By Dacee Dey University of Nebraska-Lincoln Emily Hemphill-Johnson's interest in writing began at a young age. She joined the local 4-H club when she was 8 years old and served as club news reporter. “I would write down what happened and I’d send it to the newspaper where everybody could read it," Hemphill-Johnson, now 25, said in an interview. "My name would get printed by it and I thought it was the coolest thing." Now, as editor of The Milford Times she helps prepare the layout of the weekly paper, meets with staff for story budget meetings and assigns reporters to cover stories. Hemphill-Johnson is also a reporter for the Seward County Independent, where she makes phone calls, sets up stories, interviews people, takes photos and writes. There is no such thing as a typical day when working at a small-town newsroom, she said “It’s always different. News is always happening, so it’s not like you can just clock in every morning and then clock out every night at the same time,” said Hemphill-Johnson. “Some weeks I’m at my desk all week doing things over the phone, and then some weeks I’m like, ‘When am I going to write this?' Because I’m never here, I’m out doing interviews and talking to people and getting photos to go along with it,” she said. Hemphill-Johnson said she prefers working at a weekly paper. "I feel like I do more,” she said. “I get to talk to more people during the week.” When she worked at the daily newspaper the Beatrice Daily Sun, she typically had one story a day. As a weekly reporter, she writes five to 15 stories a week. “That’s the thing about being a weekly paper, is yeah we have a little bit more time to work on things, but we also have more stuff that’s on our list all the time,” she said. One of the biggest challenges faced at a small town newspaper is the reaction of the community and readers. “You’re dealing with the community all the time because they are the ones reading your stories and giving you feedback and giving you story ideas,” said Hemphill-Johnson. “If something’s not right, you’re going to hear about it, especially in a small town.” Hemphill-Johnson said it is important to be community minded. “It’s kind of a balancing act,” she said. “It’s important to keep in mind the people and putting out what makes readers happy, but also covering news.” Hemphill-Johnson said that readers call in and want a story on something that may not be considered news, but the paper will run it because it wants readers to serve its readers. Often times, readers get upset when bad things are written about a person or a town. “People love reading about the good things, but you can’t always do that because bad stuff does happen and you have to cover that too,” said Hemphill-Johnson. As a reporter, she enjoys meeting people. One of the most memorable stories she covered was the story of an African refugee and his journey from eastern Sudan to Milford, Nebraska. “You just meet all sorts of interesting people,” said Hemphill-Johnson. “It’s not always easy and you’ll be uncomfortable a lot, but you get to do so many things that you wouldn’t normally get to do.” Hemphill-Johnson attended Concordia University in Seward, where she worked at the student newspaper, called the Sower, and climbed her way up from there. Growing up in a small town, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to attend college. “Initially, I wasn’t planning on going to college, but my parents were like, ‘No, it’s something you need to do.’ So I went to Concordia because it was close to home and I didn’t really know where I wanted to be yet," she said. During her time at Concordia, she took an internship at the Seward County Independent and then accepted a full-time job there after graduating in 2014. Hemphill-Johnson then worked at the Beatrice Daily Sun 2014. An editor position at The Milford Times opened up in July of 2015, so Hemphill-Johnson jumped on the opportunity and returned to her small town roots, where she's been ever since.
