montanajournalism Awards, Graduate, J-School, Student

Two grad students win fellowships to report from Crown of the Continent

Logo for the Crown of the Continent Reporting Project
The Crown Reporting Project sponsors students at the University of Montana to produce stories about the environment in the Crown of the Continent region.

For the second year in a row, two journalism master’s students from the University of Montana will head into the Crown of the Continent, to report in-depth, unique stories about the landscape and the people who live there. The 2016 Crown Reporting Project Fellows are Nicky Ouellet and Katy Spence. Spence will report on the role of beavers in helping to deal with climate change, while Ouellet will look at how decisions made by forest supervisors affect individuals and communities that depend on the Crown’s forest products for their livelihoods.

Both fellows are graduate students in the University of Montana’s Master’s program in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism. A native of the Kansas, Spence hopes her outsider’s perspective will allow her to approach her story with few preconceptions or biases. “So many people are excited about the possibility of using beavers as a natural water mitigation strategy, but just as many think of them as pests,” she said.

Ouellet’s journey took her from New Hampshire, where she grew up, to Ohio, Russia and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation before she enrolled at UM. She’s currently completing her master’s work on Native American natural resource management. “The Crown Fellowship means I get to spend time with a mycologist chasing down people in the forest and speak with them about what this really unique place means,” she said. “It’s almost an excuse to go camping, learn about the ecology and economy of mushrooms and meet really interesting people – all to produce some great radio that will hopefully connect listeners with a place I love so much.”

head shots of Nicky Ouellet and Katy Spence

Through the Crown Reporting Project, both students will be matched with seasoned journalism professionals who will guide them as they report, produce and pitch their work. In telling her story, Spence plans to combine photography and writing skills she’s cultivated since her time at Truman State University, where she earned a B.A. in English with minors in Biology and Photography. “This story is important for the landscape and for the people within it, and working with a professional journalist to develop it may be the most important journalistic opportunity I’ve ever had,” she said. “I can’t wait to start reporting!”

Ouellet is gearing up to telling her story as a radio piece. She recently won Best in Festival in the student news competition for the Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts, for “An ‘80s Cover Band With Global Dreams.” “The Crown Fellowship is the biggest opportunity this school has to chase down an in-depth story about how people are connected to landscapes,” she said. “And I’m really excited to do that in radio because that takes a lot of time – you have to be there to capture the voices of the people – and this fellowship really makes that possible.”

The Crown Reporting Project was inspired by Ted Smith, a pioneer of large-landscape conservation and lover of the Crown. In 2015, graduate students Ken Rand and Celia Talbot Tobin worked with Chris Joyce, of National Public Radio, and Ted Alvarez, of Grist and Backpacker Magazine, to report stories on aquatic invasive species and mining waste.

By Henriette Lowisch
montanajournalism Awards, Feature, J-School, Montana Kaimin, Student

Dogged Reporter, Peregrine Frissell Wins Hearst Award For Athletic Investigation

Montana Kaimin web editor and reporter, Peregrine Frissell, had never written a sports story before when he started investigating UM’s controversial compliance efforts with NCAA regulations this past October. After being published in the Kaimin on November 4th, 2015, his story, “Unsportsmanlike Conduct,” won 7th in the Hearst Awards competition for Sports Reporting.

photo of Peregrine Frissell holding a small monkey.
Frissell takes a moment to pose for a photo while reporting abroad in Nepal. Photo by Peregrine Frissell.

“Peregrine did a great job of looking at athletics on the UM campus beyond just the scoreboard,” said Nadia White, faculty advisor to the Kaimin. “His story looked at NCAA rules and regulations and examined what those mean for student athletes.”

Frissell’s research involved digging into those regulations and interviewing UM athletic officials and the NCAA representatives to whom they report any infringements. Violations included anything from coaches recruiting high school athletes too aggressively to convictions of current athletes who commit off-the-field incidents. Frissell said talking to public representatives of those departments was challenging because they wanted to keep control of the information they told him during interviews.

Kevin Van Valkenburg, the fall 2015 Pollner professor and advisor to the Kaimin, said, that a lot of journalists would have dropped the story when they heard officials use the term ‘minor infractions’. “Don’t let the administration convince you it’s no big deal. Ask the right questions,” he said. “UM mis-reported and mis-understood the facts, but Peregrine understood the bigger picture here, and he pursued that to explain it in context.”

“I needed every minute I got,” Frissell said, since he only had two weeks to get the story to print. “I’m really thankful to get recognized.”

