News

by Barbara Wiedemann
You’re a Carolina student with an eye for fashion and the desire to work with style-savvy undergraduates, regardless of major. You cannot NOT be fashion-forward. Where do you bring that energy? To Xpressions, the revitalized and reenvisioned fashion club associated with Carolina Professor of the Practice Dana McMahan’s FashionMash program. The club is an opportunity for Carolina students who may not be in the UNC Hussman advertising/public relations track or who have already taken all the school’s FashionMash class offerings to keep a hand in the world of fashion. We talked with recent UNC Hussman graduate Pareen Bhagat ’22 and rising senior Nicholas Fantauzzi ’23, Xpressions co-chairs, about revamping and renaming the fashion club.

Frank A. Daniels Jr. ’53, the legendary former president and publisher of The News & Observer, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, passed away June 30, 2022, leaving behind a storied legacy to North Carolina journalism and at UNC Hussman.

Four UNC Hussman students and recent graduates won national championships in the prestigious Hearst Journalism Awards 2022 competition, leading the school to its seventh overall collegiate journalism national championship in eight years and its 11th all time.

by Barbara Wiedemann
“Hi! I’m Isaac Klein. When I’m driving around with my wife, Laura, we love to look for vanity plates and try to figure out what they mean,” recent UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media graduate Isaac Klein ’22 (M.A.) says in the introductory trailer for his five-part podcast series “VANITY: Stories Behind the Plates” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and other platforms. Read more on Klein’s thesis project and the fascinating stories behind the plates. 

by Barbara Wiedemann
Father-and-son duo Scott and Chapel Fowler found themselves exchanging “attaboys” in March when the sportswriters were singled out by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) with seven Top 10 awards between them. Chapel is a 2020 UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media graduate. He just announced a career move to sports reporter with the State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, primarily covering Clemson football. Scott, a Carolina j-school graduate of another vintage (1987), has been covering sports for the Charlotte Observer since four years before Chapel was born. We caught up with the Fowlers in honor of Father’s Day 2022 to talk about who is mentoring whom and other thoughts on how to be an award-winning sportswriter and even more importantly, a good father.

In a world where ideas and work jump continents and oceans over the internet in a matter of seconds, the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media provides a number of opportunities for globally minded students. “MEJO 490: Media in Asia” is one of them. The Maymester course, taught by Associate Professor Joseph Czabovsky, visited Singapore May 15–26, 2022, where 15 students learned about the Asian country’s media markets, visited a range of media professionals, met with alumni and took in the country’s history and culture.

A vibrant and collaborative interdisciplinary research culture at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media creates new knowledge, advances scholarship and helps reinvent media.

From visuals illustrating the influence of the late pop star Prince to the history of tattooing, projects created by students from the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media won big at the 2022 Society for News Design (SND) International Student Competition, taking home 20 of 54 available awards, including first place wins in the Feature Design, Special Section and Stand Alone Media categories.
This is the 12th year Hussman students have led wins among schools in the competition.

In observance of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month this May, we asked three UNC Hussman alumni to share their thoughts in a recorded discussion on ways their Asian heritage weaves through their work as communicators — and what they think about the current state of Asian American and Pacific Islander representation in media. Documentary filmmaker Barb Lee ’88 led the conversation, which included recent graduates Nash Consing ’21 and Hope Davison ’22.

by Barbara Wiedemann
The annual Bloomberg Business Journalism Diversity Program, a partnership between UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, returned to New York City last week after two years. Nearly two dozen college students and recent graduates from around the country convened at Bloomberg News offices in New York City, proof of vaccination in hand, for an intensive, all-expenses-paid workweek-long overview of how to report on the economy, businesses, markets, government and labor. Four participants represented UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media: Emma Amaglo ’22, Maydha Devarajan ’22, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata ’24 and Aashna Shah ’23.