, and workshops.

Venezuelan journalist Ricardo Barbar visited four campus partners and multiple K-12 classrooms to speak with students about his country’s failing health care system and the Prodavinci project Exposing Inequalities. Conversing in both Spanish and English, public health students and community health workers asked Barbar questions about the deteriorating health care institutions and community-based support that has developed in response.

With artificial intelligence (AI) as one of the topics at the top of minds for students and faculty, we brought several of our 2022 AI Accountability Fellows to campuses to help students explore the vast range of stories emerging alongside this tech. At South Dakota State University, Ari Sen suggested embracing new tech in reporting, while remaining mindful of its risks and complexity. Karen Hao encouraged Syracuse University students to take a decolonial lens to understand the economic and labor impacts of the rapid globalization of AI.

Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow alums shared how their fellowship experiences prepared them for their careers. Jamaija Rhoades returned to her alma mater, Hampton University, to offer advice on navigating the beginnings of post-grad careers; at Georgetown University, Imran Mohammad Fazal Hoque spoke about his experience as a stateless Rohingya refugee; and Isabella Gomes participated on a panel with other journalists and community advocates focused on sex trafficking as part of our Gender Forum with the University of California, Berkeley. New York Times journalist Michelle Goldberg also spoke at the Gender Forum.

“Seeds were planted by [the panelists] in the minds of up-and-coming journalists of the near future," said Geeta Anand, dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. "Our whole community is deeply grateful … for your work building this partnership with us to bring interesting, important, brilliant speakers to our school.”

During this year’s Sharp Seminar at William & Mary, grantees Jessica Pishko, Brandi Morin, and seminar adviser Stephanie Hanes worked with aspiring journalists to workshop their story pitches and reporting plans in preparation for their reporting trips.

As we wrap up our last visits of 2023, you can learn more about all the connections made this semester with aspiring journalists and future leaders here.

Best,

IMPACT

The Pulitzer Center-supported project Amazon Underworld, by Rainforest Investigations Network Fellow Bram Ebus and other collaborators in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela, has won the Cláudio Weber Abramo Award. The award is considered the most important honor for data journalism projects in Brazil. For more information about the project, see our webinar recording with the journalists involved.

This message first appeared in the November 24, 2023, edition of the Pulitzer Center's weekly newsletter. Subscribe today.

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