Beatrice 6 Information
https://journalstar.com/special-section/_full/presumed_guilty.html
I did this as a freelance project with the Lincoln Journal Star. 2019 is the 10th anniversary of their award-winning package "Presumed Guilty," and they wanted it adapted into a podcast version to commemorate the stories. Like the original project, the podcast goes over Helen Wilson's rape and murder in Beatrice in 1985, the process that led to the Beatrice Six being convicted in 1989, and then their exonerations in 2008, and it comes into the present by looking at the $28.1 million payout Gage County owes the Six. It sounds like a simple timeline but there are so many unbelievable twists and turns.
I used my experience with podcasts from being the senior news editor at The Daily Nebraskan to go through the original stories -- written by Catherine Huddle and Joe Duggan -- and create a podcast script. It was a lot of work but honestly pretty easy to do with such a fascinating story and incredible writing and reporting from Cathy and Joe.
After creating the script, I recorded myself reading it (in the process getting over the anxiety-inducing experience of listening to your own voice) and then added in audio from the Six's interrogation tapes and music. I also recorded interviews with Cathy Huddle and Chris Dunker so the podcast would include even more insights on the case and more information about the tax-wrangle to pay back the Beatrice Six for their wrongful convictions.
Elizabeth Rembert Profile
| Hometown: | Bow Valley , NE 68739 United States |
| Major(s) while at CoJMC : | Journalism (formerly News-Editorial) |
| Minor(s) while at CoJMC : | Arabic |
| Name a person who helped you be successful at Nebraska and how: : | Joe Weber: he encouraged my interest in business journalism and pushed me to apply for the internship program at Bloomberg. |
| Where are you currently working and what are you doing? : | Bloomberg, I'm finishing up the internship program where I've been covering banks with the finance team. |
| What was your first job postgrad and how do you think it helped you grow in your career? : | Bloomberg -- it's shown me that I'm really interested in business journalism and helped re-shape my idea of news and how I can contribute to news. |
| What is one CoJMC class that impacted your current career? : | Joe Weber's business journalism class. |
| Fill in the blank: "The best thing about being a Husker is ___________________.": | The sense of loyalty and family. |
| Are you currently working on any special projects? : | Yes, I'm working on a couple of stories at Bloomberg: a feature on cannabis banking and another examining how for-profit prisons will cope with the biggest banks cutting financial ties with the industry. |
| Any funky talents or hobbies? Life changing experiences? : | Nothing funky but in my free time I love to lift weights, read and cook. |
| Have you completed any other degrees postgraduate? If so, where, when and path of study:: | n/a |
| When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? : | I didn't know what I wanted to be, but I did start a newspaper as a little girl -- it covered the news on my family farm and it was called "The Farm Fresh News." It covered things like newborn kittens and where the cows were on the farm that particular day. |
| What would you say is the most important skill or quality to have "out in the real world"?: | Flexibility |
| Why should Nebraska students enroll in CoJMC courses? : | COJMC courses give you a place to learn the foundation for a field that typically doesn't have structure -- embrace the opportunity to learn journalism without a 10-minute deadline. |
| What advice do you have for current students, prospective students? : | Don't think about journalism as a set thing -- don't think of yourself specifically as a long, enterprise feature writer. You'll be so much more valuable to a newsroom if you're willing to enthusiastically take anything they throw at you. |