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By Daniela Rincón University of Nebraska-Lincoln Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Julio Sánchez Cristo has made his voice heard all over the world. From the land of coffee to Panamá, Miami, New York and Madrid, "Julito," as his audience calls him, has become the icon of Colombian journalism. SánchezCristo has been working in radio for 44 years. Coming from a family of radio personalities, he said he never found his passion in soccer as most of his generation did. He rather found himself in the mountains playing with transmitters without knowing that this would be the beginning of a lifetime passion. “I was fortunate to grow up with broadcasters who liked to explore the world,” Sánchez Cristo said in a phone interview that was translated into English. At the age of 17, Sánchez Cristo quit his studies of communication in Bogotá to undertake a new life in Europe and the United States, where he studied TV production and direction. A journalism degree was not necessary for Sánchez Cristo to venture into the world of communication. He admitted that he would have never learned how to be in this field in a school of Journalism. “In order to be a voice that is heard, it is (worthwhile) to study or combine your degree with law, philosophy, art, languages or sociology studies,” Sánchez Cristo said. After exploring several media outlets and training himself empirically, he came back to his roots and started working in radio. Sánchez Cristo 58, is now the director of the radio station W Radio, a widely recognized international news station in Colombia. It is also ranked as the most listened radio station in the country for the morning section thanks in part to Sánchez Cristo's program “La W.” W Radio belongs to the PRISA group of Spain, which has global media organizations that report about culture, politics, economy, sports and more. From 5 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Friday, Sánchez Cristo transmits local and worldwide events and interviews the main actors of Colombian news. The signal is re-transmitted in more than 70 stations syndicated in the U.S, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panamá, Chile, Argentina and Spain. “Aquí empieza las noticias de Colombia y el mundo,” meaning the news starts here in Colombia and the world, Sánchez Cristo repeats at 5 a.m. each day after reading between 10-12 newspapers. He then delivers instructions to his team and gives the signal to start transmission. Listeners in more than 150 countries have heard interviews of personalities such as Barack Obama, Dania Londoño, Hillary Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Paul McCartney, to name a few. Before 1990, these personalities seemed unattainable for any journalist since the radio industry in Colombia was isolated from international news. Some believe Sánchez Cristo marked a turning point that opened the doors of the world to the radio in Colombia. "I added globalization. I brought a universe previously (non-existent) here," said Sánchez Cristo. Sánchez Cristo has won journalism awards in his home country. In 2007, he was granted the Simón Bolívar Award and then in 2012 he and his show won the Ondas Award for the "Best Ibero-American Radio Show. In 1998 and 2013, he received the King of Spain Award. This latter was given for an interview with Dania Londoño Suárez, a prostitute who became part of a scandal in 2012 when it was revealed among her clients were U.S. Secret Service agents who were in Colombia to accompany Obama. The interview was published in major newspapers in the United States and all kinds of media around the world. "Colombian journalism doesn't cease to amaze me. Its unique flavor and in my medium, the instantaneous coverage, make every day unexpected," said Sánchez Cristo. Sánchez Cristo's format pioneered a strong international following. Listeners can call in and give their opinion about the topic of the day. "People always have something to tell, something to add," he said. "They all have ... news inside. We need to place the voice of others before our own." Sánchez Cristo's goal is to remain silent as long as possible, listening carefully. "The less you speak, the less the margin of error will be," he said. By Sophia Nocera University of Nebraska-Lincoln Covering crime for a living is both a rewarding and at times draining job for Andrew Nelson, who covers breaking news and politics for the Omaha-World Herald . On an average day, Nelson, 43, wakes up around 7:30 a.m. He eats breakfast, catches up on news, exercises and runs errands. His shift begins at 1 p.m. “I’m the middle man between people who work normal day shifts and the people who work night shifts,” Nelson says. “I know my wife wishes that I had normal hours, but I don’t really mind it.” As a member of the breaking news team, Nelson responds to any breaking news, listens to police scanners and is ready to be first on the scene to get the story. One of these stories was the February 2016 standoff between Kenneth Clark and the brothers of his ex, Julie Edwards. John and Jason Edwards were helping their sister move out of Clark’s home. One of the brothers called 911 and told an operator that he was shot, but it took law enforcement 40 minutes to find the brothers. Nelson was called into work at around 12:30 p.m. that day. “Another reporter was there, but he realized we needed more manpower. I left