We are excited to welcome Dean Marnel Niles Goins! She is a highly- recognized communication scholar with a deep background in service to the field and we are thrilled to have her at SOC! Check out her introduction in the brief video below:

American University has selected Jonathan Alger as its 16th President. Lauded as “one of America’s great university presidents,” the higher education scholar—who led James Madison University for 12 years— joined the AU community on July 1.

AU SOC Journalism alums, students and friends,

We are thrilled with everything happing in the Journalism Division at AU School of Communication! Please take a couple of minutes to check out what we've been doing.

With the election coming up, we are preparing for lots of political reporting through our classes. AU Journalism students will be reporting from polling places throughout the DMV. 

We even added a couple of one-credit courses this fall around the election. In September we had an extremely popular class titled "Covering the Election on TikTok" and in November we will have a class titled "Covering the Incoming Presidency and the White House."

I hear all the time from our Journalism grad students about how much they love the program and how valuable the experience is in preparing them for exceptional jobs. I also hear them say that they wish our program was better known. We are working on getting more recognition for our Journalism master's program and we could use your help. Please let others know what you already know - AU Journalism is first-rate. Feel free to send anyone wanting more information my way (bryant@american.edu).

As always, we'd love to hear any updates from you.

Have an enjoyable fall!

Terry Bryant

Graduate journalism students toured Capitol Hill, where they received professional press passes and met with Senate Radio-TV Correspondents Gallery Director Mike Mastrian who said that being in the building "makes you part of history." Thanks to Professor Jill Olmsted for facilitating this opportunity!

And our Journalism students will be fully covering the upcoming elections, from covering them live, to sharing election preview stories on thewash.org, to touching on coverage in every class from data to community news reporting. 

The graduate journalism students in Professor Amy Eisman's class visited the stunning and newly renovated NBC4 Wednesday. They received a personal tour and talk with Mike Goldrick, Vice President of News at NBC4 (WRC-TV) and Telemundo44 (WZDC-TV). 

Earlier in the day, they enjoyed career guidance via Zoom from Ted Kim, Director of Newsroom Career Programs at The New York Times. Ted is also an alum of the journalism MA program.

Our 2024 Journalism Fellows are off and running! From documentary filmmaking to covering business, social justice, government and breaking news, these students are starting the year strong.

Dana Munro, The Washington Post/AU Fellow, has already been published in The Post - twice! She has covered both a tight Maryland House race and efforts to clean up the Anacostia River.

You can read one of her most recent stories here.

Joseph Reberkenney, who graduated in May 2024 with a BA in Journalism, had his capstone project published in The Washington Blade this summer. Joe's story, which he produced in Professor Wendy Melillo’s class, explored how queer nightlife in Washington, D.C., is thriving compared to other urban centers in the country. 

SOC's Charles Lewis fellow Katherine Hapgood published an enterprise article looking at disparity in voter turnout and participation between low income voters and high income voters, partnering with Washington City Paper. 

The Investigative Reporting Workshop received a $11,500 grant for its project on anti-trans legislation, led by Aarushi Sahejpal. The project aims to humanize the impact of these laws through comprehensive storytelling.

IRW Post-Graduate Fellow Hayden Godfrey (SOC MA ’23, now a reporter at The Toronto Star) received a byline on the Washington Post investigation “Abused by the Badge,” - a yearlong investigation revealing at least 1,800 law enforcement officers charged with child sexual abuse from 2005 to 2022. Reporters analyzed thousands of court documents and police records to uncover who these officers are and how they gain access to minors.

John Sullivan provided editing. The following IRW fellows and American University-Washington Post practicum students contributed to the investigation and received contributor credit in the Post:  Alex Angle, Madeleine Sherer, Ben Baker, Nicholas Fogleman, Daniela Alejandra Lobo, Mirika Rayaprolu, Nami Hijikata, Solène Guarinos, Alexandra Rivera, Ron Simon III, Cameron Jennings Adams, Dima Amro and Siddhi Prabhanjan Mahatole. 

In another significant investigation, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones, and Reveal released "40 Acres and a Lie," identifying more than 1,200 formerly enslaved individuals. Alexia Fernandez Campbell, a former IRW fellow, was the lead reporter, with contributions from SOC graduate student Audrey Hill and IRW undergraduate fellow Elijah Pittman. The project was edited by IRW executive editor Wesley Lowery.

The 11th annual POLITICO Journalism Institute, or PJI, led by Professor Whitney Harris Christopher, brought 16 students from across the country to AU to learn about all aspects of political reporting from some of our amazing faculty, industry professionals, and recent PJI alums. The students then worked with POLITICO staff to publish stories. PJI works to seed diverse voices into political reporting.

