By Caroline Embleau
Kennesaw State University’s digital news service, Fresh Take Georgia wanted to bring a new perspective to political reporting — by writing about oysters.
The student-produced story, published last February, focused on Georgia's fledgling oyster industry and resulting legislation. The report opened new policy discussions.
"That story ran in over 220 news organizations in the country," said Gary Green, Fresh Take Georgia’s publisher. "Nobody in Georgia was writing that story because it was at a time when they were covering election stuff, so that fresh take was key for us."
The people behind Fresh Take Georgia want to live up to its name. Housed in Kennesaw’s Center for Sustainable Journalism, the digital news service aims to report on state, regional and national affairs with a different lens than most media. Over the past two years, the program raised over $80,000 in grants, donations and in-kind support to increase local reporting.
The students who staff Fresh Take Georgia come from a special topics class taught by professors who double as workforce professionals. Many of the teachers are also full-time reporters, Green said. An editor from the Center of Sustainable Journalism helps too.
The news service partners with media companies — such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Associated Press and Georgia Public Broadcasting — to give students a chance to see their work published for a wide audience.
Students can enroll in the class beyond just one semester or complete a separate internship with Fresh Take.
Fresh Take began in an effort to secure hands-on reporting experience for students. Using a teaching hospital model, the news service allows students to graduate with bylines in professional news organizations and semesters of mentorship.
Students publish their stories on Fresh Take's website, where partner outlets can pick them up. Green also uploads stories and photos to the Associated Press’ content-sharing platform, StoryShare.
"We publish student work on Fresh Take Georgia that is factual, accurate, fair and balanced," he said. If partners see a piece they want to publish, he advises them to "grab it."
Because partners have reporting needs they can now fill, Fresh Take students get to cover a range of topics.
"If there's something happening where [partners] need somebody, or they think students would be a good fit, they call me and say, ‘Do you have anybody covering this?’" Green said. "That's always been a big opportunity for our students."
In 2021, Fresh Take students assisted the AJC with World Series coverage.
The program elevates students' ability to get noticed in the journalism industry, Green said.
"A lot of these students came to us [with] no bylines, no internships, and now they're landing coveted internships and jobs with Atlanta's leading news organizations," he said. "These students would not be going into the industry without this sort of coaching in this environment."
The center that houses Fresh Take also offers resources for students seeking non-reporting jobs in journalism.
"We show them that there are so many other lanes," Green said. "We try to tell the students ... if you love journalism, you understand the value of journalism to democracy in society, you don't have to be a beat reporter."
The Center also trains students for jobs in social media, audience engagement and digital production.
Funded by grants, the Center hires post-graduate fellows who write stories for Fresh Take while searching for full-time jobs.
"It gives them that runway, and they hustle during that time," Green said. "When you've graduated, and your whole job is to produce stories and look for a job, then you can really get some work done."
In the future, Green hopes to make Kennesaw State a flagship for college media in Georgia by becoming a publishing resource for other journalism programs.
"Envision Kennesaw being the central hub of college media, public affairs reporting in the state of Georgia — everybody feeds their content," Green said. "For us, that raises our profile on a state, local and national level."
To get there — and to where Fresh Take is now — requires a lot of work, Green said, most importantly cooperation.
"It takes a lot of resources; you need leadership and the university administration to understand the value of it to the students, the value of it to the community," said Green. "You need people coming together to think differently about journalism."
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