SOC alum Kex Rhodes' design for Earth Day 2024

Benjamin Stokes hosted a delegation from Pakistan in the Game Center as part of a US Department of State initiative on “Bridging the Gender Divide through Inclusion of Women Entrepreneurs in Gaming, Tech, and Freelancing.” 

Benjamin also gave a talk at the annual meeting of the Public Library Association in Columbus, Ohio, on the topic of “Engaging Beyond Our Walls.”

Benjamin’s class on “Playful Cities” presented their final designs at the MLK Library to library staff for hands-on playtesting in their labs. The projects were all interactive storytelling boxes for public libraries, featuring topics including the historic March on Washington and an interactive book cart that nudged patrons to broaden their reading selection.

Samantha Hogan (SOC BA ’15, MA ’16), Savanna Strott (SOC BA’ 20) and Jana Cholakovska (IRW summer fellow 2023) are 2024 Livingston Awards finalists in local reporting. The prestigious Livingston Awards honor the best reporting and storytelling by journalists under the age of 35 across all forms of journalism. More information on the awards and links to the nominees’ work is available here.

Peter King, former Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports columnist covering the NFL, visited Adjunct Professor Robert Klemko's Sports Journalism class this past Monday. King is a three-time winner of the Sportswriter of the Year Award bestowed by the National Sports Media Association. Three SOC students, Charlotte Becker, Richa Sharma and Beckett Harrison, interviewed King during class. The event was recorded by ATV student media and will be uploaded to YouTube. SOC students Lindsay Morin and Sydney Muench served as the videographers.

SOC students interviewed former Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports columnist Peter King as part of their Sports Journalism class.

IRW's three-year partnership with reporters at Public Health Watch led to second place for the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability for a series in 2023 about "Toxic Texas Air," including one story that revealed the state's failure to protect citizens from companies polluting the air with deadly and dangerous chemicals, particularly benzene. The story revealed that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality knew about but failed to stop high benzene emissions from a chemical storage site in the unincorporated, majority-Latino community of Channelview, Texas, for nearly two decades. IRW interns Jana Cholakovska, now a New York-based freelancer, and Nazmul Ahasan, now at Bloomberg News, co-reported these stories, as did former IRW intern and AU graduate Savanna Strott, now at PHW.  

As a direct result of their reporting, nearly 100 people attended a town hall addressing the issue in Channelview. The articles are  available in Spanish, and the team created an interactive map showing the fine-particle pollution levels in Texas.

One judge wrote, “This project unmasked how Texas weakened environmental standards to protect industry over disadvantaged neighborhoods and created an ever-worsening public health threat. The reporting exposed a pattern of repeatedly loosening regulations when manufacturers exceeded legal limits on emissions.” Another judge praised the “painstakingly reported series on the willful failure of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to protect the health and safety of those living near petrochemical plants. Sweeping reporting.”

In other awards news: Former IRW intern Hannah Levitan, now a senior at Tulane University, and Public Health Watch's Kim Krisberg received a First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists' Fort Worth chapter for a story about the increase in diabetes rates in Texas. The state has the nation’s highest uninsured rate and is among 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The project was co-published by The Texas Tribune and Harvard Public Health. 

Ace Roth is a FMA undergrad and in their sixth semester serving as a student employee for SOC Technology. Having ample experience in MIL Productions, Ace has stepped into a lead role this semester as the Tech Director for Professor Terry Bryant’s COMM 487's (Broadcast Journalism) weekly newscasts. Tech direction is a challenging, fast-paced job that involves punching in graphics/effects and transitions all in real time. Not only does Ace help lead and guide all other facets of the production, but their dedication and success at tech directing has been critical to the newscast's weekly success.

PC Adjunct Matt Charles has published a new book titled Sh*t Show: An Unexpected Life in Crisis and Risk Management, which is described as "a colorful walk through the life and career of a person who has served as a special investigator, nonprofit foundation communications director, spokesperson, professor and was a high-end EF3 tornado and bus crash survivor." The book is available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.  

Christie Parell's Crisis Communication class visited the U.S. Capitol Police headquarters to meet with the communications team and learn about their crisis response methods, handling of sensitive information, and operational changes that have been implemented since the Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection.

Prof. Parell and her class at the U.S. Capitol Police HQs

Special: SOC at the 2024 Peabodys

Aarushi Sahejpal is a Peabody nominee this year for his work on the COVID Tracking Project Podcast that came out last year. When the podcast was released last April, Aarushi wrote about his work for IRW.

SOC MA journalism alum Monika Evstatieva is one of the Radio/Podcast nominees for a Peabody Award for her work on NPR’s “How the Far Right is Making Voting Fraud Easier,” a months-long reporting project uncovering the conservative movement working to sabotage the system despite the Republican Party’s claims that it is dedicated to catching and rooting out voting improprieties. Monika did the audio.

Professor Ben Stokes has become the first Chief Advisor for Interactive for the Peabody bringing in game and interactivity awards to the Peabodys.

The Center for Media and Social Impact have also partnered with the Peabody Institute on a series of podcasts interviewing Peabody Award winning directors/ producers.

Peabody winners will be announced on May 9.