Faculty Work

Journalism Program Adjunct Lisa Sorg Wins Two Green Eyeshade Awards

Posted on August 10, 2023

Coverage of the catastrophic 2022 Weaver Fertilizer fire in Winston-Salem earned Prof. Lisa Sorg–a Journalism Program adjunct faculty teaching Introduction to Journalism this fall–first-place honors in deadline reporting at the Green Eyeshade Awards. Sorg is an environmental investigative reporter at NC Newsline, a digital nonprofit newsroom based in Raleigh. She covers environmental issues statewide. Her series of stories examined the environmental justice issues facing the neighborhoods near the plant, where 6,000 residents were evacuated. The articles also examined the legalRead More→

WFU-Mellon 2023 Summer Environmental and Epistemic Justice Institute

Posted on July 18, 2023

Five early-to-mid career journalists spent the last week of June on campus for the inaugural class of the Environmental and Epistemic Justice Summer Institute. Led by Melba Newsome, an adjunct instructor in the Journalism Program, the week-long series of workshops provided fellows with feedback from editors from Undark and The Knight Science Journalism program at MIT, and High Country News. Adjunct instructor Lisa Sorg, a reporter NC Newsline, also led a workshop. Here’s a link for more information about the Institute, including a video.

Prof. Barry Yeoman’s Story on Louisiana Tribe’s Fight Against Climate Change Published in Harvard Public Health Magazine

Posted on May 23, 2023

Journalism adjunct professor Barry Yeoman’s story “Reclamation Project” was published in Harvard Public Health Magazine on May 19, 2023. It’s about Devon Parfait, the 25-year-old chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, who is working to prevent coastal land loss on the Louisiana Gulf Coast from harming his tribe. “I’ve been covering Native American tribes in Louisiana since the 2010 BP oil spill, and feel compelled to continue writing about them, because they are at the front linesRead More→

Journalism Program Adjunct Instructor Robert Samuels Wins Pulitzer for Best General Non-Fiction

Posted on May 10, 2023

“His Name is George Floyd,” a non-fiction book co-authored by WFU Journalism Program adjunct and former Washington Post reporter Robert Samuels, was awarded a Pulitzer this Monday, May 8th, 2023, for best general non-fiction. Samuels, who was in conversation at WFU last fall about “His Name is George Floyd,“ is now a staff writer at The New Yorker and will be teaching a deep dive course for WFU during the fall 2023 semester titled, “The American Dilemma: Race, Reporting andRead More→

Apply Now to Join the WFU Environmental and Epistemic Justice Summer Institute!

Posted on February 23, 2023

The Journalism Program is pleased to announce the launch of the Wake Forest University Environmental and Epistemic Justice Summer Institute! The Wake Forest University Environmental and Epistemic Justice Initiative is a multi-pronged Mellon Foundation funded research, teaching, and community engagement project that places at its center environmental and epistemic justice. The Initiative critically examines how and in what ways race and regimes of racial knowledge shape and inform our scholarly practices, public policies, and normative concerns. The Initiative will hostRead More→

A Selection of Notable Longform Journalism from 2022

Posted on December 31, 2022

The below post and corresponding list of longform journalism is provided by Professor Barry Yeoman. It must be December: time to pivot away from my own work and share with you my favorite longform journalism of 2022. Some of the stories play off the news. But scan the list (direct links to the stories above) and you’ll also see mariachi teams, Ukrainian soccer fans, a Spanish DJ, hikers in Kurdistan, swimming cattle, a Pentecostal preacher, and a goose named Goo.Read More→

Prof. Newsome Explores the Effects of Climate Change on Black Families along the Gullah-Geechee Corridor

Posted on December 22, 2022

Independent journalist and adjunct for the WFU Journalism Program, Melba Newsome, recently published an article in The Post & Courier titled “Vanishing land: Climate change displaces Black families along the Gullah-Geechee Corridor.”

Boston Thurmond Documentary Project Receives Grants for Research, Film and Oral History Production

Posted on December 16, 2022

The Journalism Program is excited to announce that the Boston Thurmond Documentary Project has received two grants – a Large Grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, and a Filmed in NC Grant from the Cucalorus Film Festival. The almost $20,000 in funds will facilitate the research and production of films and oral histories from Boston-Thurmond, one of Winston-Salem’s oldest historically Black neighborhoods. This project was established in 2019. Over the past three years, four Wake Forest classes have contributed to theRead More→

Professor Catanoso Reports Whistleblower Exclusive on Enviva’s Green Image

Posted on December 8, 2022

Justin Catanoso, a Professor of the Practice in the Journalism Program and contributor for Mongabay, recently investigated a whistleblower’s claims that Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet producer, had fabricated information about the types of wood used to make its pellets, as well as where it sourced the wood used in pellet production. To learn more, you can read the full story here: “Whistleblower: Enviva claim of ‘being good for the planet… all nonsense’”.

Journalism Instructor Barry Yeoman Publishes in The Nation Magazine

Posted on December 5, 2022

Barry Yeoman, an adjunct instructor in Journalism, has published an article in The Nation about a moral and legal collision in higher education and the workplace. “Here’s the conundrum,” Yeoman said. “We want to ensure harassment-free schools and workplaces. We also want to protect people with disabilities from discrimination. What happens when these imperatives collide?” At the center of the story is a photographer named Lowell Handler, who lost his community college teaching job after two students filed complaints allegingRead More→

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