News

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) at UNC-Chapel Hill along with the Hussman School of Journalism and Media and the Carolina Latinx Center invited Mexican-American journalist Maria Hinojosa for a campus wide event on February 23. The virtual event on Zoom allowed close to 100 attendees to hear Hinojosa’s personal take on how journalism has changed over the years to bring diversity in the industry.

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.

by Barbara Wiedemann
UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media graduate Isabella “Bella” Courtenay-Morris ’19 and some creative colleagues turned ad agency opportunities lost to the pandemic into an idea — Indoor Recess — that Adweek called one of the “Ten Projects That Made the Industry Better in 2020.”

Four UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media faculty members were awarded a total of $20,000 in seed grants supporting promising projects in visual communication, documentary production, investigative journalism and crisis communication. Associate Professor Spencer Barnes, Professor Pat Davison, Assistant Professor Erin Siegal McIntyre and Assistant Professor Eva Zhao are the 2021 recipients of the $5,000  school-sponsored grants to help faculty conduct formative, exploratory or innovative research projects that match with the funding priorities of external funding agencies and programs.

Angelica Edwards ’22 and fellow UNC Hussman student Julian Berger ’22 co-founded a student chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at UNC in August 2020. At the organization’s inaugural event on Feb. 23 at 6 p.m., Edwards and Berger will moderate a discussion with Emmy Award-winning Latina journalist Maria Hinojosa for a virtual discussion on her career and recent memoir “Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in Torn America.”

To kick off their Black History Month programming, the Carolina Association of Black Journalists (CABJ) in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media invited Pulitzer Prize-winner Nikole Hannah-Jones ’03 (M.A.) to a virtual Q&A session with student members. Held on the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 3, the private event was hosted via Zoom and focused on Hannah-Jones’ journey as an alumna, the challenges Black media professionals face, and how students can be better prepared for such.

The Daily Tar Heel profiled the HallPass app, a web application built by UNC Hussman’s Reese Innovation Lab, being used by students to schedule tests and ensure that they're in compliance with university COVID-19 testing policies.

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.

UNC Hussman’s Trevy McDonald, the Julian Scheer Term Associate Professor, has been honored by UNC for her commitment to inclusion with one of this year’s MLK Unsung Heroes awards. McDonald, who has a long history as both a beloved faculty member and mentor of students throughout the school, was honored for her work in a live-streamed ceremony on Jan. 26, 2021. McDonald has served on UNC Hussman’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, was a longtime advisor to the Carolina Association of Black Journalists and recently was the school’s first choice to serve as its inaugural Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  

Even in a virtual environment, the career services staff at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media is still connecting students to the real-world experiences that lead them to job opportunities and career success. This fall, UNC Hussman Career Services held its annual student-to-student internship fair virtually with a panel of students who shared their internship experiences and answered questions about the ins and outs of finding internships, as well as navigating the unique challenges of interning remotely.