my house and went straight to the scene,” Nelson recalled. When police arrived on the scene, an 11-hour standoff began. Eventually a SWAT team went into the house and found that the brothers, John and Jason Edwards, were already dead. One question took over public debate after the tragic murders: Why did it take the police so long to get there? “A lot of people think that 911 is like Uber and they automatically know where you are. That’s just not how the technology works,” Nelson said. Instead of condemning the efforts of the 911 operators and police, Nelson took the opportunity to inform the public about the situation and possible avenues that could prevent a similar crisis. Nelson got his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of South Dakota and a master’s degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He worked part-time at the Lincoln Journal Star for a few years. Then, he moved to the Birmingham Post-Herald in Alabama and The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi. In 2007, he returned to Nebraska to cover the night public safety beat for the Omaha-World Herald. From 2010 to 2015 Nelson was the World-Herald’s Iowa reporter and covered 2011 Missouri River floods. “It was a big deal in the summer of 2011,” Nelson recalls. “The levees broke. People were fighting to hold onto homes.” Nelson hunted for a story with some of the residents who were most affected and spent the summer with them at a campsite where they were staying. “A lot of dramatic things happened. I was in Percival (Iowa) with them as things were flooding and people were fleeing. I got close to those people,” he said. Nelson was proud that he was the reporter who got to tell their tale to World-Herald readers. “It’s the highlight of my career,” Nelson said. “It was important to bring what happened to a broader public. ” Although breaking news gives Nelson a chance to connect with people on a deeper level, it can be draining. “It can be hard to do my job,” Nelson said. “But, after doing this for years, (I) feel that I can put the despair inside.” Sometimes the lines between sympathizing bystander and reporter get blurred, he said. A few weeks ago Nelson was at a scene of homicide in north Omaha. “I arrived at 11 p.m. I was trying to hear and see what police were doing,” he said. As Nelson walked around the scene he noticed a group of 10 people, who were agitated and yelling at police. Those people were related to the murder victim. “The family saw me approaching because of the identification around my neck and started asking me questions,” he said. Unfortunately, Nelson couldn’t help. “In cases like that, your human decency has to kick in," he said. "I wanted to know who the dead person was, but the family was upset. You need to be able to tell the public, but exercise compassion with people who are, naturally, upset.” This is an important lesson for anyone who wants to cover breaking news. “You have to keep elements of storytelling in mind, but don’t juice it up. Just tell it as it is,” Nelson said. “There’s a lot of drama, but it’s a natural level of drama. The stories I cover are real. The people are real -- they’re not just characters in a story. We have to remember that.” Although the job is sometimes heartbreaking, Nelson thrives as a breaking news reporter. “Part of the appeal is the lack of stability,” Nelson said. “When I worked regular hours, it wasn’t quite as interesting.” Nelson said it's important to use social media to connect with his audience. “I have a knack for Twitter. It’s something I just picked up. I tweet when I arrive at a scene, when I have time waiting around at a scene or really whenever I have time,” he said. Nelson’s editor then re-tweets whatever he’s tweeted. Nelson said his editors have been crucial in helping him write accurate and fair stories. “It’s important to buckle down and show editors what you can do and talk to them like a normal person. They will help you succeed,” he said. By Claire Magsamen |
Throughout his time covering Penn State, Hermitt took photos of every Penn State event for 17 years. The most memorable story was the child sex assault scandal that ultimately led to the firing of longtime coach Joe Paterno. Former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who worked for Paterno, was convicted in 2012 of multiple counts of child sexual assault. “The scandal broke and then eventually (Paterno) was just kind of held up in his house as the scandal was unfurling,” Hermitt said. Hermitt spent a whole week at Penn State taking photos for the Sandusky story and as it was unfurling. | |
Hermitt was working the night the Board of Trustees met and fired Paterno, outraging some fans. Hermitt recalls the reports of riots downtown and had to make a decision.
“Everybody ran downtown,” Hermitt said. “Fortunately, there was another photographer up here and I said to him, ‘You go downtown. I’m going to Paterno’s house.’”
Hermitt rushed to the Paterno's quaint suburban neighborhood. Around 10:30 p.m., he stood outside the Paterno’s house where about a dozen Penn State students sat around the yard, almost like a vigil.
“Someone came up and went up to the door, knocked on the door and left a bouquet of flowers there. And sure enough, about 30 seconds later, Paterno’s wife answered the door, picked up the flowers--she's in her bathrobe and she's crying. She has the flowers. And that was a pretty emotional photo,” Hermitt said.
