Program News

The WFU Journalism Program adds its name to a letter in support of a free press

Posted on April 28, 2025

The Journalism Program signed on this week to a letter in support of a free press, to be delivered to the White House and Congress on May 1. For the full list of signatories, follow this link. The text of the letter is copied below: We, the undersigned, write to express our deep concern over the escalating hostility toward the free press under the current executive and legislative leadership in Washington, DC. A series of actions have undermined the foundationalRead More→

OG&B Editor-in-Chief Ella Klein wins Bynum G Shaw Prize in Journalism

Posted on April 21, 2025

Journalism faculty awarded the annual Bynum G. Shaw prize for student journalism to Ella Klein, editor-in-chief at the Old Gold & Black. Klein is an Environmental and Sustainability Studies major, with minors in Journalism and Anthropology. The program also recognized three finalists: Virginia Noone, former OG&B opinion editor; Sklyer Villamar-Jones, deputy editor; and Beza Zelalem, environmental editor. The prizes were announced at the English Department awards celebration April 16 in the Magnolia Room. The OG&B’s Arts and Culture editor Adam Coil,Read More→

Reporting for WFDD, journalism minor tells the story of the April 11 execution by firing squad in South Carolina

Posted on April 11, 2025

Third-year student Alexandra Meier produced this story about the execution by firing squad in South Carolina of a man with ties to Winston-Salem. It aired April 11, the day of the execution. As Meier reports, Mikal Madhi was sentenced to death in the murder of an off-duty police officer in South Carolina. He was also convicted of an earlier killing here in Forsyth County of a convenience store clerk and sentenced to life in prison. Meier produced the story asRead More→

Journalism Program hosts lunchtime roundtable on the challenge of reporting on the Trump administration

Posted on April 9, 2025

Despite our low approval rating among the general public, we journalists are among the most idealistic, hard-working and generous people I know. The same is true of college professors. One of the things I enjoy most about directing the Journalism Program is to bring people from both groups together, feed them, and listen to the wisdom that follows. At the end of March, Journalism hosted a lunchtime roundtable for faculty and local journalists to talk about the challengesRead More→

Natalie Alms (’20) earns reocognition for her coverage of the Trump administration

Posted on April 9, 2025

Natalie Alms (’20) found herself at the forefront of covering the shakeup in our federal government this year in her beat as government tech reporter for NextGovFCW. In the past weeks, she has written about Elon Musk’s efforts at DOGE to access Social Security data, job cuts among those who run disease tracking systems at the Centers for Disease Control, IRS data and more. The Journalism Program asked Alms to reflect on this moment in her career. “When I graduatedRead 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→

Editorial page editor at the Winston-Salem Journal joins journalism adjunct faculty

Posted on March 31, 2025

Allen Johnson, executive editorial page editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, joined to the Jorunalism faculty and will teach a “deep dive” on race and the media in the fall. Johnson also is in charge of the opinion pages of the Winston-Salem Journal. That means he writes columns and editorials as well as edits other opinion content for both papers. Before joining the News & Record, he was editor of a local Black weekly, the Winston-Salem Chronicle, forRead 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→

Workshop on journalism and social justice with NABJ teacher of the year

Posted on March 27, 2025

Dr. Sherri Williams, assistant professor of journalism at American University and former research fellow at the Anna Julia Cooper Center at WFU, will lead a lunchtime workshop for students on April 1 on reporting on social justice. Registration is required. Students will meet with Williams in ZSR 665 between 11 and 12:30. Williams will also give a talk at 4 pm in Benson about her book Black Social Television:How Black Twitter Changed Television. She won the JournalismRead More→

Journalism minor publishes feature in Italian magazine Ytali Global

Posted on March 20, 2025

Second-year student Caroline Khalaf published a profile last month about a Venetian photographer in the Italian online magazine Ytali Global. Khalaf reported and wrote “Pictures Called me Home” for her Magazine Writing class with Prof. Phoebe Zerwick at Casa Artom during fall 2024. Khalaf is a news editor at the OG&B and a journalism minor. A second Magazine Writing student, Hannah Reynolds, published her profile “Rediscovering Masterpieces: Liesl Odenweller and the Venice Music Project” the following month. Updated April 11.

Journalism Program

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