Three University of Nebraska-Lincoln students, Samantha Grove of Lincoln, Jordan Moore of Lincoln and Shelby Rickert of Beaver City were selected to participate in the 2024 Carnegie-Knight News21 Program hosted at Arizona State University.
The Carnegie-Knight News21 Program is a prestigious national reporting initiative at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. This program brings together top journalism students from across the United States to collaborate on in-depth multimedia projects for prominent media outlets like The Washington Post, NBC News, and USA Today.
This year, twenty-nine student journalists representing 14 universities will work on a new reporting project examining the state of American democracy. The 2024 project announcement comes just weeks after the 2023 project "America After Roe" won the prestigious Grand Prize in the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards.
"This year's presidential race is the first since the 2021 siege on the U.S. Capitol, the first featuring a former president with felony convictions, and the first amid the rapid rise of artificial intelligence," said News21 Executive Editor Pauline Arrillaga. "Distrust in the system has increased even as disinformation campaigns have surged."
This spring, our three Huskers fellows attended a weekly virtual seminar to fully immerse themselves in the state of American democracy. In May, they joined fellow student journalists to work with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and other media and communications experts for ten weeks at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication to produce nationally distributed news media projects.
Grove, a May 2024 graduate, looks forward to enhancing her storytelling and multimedia skills.
"I am looking forward to being able to use all of the knowledge and skills I have built up over the past four years to draw attention to the concerns and issues impacting communities around the U.S. I look forward to traveling and reporting in the places our stories take us," Grove said. "I am enjoying all of the work that leads up to the end of this program, but I am most looking forward to producing content that draws attention to human stories that speak to the state of American democracy."
Grove is passionate about telling human stories and addressing complex subjects in a way that resonates with the broader public.
"My perspective as a media content developer and a journalist enables me to imagine the ways that multimedia can help better tell a story," Grove said. "My passion is telling human stories, and being part of News21 will help me learn how to do that even better."
Moore, a May 2024 graduate, discovered her passion for photography during high school. After taking her first photography class, her interest in visual storytelling led her to declare a major in journalism at the CoJMC.
"Going into college, I knew that I wanted to follow a career path that combined my love of taking photos with my curiosity to connect with members of my community," Moore said. "Declaring my journalism major helped me realize that my greatest future aspiration is to be a writer and visual journalist."
For Moore, covering the state of American democracy has given her an immense sense of responsibility.
"Striving for accuracy in narratives that truly capture the experiences of all individuals can feel overwhelming," Moore said. "At the same time, having this platform is a privilege, given the importance and relevance of the subject matter in the country."
Shelby Rickert, a junior journalism major, is dedicated to sharing the human experience through journalism.
"The one thing I know I am meant to do is to share the human experience," Rickert said. "I look forward to using these skills to zoom in on broad topics currently impacting people in the world by sharing personal experiences in authentic, accurate ways that resonate with the general public."
Building on her foundational journalism skills, Rickert aims to tell more personal stories that give readers a closer look at broader subjects.
"Elections are part of a functioning democracy, but it's the people we're focusing on," Rickert said. "And it's kind of daunting to do that because everything is so complex, and you want to represent your sources as they are without it getting lost in translation amid all of the politics."
To learn more about the Carnegie-Knight News21 Program, visit https://news21.com/.
