Program News

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.

Wake Forest Junior Melina Traiforos (’25) Wins Pulitzer Center Fellowship

Posted on May 9, 2024

The Pulitzer Center has selected Melina Traiforos, a third-year English major and journalism and marketing communications minor, as Wake Forest’s 2024 Reporting Fellow. Traiforos will receive a $3,000 stipend to report on Black maternal health disparities and inequalities low-income women face in the health care system. Her research project, titled “Black Mothers Are Dying. Here’s What NYC’s Doulas Are Doing About It,” will focus on the stories and outcomes behind an initiative taking place in New York City to addressRead More→

Journalism Student Work Published by NC Newsline

Posted on May 7, 2024

Students in Prof. Lisa Sorg’s spring 2024 Environmental Journalism course have had their work published by NC Newsline! Below are summaries of and links to their stories. Journalism minor and finalist for this year’s Bynum G. Shaw Prize in Student Journalism Hope Zhu’s (’24) produced a story titled “There are 21 food deserts in Winston-Salem, a legacy of racist redlining that persists today,” dives into the connection between the city’s racist redlining and food insecurity, as well as the workRead More→

Alumni Highlights: Kiley Price (’19)

Posted on May 1, 2024

Kiley Price (’19) was recently hired as a reporter at Inside Climate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom that provides essential reporting and analysis on climate change, energy and the environment. Along with covering longer stories, she writes the outlet’s newsletter “Today’s Climate,” which explores the most pressing environmental news each week. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, Time Magazine, Live Science, Mongabay, Scientific American and more. In 2023, Kiley earned her master’s degree in science journalism from NewRead More→

Z. Smith Reynolds Library and Journalism Program Faculty Discuss Threat of Mis/Disinformation with Alumni

Posted on April 25, 2024

Original blog post written by Hu Womack and Roz Tedford. It had been four years since we last visited Wake Washington. That visit to present and discuss mis/disinformation happened just weeks before COVID-19, and we promised not to be harbingers of disaster this time! Just to make sure, we changed our topic to “Election Mis/Disinformation: How to Spot it, why it’s Effective, and What We Can Do to Avoid It.” Twenty WFU Alumni and friends joined us on a beautifulRead More→

2024 Bynum G. Shaw Prize Awarded to Maddie Stopyra; Four Finalist Prizes Awarded to Breanna Laws, Shaila Prasad, Bella Ortley-Guthrie, Hope Zhu

Posted on April 25, 2024

Each year, the Journalism Program at Wake Forest University honors a student journalist with the Bynum G. Shaw award. The award is named for Bynum Shaw, a WFU alumnus (’48) who worked as a Washington correspondent, European correspondent and editorial writer for the Baltimore Sun following his graduation. Shaw returned to Wake Forest as a faculty member of journalism and creative writing in 1965 and at his retirement in 1993, friends, colleagues and former students contributed to a fund endowingRead More→

Senior Journalism Minor Secures Reporting Fellowship at The Chronicle of Higher Education

Posted on April 5, 2024

After graduating in May, Journalism minor Christa Dutton (’24) will work as a Reporting Fellow at The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle selects two fellows each year to work as general assignment reporters. Fellows cover a multitude of issues in higher education from student activism to finance to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion legislation. The Chronicle received close to 150 applications this year. Applicants must complete three rounds of interviews, submit five clips to showcase their writing skills, and pitch threeRead More→

New York Times Publishes Journalism Professor Phoebe Zerwick’s Piece on Deathbed Visions

Posted on April 1, 2024

Professor Phoebe Zerwick’s article, “What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living,” was published by the New York Times in mid-March. The piece, which describes hospice physician Chris Kerr’s personal and professional encounters with deathbed visions along with Prof. Zerwick’s own encounter with the phenomenon during her mother’s final moments, has drawn wide engagement since publication, with around 1,400 commenters sharing their own experiences with deathbed visions and what they learned from them. To read Prof. Zerwick’s article, please click here.Read More→

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