Yet Frissell has plenty of reporting experience, both in Montana and abroad. He’s been a Global Leadership Initiative fellow at UM and completed studies in the UK and Thailand, as well as working as a reporting intern for the Nepali Times. “I arrived a month after the earthquake and spent much of my time outside of Katmandu, covering earthquake recovery,” he said. “The earthquake was tragic, but I enjoyed my experience there.”

Back on the UM campus, Frissell has worked with the Montana Journalism Review (MJR) as both an editor and a reporter, and he’s now pursing political stories on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana as part of the class Native News.

“Peregrine is a dogged reporter. He’s critical and curious, and his instincts are spot on,” Nicky Ouellet said. As a graduate student, she’s overseen his work at MJR and now for Native News. “He’s the type of reporter an editor hopes for—capable of following a tip to create a deeply reported and contextualized story. I’ve enjoyed working with him and can’t wait to see what he pops out in the future.”

Scheduled to complete his journalism degree in May, Frissell said he wants to report in the US for a couple of years and then go back abroad. “I’m still waiting to hear back about potential jobs and internships,” he said.

However, Van Valkenburg has high hopes for Frissell’s future. “He reads a lot and is interested in things of public interest and importance,” he said. “Peregrine will make a great investigative reporter.”

Catch the latest news updates with Peregrine Frissell via Twitter.

By Jana Wiegand
montanajournalism Awards, Feature, J-School, Student

Sarah Yovetich: Covering Breaking News & Winning A Hearst Award Too

selfie of Sarah Yovetich
Photo by Sarah Yovetich.

Commercial radio may be Sarah Yovetich’s first love, but a story she produced for UM News in the fall semester won 12th place in the Hearst Awards TV News category. The piece, “Budget Cuts Result From Decreased Enrollment, State Funding at University of Montana,” took three weeks of research, interviews and editing to compact the news into a minute and 36-second long story.

Yovetich’s photographer for the piece, Peter Riley, pitched the idea after the budget cuts were released right before Thanksgiving break. “We never thought anything was going to come out of it,” Yovetich said. But the campus unrest that followed proved otherwise.

“It’s not just teachers that care, but students,” Yovetich said. “It proved enrollment’s a thing to be worried about.”

However, her research took a step back from the students and staff responding to the university’s proposed budget cuts capture a broader perspective and ask the question, “were the budget cuts out of line?”

“This was a strong story because Sarah found a new angle on UM’s budget cuts by digging into the history of state funding for higher education,” said Ray Fanning, associate professor who co-teaches UM News. “She discovered that at the same time enrollment was falling, the state legislature was reducing its allocation to UM.”

Ray Ekness, who co-teaches UM News with Fanning, agreed. “Sarah did some really good work in UM News this past semester, and it’s nice to see that she’s being recognized for that.”

Yovetich’s worked with Ekness ever since her first introductory journalism class, and she dropped her political science and business majors to switch to journalism. “I loved him and everyone in the journalism department,” Yovetich said. “I really lucked out finding journalism.”

During the summer between her freshman and sophomore year, Yovetich worked as a campus anchor for Montana Public Radio, and since then she’s transitioned to other commercial radio stations in Missoula. She covers news stories for KGVO during the week as an on-air broadcaster and reporter. “Some of the newscasts I do everyday are sent state-wide, so you’ll be able to hear me in different cities, which is kind of cool.”

On weekends, she turns into a DJ for the show “Campus Connection” on 107.5 ZooFM. Yovetich said, “I love relating my life to others and connecting with the community.”

Back on campus, Yovetich just finished serving a full year as the president of the Alpha Phi sorority’s Chi Chapter. The sorority’s helped her with scholarships and academics, as well as serving as a second family to her. Yovetich helped return the support to her sisters through motivational Instagram posts that share her dedication to power-lifting regimes. She now holds five state records in the squat, bench press, and dead lift.

“It’s hard being a senior and balancing that stuff,” Yovetich said. “School’s definitely taking a precedence this year.”

When she graduates in May, Yovetich’s ready to take her journalism skills beyond Missoula. She’s staying open to opportunities in both broadcast and radio fields to continue gaining more experience.

“She’s always been working in things like radio,” Ekness said. “Now she’s stepping out in television, so it’s kind of exciting for us.”

Tune into 107.5 ZooFM on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am-3pm to hear Sarah Yovetich hosting the “Campus Connection.”

By Jana Wiegand