Faculty Work

Faculty Highlight: Professor Catanoso Reports on Sea Otters in the Gulf of Alaska for Mongabay

Posted on October 31, 2025

When Professor Justin Catanoso decided on an extended trip to Alaska in summer 2025, he made sure he would have a story to report along the way for Mongabay, the international environmental news organization for which he has been freelancing since 2015. After connecting with a marine ecologist with the National Park Service in Anchorage, he settled on sea otters — or rather the implications of a newly surging sea otter population throughout the sweeping Gulf of Alaska on both near-shoreRead More→

Phoebe Zerwick Retires from Wake Forest University

Posted on October 2, 2025

After 15 years at Wake, Phoebe Zerwick has retired as Director of Journalism. Professor Zerwick started here in 2010 and served as Journalism Director from 2016-2025. While many of us know her as a teacher, she is foremost a journalist and champion of free expression. She moved to Winston-Salem in the 1980s to work as a reporter for The Winston-Salem Journal, where she stayed for 21 years covering the criminal justice system, public health, City Hall and much else. SheRead More→

Editor of the Wake Forest Magazine and Journalism Faculty Member Maria Henson (’82) Retires

Posted on October 2, 2025

Maria Henson is many things – a twice Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a member of the WFU Writers Hall of Fame, the editor of Wake Forest Magazine, where she served for 15 years before retiring July 4, 2025, among other roles and a long list of prizes. Most important from our perspective – she was a core faculty member of the Journalism Program. One of her most important contributions was helping develop one of our two core courses – JOU 270Read More→

Prof. Yeoman Joins Collaborative Project on Katrina’s Legacy

Posted on September 25, 2025

This summer, adjunct professor Barry Yeoman traveled to Louisiana’s fragile coastline to interview the people who are holding the region together, both environmentally and culturally. The result is a multimedia collaboration with photographer John Noltner called “Still Here.” It’s being published in weekly installments by Noltner’s non-profit storytelling project, A Peace of My Mind. You can find it here. “During our nine days in South Louisiana, John and I heard a lot about disappearance,” Yeoman wrote. “Not only are wetlands vanishing, but soRead More→

Journalism adjunct instructor Michael Venutolo-Mantovani chases the northern lights for National Geographic

Posted on April 1, 2025

Michael Venutolo-Mantovani teaches the gateway course to the Journalism minor and a “Deep Dive” on the business of freelanceing. Earlier in the semester, he traveled to Norway to report on the northern lights for National Geographic. “Within minutes, thick ribbons of brilliant green and purple spread out above us, punctuating the flicker of seemingly every star in the known universe,” he wrote. “At one point, the aqua particles exploded in bloom over our heads, creating something that looked like aRead More→

Adjunct professor Lisa Sorg wins reporting award for “Gaslighting”

Posted on March 27, 2025

Lisa Sorg, an adjunct professor in the journalism department and a staff writer at the national media outlet Inside Climate News, won a top prize from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. SABEW is a business journalism organization that sponsors the annual Best in Business Awards. All told, 181 news organizations of all sizes submitted 1,100 entries this year. “Gaslighting,” reported in partnership with The Assembly, won the feature category in the small division. “The eye-opening series paints aRead More→

Exhibit: Connecting Our Past: The History and Culture of Boston-Thurmond

Posted on December 3, 2024

Come see Connecting Our Past: The History and Culture of Boston-Thurmond, a pop-up exhibition at MUSE Winston-Salem opening December 2, 2024! The exhibit tells stories from the historic Boston community (today often referred to as Boston-Thurmond). Established in 1892, Boston is one of the last intact historically Black neighborhoods in Winston-Salem. In the 1920s and ’30s, Boston was a thriving, self-sufficient, mixed-income community, but like many other historically Black neighborhoods, it was disrupted by numerous “public improvements” such as Cherry/MarshallRead More→

Prof. Barry Yeoman’s Latest: Has the Pork Industry Gone Green?

Posted on June 11, 2024

Posted on behalf of Prof. Barry Yeoman. Four years ago, the world’s largest pork processor settled a lawsuit with more than 500 North Carolinians. The plaintiffs, who live near industrial hog farms, said the stench and flies had made their lives unbearable. Today, the pork industry calls itself “a good steward of the environment” because it captures methane from hog waste and converts it to biogas. Has the industry gone green? Has life improved on North Carolina’s coastal plain? ToRead More→

Prof. Lisa Sorg Joins Inside Climate News

Posted on June 7, 2024

Lisa Sorg, adjunct professor in the Journalism Program, has joined national media outlet Inside Climate News as its North Carolina reporter. She will be covering energy, climate change, the environment and agriculture for ICN, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom. She previously served as an environmental investigative reporter for NC Newsline, based in Raleigh. Prof. Sorg will be teaching JOU 375: Special Topics: Environmental Journalism in the Fall 2024 semester.

Affiliated Journalism Faculty Member Joel Tauber Premieres First Feature Film

Posted on May 31, 2024

Joel Tauber, Associate Professor of Art and an affiliated faculty member for the Journalism Program, recently had a premiere screening for his first feature film, Sick-Amour: A Love Story (2024), at the Carmarthen Bay Film Festival at the Ffwrnes Theatre (Llanelli, Wales, United Kingdom) on May 20 at 3:30 pm, and online, geo-blocked to Wales from May 20-23. The movie has also been nominated by the festival for Best Feature Documentary. More information on the film can be found here.

Journalism Program

Wake Forest University