Case Studies | Center for Community News | The University of Vermont(title)

Recent Case Studies

female poll worker chats with voter at a polling place surrounded by election-related signs

UVM Students Provide Critical Election Day Support

Data Journalism Class at University of Houston Partners with Community Impact

University of Oregon’s Catalyst Journalism Project Produces Solutions-Based Investigative Stories and Saves News Outlet

From Students to Reporters: Community Journalism at University of Texas at Austin

Students Collaborate on National Investigations at Northwestern University

More Case Studies

10/24/2024

UVM Students Provide Critical Election Day Support

With the 2024 presidential election nearly upon us, the stakes have never been higher. And while the national contest is getting the most airtime, elections on the state and local level can be just as consequential. After all, the way elected officials govern has a direct and often sizeable...

female poll worker chats with voter at a polling place surrounded by election-related signs

09/12/2024

Data Journalism Class at University of Houston Partners with Community Impact

There’s no shortage of news coverage in Houston. But, “what kind of sets Community Impact apart is our hyperlocal focus,” said Kelly Schafler, the South Houston managing editor for the outlet, which covers the Austin, Texas, and Dallas, Houston and San Antonio metro areas. ...

09/11/2024

University of Oregon’s Catalyst Journalism Project Produces Solutions-Based Investigative Stories and Saves News Outlet

In the spring of 2023, Alexis Weisend published a series of investigative stories revealing how the city of Eugene, Oregon, was skirting the law by evicting the unhoused from encampments without proper notice and aid. The stories won...

09/10/2024

From Students to Reporters: Community Journalism at University of Texas at Austin

Most of the students who start out in Kathleen McElroy’s 2-year-old reporting capstone course at University of Texas at Austin have never been in a real newsroom, said Kevin Vu, a former student. “I think this is a really great opportunity for them to get hands-on experience of...

09/10/2024

Students Collaborate on National Investigations at Northwestern University

When Sela Breen read about Nelson Lee Graham, who died after a Georgia sheriff’s deputy tased him, she wanted to tell the bigger story. “It’s just a horrible story,” she said. “And...

08/23/2024

Bethel University Students Spin Yarns Off Campus and Abroad

Ten years ago, Bethel University’s only journalism professor, Scott Winter, drove the student editor of the campus newspaper he advises, The Clarion, to a job interview with a local magazine editor at an off-campus coffee shop. “She was just rock...

08/05/2024

University of Richmond Community Journalism Goes Abroad

When Kelsey McCabe wrote about the latest charity events and traffic light repairs in South London this summer, echoes of her professor’s words bounced around her head. “It’s not glamorous, but it’s the information people need,” she said Tom Mullen, professor at the University of...

08/05/2024

University of South Carolina Students Learn Investigative Journalism

Riley Edenbeck, a recent graduate at the University of South Carolina, spent nearly three months of her senior spring semester researching and writing about the highly addictive, yet unregulated kratom and kava-infused energy tonic, called Feel Free bottled by Broken Arrow, Oklahoma-based...

08/05/2024

Statewide Student Collaborative in Connecticut Forms to Offer Comprehensive Community Journalism

The Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative (CTSJC) has taken the idea of a news-academic partnership to the next level. Instead of being based at a single university, journalism education leaders in Connecticut have formed a coalition of universities to produce student-reported stories to...

07/30/2024

Stockton University Reshapes Atlantic City Narrative, Gets Students Jobs

Samantha Hildebrandt turned the channel to Fox 5 New York in high school and marveled over the glamorous, well-spoken anchors on her screen. “Wow, that is the coolest job,” she said she remembers thinking. After graduating from Stockton University this past May, Hildebrandt...

07/18/2024

CU-Citizen Access News Outlet Gets Students Their Clips, and the Community Their News

If you pick up Brant Houston’s 2023 book, “Changing Models for Journalism,” you would read about the collapse of traditional media and the changes in the news landscape over the past decade, written by an award-winning journalist who has spent years researching journalism models. ...