As Hermitt stood out on the sidewalk with the students and a few TV stations, Paterno came out and talked to the students. Paterno, standing outside in his pajamas, unlike his usual attire of a shirt and tie, assured the students to not worry about him or start trouble.
“He turns around and he's walking in, going into the house, and one of the students says ‘We are.’ He turns around and he pumps his fist in the air and says ‘Penn State’ and walks into the house,” Hermitt said. “And that’s the last photo I ever took of Joe Paterno. In his pajamas, in bedroom slippers, probably 11:30 at night after he had been fired. It’s just surreal.”
Yet, that defining moment in the Penn State scandal was only a portion of Hermitt’s career.
Throughout Hermitt’s work with The Patriot-News, he has not only discovered his love of photography, but also experienced changes in newspapers.
“Things are just always changing,” Hermitt said. “It’s a fluid process now … it’s a constant evolution, and I think you really need to embrace it, be a person who is willing to embrace change, rather than resist it because it’s just constantly changing.”
With his experience in the field, Hermitt believes that if media is the career path you wish to take, you should devote yourself to the career and accept that there will be long, hard days with assignments.
“If you got a passion, feel like you're confident,” Hermitt said. “If people have told you that you got what it takes to actually do it, you know, don't give up.”
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
If you would have told Nicole Johnson 10 years ago that one day she would be a successful crime and safety reporter investigating new stories every day, she wouldn’t have believed you.
“Reporting isn’t something I planned for my life, it’s more something I fell into,” the 26-year-old said in a phone interview.
Johnson spent part of high school at the FAIR School, a fine arts high school in Minnesota. From there she moved to Fargo, North Dakota, starting her studies in health communication at North Dakota State University. And after being exposed to the campus TV station, Bison Information Network, she added a major in broadcast journalism.
While anchoring, producing and reporting for the campus TV station, Johnson also worked part time at one of the Fargo TV stations, WDAY-TV, as a news room assistant. There she edited and published online content and did odd jobs for reporters and producers.
After a year with WDAY and having just graduated, Johnson said she felt like she was ready to be in front of a camera. She pitched her ideas to one TV station news director in Fargo, but he didn't hire her.
“So I called the news director at the competing station across town and said I wanted a job,” Johnson said, referring to Valley News Live, where she now works. “He loved my go-getter attitude, called me back a little bit later and asked when I could come in and sign the papers.”
Johnson graduated in May 2013 and shortly after started her reporting career at Valley News Live, a Fargo news source that includes TV stations.
Johnson said she made it a goal to have a story lead one of the newscasts each night. Her videography and reporting helped earn her a promotion to the crime and safety beat less than a year later.
“Everybody has a story and I think it’s really important to give people that platform,” she said.
She has made it a point to cover Fargo's opioid drug problem.
“It’s important to me to give everyone a voice,” she said. “Even those who are no longer with us. I need to dig and find a way to tell it because their story matters and it could help someone else.”
Fargo is also a close-knit community, so all news is big news, she said. In March 2016, Johnson covered the fatal shooting of a Fargo police officer, which still affects the community.
“It’s hard when something like that happens and everyone is counting on you to tell them what’s going on,” she said. “I was hurting, too. Those officers are my friends. But you have to put on a brave face.”
Johnson said having to tell those hard stories are what make the job difficult. She also said not being able to tell a story is tough.
“If I’m not passionate about a story I was assigned or people won’t talk with me or time just isn’t on my side, that's when being a reporter is less enjoyable,” she said.
Although her title is the crime and safety reporter, Johnson is technically a multimedia journalist. She said she wears many hats because she does more than just interviews and live shots.
“I edit my own videos, voice overs and VOSOTS,” she said. “And I edit my script and other reporters’ scripts because that becomes the closed captioning and I edit a lot of the content that goes online and onto our app.”
She said editing is important even in television because even when their viewers can’t watch, they still expect to read what’s going on and for it to be accurate and make sense.
Johnson is hunting for a new job in market bigger than Fargo. Johnson is looking for a station in warmer climate that offers more investigative reporting opportunities. Over the years, she said she has found a passion in in-depth reporting and more long-form stories.
