montanajournalism Awards, J-School, Student

15 J-School Students Win Awards from the SPJ

A week ago, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) released its Mark of Excellence awards, and 15 UM journalism students were announced as category winners in Region 10, encompassing Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Yet even more J-school students received acknowledgment for their work, recognized as finalists in those same categories.

SPJ logo

“The wide range of projects that we’re being noticed for includes the entire spectrum of journalism, covered in these awards, and that’s pretty cool,” Ray Ekness said, professor and director of student success.

Professor and director of faculty affairs, Dennis Swibold agreed. “It just seems like the whole gamut of what we teach is getting national honors,” he said. “If we’re not just good, but good at lots of things, that proves we have a well-rounded program.”

SPJ set their standards high and stated that in their contests, if none of the entries received rose to a level of journalistic excellence, they would refrain from giving out that award. However, UM students rose to the challenge and received recognition in categories that covered photography, reporting, writing, radio, online and television pieces. Six of these students were selected for at least two different projects, and some even received awards in different mediums.

“To see it happening across the range is very rewarding. We’ve encouraged them to be more than one kind of journalist and it shows,” Swibold said. “Students are becoming ambidextrous and proving that they work well across different mediums.”

Swibold cited senior Sojin Josephson as the apex example for accomplishing exactly that. Josephson won in the sports writing category and was a finalist in the television feature and television general news reporting categories. Her winning piece, “Kicking and breathing: Daniel Sullivan’s body quit football, but Sullivan couldn’t quit the game,” which she wrote for the Montana Kaimin, will go on to compete at the national level.

The 14 other winners also compete at the national level against students from different regions and recognized in the same category.

Not only were students’ individual projects honored, but the SPJ recognized UM’s Student Documentary Unit and the UM News class for their collective work.

“In class, students aren’t just talking about doing journalism, they’re going out there and doing it—class work is extended beyond class,” Swibold said. “I’m proud to see the fruits of last year’s labor pay off. There’s a lot of excitement in the department right now. We’re small, but we know the students and we’re very accessible to them.”

The UM School of Journalism is currently ranked 8th in the nation and celebrated its centennial birthday in 2014. National winners in the SPJ 2015 Mark of Excellence Awards will be announced later this spring, and will be honored at the Excellence in Journalism convention in New Orleans, running from September 18th-20th.

The complete list of Region 10 SPJ awards results is available on their website.

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