SOC successfully hosted its first Dow Jones News Fund Training program, helping prepare 10 students from around the country for their business journalism internships this summer. The eight-day program was led by veteran SOC adjunct and former executive editor for Bloomberg Industry Group Paul Albergo. It offered a mix of in-class trainings and experiential work that took advantage of AU’s location in D.C. as well as SOC’s faculty.

*If you are an SOC Journalism alumni, we'd love to hear from you. Please send an email to wharris@american.edu and you could be featured in the next alumni update!

Jane Hall’s American Forum interview with Jan. 6 police officers Daniel Hodges and Harry Dunn was featured in a recent CBS “60 Minutes” segment. The officers discussed their experiences during the attack and offered advice for covering trauma.

Aarushi Sahejpal is giving three upcoming talks at Columbia University, focusing on AI in journalism and data visualization. His insights will cover the use of ChatGPT in education and visualizing election data.

Wendy Melillo’s essay, “Fighting for Equality: The Washington Post’s Metro Seven,” was published in the academic journal Journalism History. The article explores how in 1972, seven Black reporters on The Post’s Metropolitan Desk filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an action considered a first against a major national newspaper. 

John C Watson was also interviewed by media reporter Dominick Mastrangelo of The Hill about the journalism ethics violations associated with the secretly recorded and recently released comments of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Margot Susca recently appeared on several media outlets discussing the impact of capitalism and hedge funds on journalism. She appeared on comedian Adam Conover's Factually! podcast and YouTube show, the Disinformation podcast, and on CBC, Canada's largest public broadcaster.

SOC faculty, alumni and graduate students distinguished themselves in August at the annual AEJMC conference in Philadelphia. Sherri Williams earned first-place honors in AEJMC’s 2024 Best Practices in Teaching competition for her project titled “Representing Youth Voices: Amplifying Emerging Journalists.” Margot Susca presented a research paper she completed with student Dima Amro titled “Neither Ghost, Nor Desert But A Metropolitan News Gap: The Omission of Marginalized and Minoritized Communities from The Washington Post’s Local Coverage. Susca also participated in a panel titled “Students Covering Underserved Communities: Extractive Exercise or Democratic Deeds?”  with Willams and former SOC professor Angie Chuang, now at University of Colorado Boulder. Wendy Melillo moderated a panel titled “Media Malpractice: Past and Present Abdication of Moral Responsibility in Journalism and Advertising” that featured presentations by W. Joseph Campbell and John C. Watson. Campbell and Watson also made presentations at a panel that was moderated by SOC Ph.D. alumnus Mladen Petkov and titled “Reporting the Polls in 2024: Error, Pitfalls and What Scholars and Journalists Ought to Know.

Margot Susca and SOC PhD alum Atika Alkhallouf published an article this month in the peer-reviewed NCA journal Critical Studies in Media Communication titled “'Presented as originally created': how Disney profits off racist content from the past on its streaming platform of the future." The paper examines Disney+ to further explore one conglomerate-owned streaming service and shows, through an analysis of corporate records and trade publications using a political economy lens informed by Orientalism, how Disney+ positions itself as the future of media yet relies on “classic” content to fill consumer demand. 

John C. Watson was quoted in an article published by Politifact, the fact-checking website of the Poynter Institute, and helped debunk the claim that President Ronald Reagan made Fox News possible by eviscerating the “Fairness Doctrine.” Reagan worked to eliminate the doctrine, but numerous other factors led to the creation of Fox News.

Watson was also interviewed by media reporter Dominick Mastrangelo of The Hill about the journalism ethics violations associated with the secretly recorded and recently released comments of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Watson was critical of the undercover liberal activist Lauren Windsor as well as the mainstream news organizations that publish her disclosures. “In journalism, using deception to get information is inherently unethical. However, if the information is absolutely important for the public to have and there’s no other way to get it [deception may be warranted] … I have yet to see anything she has done that reaches that threshold.”

Jane Hall recently spoke at Elon University about her book Politics and the Media: Intersections and New Directions, highlighting its significance for the 2024 presidential election. Hall also:

--Provided insights to media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and CBS News regarding the June 27 presidential debate and its implications.

--Analyzed the aftermath of the Biden-Trump debate and a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, contributing to programs on Bloomberg TV and radio, as well as the Associated Press.

--Discussed the historical barriers to electing a female president in the U.S. during an interview with Voice of America TV.