07/18/2024

Boston University Statehouse Program Provides Localized Coverage to Outlets Across the State

When Jerry Berger covered the Massachusetts Statehouse for United Press International, he said they had four reporters covering the Legislature. The Associated Press did, too.   Now, the AP has just one reporter roaming the halls of the capitol, and “he covers more than the...

07/08/2024

UVM Launches Nationwide Effort to Grow Local News Reporting at Colleges Across the U.S.

The Center for Community News (CCN) at the University of Vermont (UVM) will dramatically expand efforts to grow partnerships between local news outlets and universities across the country, forging a path to sustainability...

06/07/2024

How Bucket List Community Cafe unites students, universities and community in Denver

Despite the name, Bucket List Community Cafe in Denver does not serve coffee. Instead, it is an online news publication founded by Vicky Collins in 2019 where the emphasis rests on “community” and bringing people together through stories. Most of the team are student interns...

05/31/2024

Brandeis University Student Reporting Provides Community Information to Brookline and Waltham

River Simard wrote an investigative piece on electronic Soofa signs in Brookline, Massachusetts, revealing the digital advertising signs collect data from pedestrian’s phones without residents' knowledge. The Orwellian technology soon became the talk of the town, and views of Simard’s article...

05/31/2024

University of Washington Journalism Program Places Students in Newsrooms in Olympia and Around the World

Jadenne Radoc Cabahug had no idea that a story she wrote for University of Washington’s student-run paper would follow her to the Seattle Times. The piece exposed the fact that a company was partnering directly with sororities to sell college students at-home sexual assault DNA collection kits—-...

05/31/2024

UMass Dartmouth's Student Media Collaborative Creates Journalism Opportunities

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth sold their radio station, WUMD, to Rhode Island Public Radio — since renamed The Public’s Radio — in 2017, laying the groundwork for the launch of their student media community news program. The Student Media Collaborative sprang up within two...

05/31/2024

University of Southern Mississippi to deploy students in 10-county region to confront 'intense news desert'

Starting next fall, The University of Southern Mississippi will roll out an expansive community journalism project to supply a major news desert with people-centric stories. The project, named the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center, will provide opportunities for students at high...

05/31/2024

Creating Real-World Journalism Experience in Southeast Missouri State University

Emma Kratky did not realize the backlash that would ensue when she embarked on an exposé about the hazing culture of fraternities at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO). Soon, the multimedia journalism student was lambasted and received a range of online threats online for her...

05/31/2024

Endicott College “Filling the Gap" in Local Media

The walls of the journalism department corridor at Endicott College are strewn with newspaper clippings. Why? The students’ bylines. “It's like our wall of fame,” said Lara Salahi, the associate professor of broadcast and digital journalism. “It's motivating to the students to actually...

05/31/2024

CUNY School Offers an Outlet for Students, and the City

Jere Hester doesn’t think of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY as a school — he calls it a “training ground.” He doesn’t see himself as "a teacher," nor his students as such. He’s an editor, and they’re all reporters. “From day one, you're working as a...

05/31/2024

University of Florida's Fresh Take Florida Launches Journalism Careers

In southern Florida, the losing Democratic candidate of a special election for a U.S. House seat filed a lawsuit against his winning opponent. Some of the most important reporting cited in the case against the elected Republican legislator was uncovered not by a major news organization, but by a...

05/31/2024

Student-Driven Media is a Staple at Biola University

Near Hollywood, California, there are many reporting operations working to cover local culture, politics, and celebrities. Among the most prolific reporting operations is not a newsroom at all, but a collection of students working out of Biola University. With an array of journalism...

05/31/2024

Gaylord News Brings Statewide and National Coverage to Oklahomans

In December 2016, the last reporter covering Washington D.C. for Oklahoma retired — and with that, a crucial line connecting Capitol Hill to the state was severed. But only for two years. Professors, student journalists and funders mobilized. A local philanthropic foundation empowered...

05/31/2024

Colorado Student News Service Brings Quality Reporting to Underserved Communities

Beth Potter’s newsroom was struggling to keep up with the demands of a 24-hour news cycle with dwindling resources—a problem faced by a growing number of newspapers across the country. When she arrived at the University of Colorado Boulder as an adjunct professor, she did so with a plan that...

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