“I’ve grown and learned a lot here in my four years, but I’m ready for more,” she said.
Johnson’s advice to all journalists is to work hard and stay humble.
“Never stop learning,” she said. “Learn from your coworkers, your friends and the people you interview. Always strive to be better than yesterday.”
Michael Dixon
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
In the last year, few people — if any — had the privilege of attending Super Bowl LI, the College Football Playoff, MLB Postseason, NBA playoffs, Stanley Cup Playoffs, NCAA Women’s Final Four, various college football and basketball games and a few motor sports in between all of it.
Associated Press sportswriter Stephen Hawkins got paid to do all of it.
That’s the life of a wire service sportswriter based out of a large market like Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas.
“Working for a newspaper, you will generally tailor your writing (and) reporting to a specific team (or) audience,” said Hawkins, 49. “Working for the wire service, not only am I basically the beat writer for local teams, I am (also) providing the coverage for the opposing teams when they are in this market.”
Wire services like the AP and Reuters seem complicated, but are relatively simple. The AP sends reporters to cover events in close proximity to its nearly 200 bureaus worldwide, and those reporters write short- and long-form stories tailored for news outlets across the world. Any AP subscriber can then use those stories for its own purpose.
So there’s a good chance you’ve read some of Hawkins’ work, you probably just don’t know it.
He’s provided comprehensive coverage of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers along with local colleges in the Dallas-Fort Worth market for close to 20 years. Any sports-related story from the area that shows up in the newspapers of places like Grand Island, Nebraska, or Elko, Nevada, probably comes from Hawkins or his colleague, Schuyler Dixon.
“The job with the AP is still at its core the same — be fast, accurate and clear in reporting the news,” Hawkins said. “Covering sports in a major market with multiple professional and college teams, auto racing and golf and venues hosting numerous championship events, there can be any number of different events/sports in the same week.”
As one can imagine, the job of a sportswriter is far from glamorous.
“There are a lot of days and nights spent in press boxes, clubhouses and arenas,” Hawkins said. “(There are) a lot of irregular hours. Away from the games/events, the cell phone and email are constant companions. As my wife has often said, it's the doctor’s hours without the doctor’s pay. And even more so now with the ever-increasing speed and avenues in which information is distributed.”
Hawkins’ career began when he was still in junior high, first as a staffer of his school newspaper and then as the editor of the paper. He then got paid to cover the local Little League All-Star tournaments for the local newspaper in his hometown of Pascagoula, Mississippi.
That’s when he really felt a passion for the industry.
“(The Little League games) really hooked me, knowing that I could get paid for watching and writing about sporting events,” Hawkins said. “I figured I wouldn’t have a career past high school as an athlete, but being a sports journalist would allow me to be around the games.”
After Hawkins graduated from Ole Miss, where he worked as a sports information director and helped the AP cover Ole Miss basketball as a stringer, he immediately went to work for the Associated Press.
He began as an intern, but then took a job in Jackson, Mississippi, to cover both news and sports with a little bit of broadcast writing, too. He moved to Texas in 1999, and has covered sports in the Metroplex ever since.
While the job title has been the same, the job itself continues to fluctuate.
“No longer does game coverage entail only going to the locker room afterward to get some quotes and put in a written story,” Hawkins said. “With social media, there is that immediate distribution of what is happening in real time.”
The technological revolution now impacts just about every facet of journalism. And that includes what the writers and editors at the AP -- an organization that now uses robots to write minor league baseball stories -- have to do.
“Now, when planning feature stories and game coverage, along with pregame and postgame availabilities, there has to be thought into what kind of video and even audio packages can be incorporated with the written story for online presentations,” Hawkins said. “When a notebook used to be enough for the postgame availabilities, often the smartphone is used to take video of the players or coaches talking.”
Even for a vet like Hawkins, that means learning the ins and outs of anything that can help collect and distribute stories.
“(I am) constantly (learning). I don’t think that ever ends because so much changes in the industry. And a lot of times it’s just trying to keep up with the different forms of social media and such, and the many different ways that athletes and even teams can reach out to their audiences in a way to try to control their message.”
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