A unique collaboration involving six students from the journalism program enabled a three-part series airing on WFDD this past week. 

 

Mandy Locke, adjunct instructor in the journalism program, led the reporting project and involved students through an independent study. The students were critical in building a database that served as a lynchpin for the project’s final piece on the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem as a leading evictor in the county.

 

Other partners included WFDD and the Carolina Data Desk at UNC School of Media in Journalism in Chapel Hill. Locke’s work was funded in part by The Knight Foundation. Locke worked with WFDD reporters to explore why the Triad tops lists for cities with high concentrations of evictions and racial mortgage discrimination. Locke, an investigative journalist based in Raleigh, worked with the reporters and students to unpack data and plug holes with public records to deepen their reporting. 

 

Students worked over two semesters to research properties in a “redlined” community in Greensboro, interview families evicted in Forsyth County and build a database that enabled WFDD to fully explain the depth of the housing authority’s role in evictions. (Hyperlinks to the three parts of the series)

 

Students included graduating seniors David Ajamy, Kellie Shanaghan and Karringtan Harris, alumnus Sebastian Pellejero, rising senior Jessica Clifford and rising junior Melissa Cooney.