1 of 30

When student reporters step in: From the statehouse to the courthouse

2 of 30

We’re not talking about internships or student media

What CCN does: national research on student reporting impact and fostering growth for news-academic partnerships.

These are stories where faculty/staff review and edit student content before it is shared with media partners or directly distributed to the public; not simply student media or posting to an internal university website. In programs where the content is shared with media partners, there is active coordination between the institution and the outlet.

Students can get credit, they can get paid, and most enticingly, they get really good clips for when they apply to jobs. The news outlets get more content they otherwise wouldn’t have time to make themselves, making the students effectively stringers. And readers get more news. And in many cases, it frees up a reporter for more investigations or long-term stories if they don’t have to run to the incendiary public meeting that a partnering student will be at.

3 of 30

4 of 30

5 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

6 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

A ‘fresh take’ on reporting

“One of the most significant offerings in the history of the CJC.” – Former Dean Diane McFarlin
Produces top-caliber investigative, political content
Articles distributed to Florida’s news organizations, published under students’ own bylines

6

7 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

More professional than ever

Instructors, advisers include:

Ted Bridis, 30 years with Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
Gregg Birnbaum, 30 years with CNN, Politico, NBC News
Brendan Farrington, 23 years with Associated Press in Tallahassee

7

8 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

Growing faster than ever

Content is published by more than 100 newspapers, radio & TV outlets across Florida
In its 6^th year, we have published more than 500 news articles so far
A popular capstone classes across the journalism department with 12-18 students each semester

8

9 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

New experiences

The curriculum is intended to expose our students to new professional-level experiences: Lee Ann Anderson, right, covered her first-ever U.S. courtroom hearing in Tallahassee, a fight over Florida’s new ban on social media for young teenagers

9

10 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

New experiences

Months earlier, Lee Ann was on a 46-foot boat one mile off the coast of Pompano Beach, interviewing divers harvesting invasive lionfish that threaten Florida’s coral reefs (and battling crippling seasickness to file her story and photographs)

10

11 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

Bigger stories than ever

Florida's Democratic Party boasted in this year's election it was contesting every seat in the GOP-dominated Legislature for the first time in decades.

In at least eight House races and two Senate races statewide those Democratic candidates don't live in the legislative districts where they are running, according to recent voter registrations, candidate filings and other government records. In some cases, they live hundreds of miles away from the voters they are courting, and many have struggled to raise enough money to compete credibly against Republicans.

11

12 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

Bigger stories than ever

A University of Florida research employee and students have been implicated in an illegal, multi-million dollar scheme investigated by the Justice Department to fraudulently buy thousands of biochemical samples of dangerous drugs and toxins that were delivered to a campus laboratory then illicitly shipped to China over seven years, according to federal court records.

Among the students tied to the scheme was the president of UF’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association. The group openly protested a Florida law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year that limits universities from recruiting students and faculty from China – and bans employing such students from working in academic labs without special permission.

12

13 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

More awards than ever

Lauren Brensel earned 1^st Place this year in the national Hearst Journalism Awards for feature writing, for a Fresh Take Florida story about frantic efforts by an air-traffic controller to save a young, inexperienced pilot lost in bad weather.

13

14 of 30

Fresh Take Florida

More awards than ever

Garrett Shanley was named Journalist of the Year last month by the Southeast Journalism Conference

14

15 of 30

16 of 30

17 of 30

A University Shooting Revisited

LSU Cold Case Project

Annalise Vidrine, Maria Pham and Drew Hawkins

18 of 30

19 of 30

Our Reporting

Gathering historical context

Talking with families

Investigating 2,700 documents

Confronting 3 deputies

1

2

3

4

20 of 30

Connecting with Families

Maria Notes

- Sensitivity (Some video interviews needed to be as least invasive as possible, ex. News Roads visit. This is a topic that the families and friends hadn't talked openly about for years, so reading the room and trusting your gut helps with navigating this delicate space.)

- Ask for old photos and locations of significant buildings (ex. sharecropper home) during interviews It is an opportunity to look back on who the men were prior to the shooting; ex. Leonard Brown's high school yearbook and seeing his responses to Q&A). It helps with thinking of visuals for the story. Some details were tricky to capture visually, so we took the angle of showing the sharecropper home and the church bus stop to set the scene of Douglas going to Southern each day. I also took the photo of where Leonard Brown's funeral took place and cross dissolved it with a video of the church standing today. It looked the same. That way you can write your script and use soundbites that have accompanying video to show.

21 of 30

Investigating Documents

Gathered 2,700 pages of FBI and Justice Department documents from a victim’s family member, a student protester and a law professor who had obtained them under FOIA.

Divided docs among the students to read and digest and loaded all the PDF’s into DocumentCloud for easy searching.

Had students create detailed chronologies and running memos about witnesses, suspects & scenes in shared Google docs.

22 of 30

Confronting the Suspects

23 of 30

Add short video of family members talking about impact here

Results

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards issued an apology to the families of the victims on the 50th anniversary of the shooting.

Our four-part series won the IRE award for best investigative project in 2022 by students at a large university.

One student turned the stories into a podcast series that aired on local NPR stations.

24 of 30

25 of 30

Tips

Start small with a few of your best students and a project of reasonable scope.

Stress journalism ethics and accuracy.

Have students write detailed memos about each interview and collaborate on other memos to digest the material.

Aim for multimedia narratives in words, video and audio and gather photos along the way.

Edit as rigorously as you would in a professional newsroom.

26 of 30

For More Information & Our Students’ Stories��

LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau

LSU Cold Case Project

Christopher Drew, faculty director, cdrew2@lsu.edu

27 of 30

Best practices

28 of 30

Easy ways a newsroom can work with a class

Covering daily stories so you don’t have to
Assist in interviews if you have to interview dozens of people
Photojournalism or graphics
Digging through social media (there are scoops on TikTok!)
Connecting with story subjects closer to their age
Finding a fresh angle on an old story

29 of 30

CCN’s free resources can be found on:

uvm.edu/ccn

30 of 30

Let’s talk.

Rick Hirsch rickhirsch@jou.ufl.edu�Chris Drew cdrew2@lsu.edu�Sarah Gamard scbgamard@gmail.com