Wallace House Welcomes Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and His Son to Ann Arbor

 

Emilio Gutierrez-Soto and son Oscar are freed from a U.S. detention center on July 26, 2018.
Photo credit: Julián Aguilar, The Texas Tribune

Read the announcement in Spanish.

Wallace House is pleased to welcome Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto to Ann Arbor to join the 2018-2019 Knight-Wallace Fellowship class as a Senior Press Freedom Fellow. Gutiérrez and his son, Oscar, were freed on Thursday, July 26, 2018, from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas, where they were held since December, 2017.

Their release came a day before a federal judge’s deadline for the Department of Homeland Security officials to produce documents to explain why it detained the journalist.

 

“With so many challenges to press freedom, and in the midst of a crisis around immigration policy, it is easy to feel powerless,” said fellowship director Lynette Clemetson, who met with Gutiérrez in April at the El Paso detention facility to invite him to join the Knight-Wallace Fellowship program. “Emilio’s release, due to the efforts of many, is a reminder that we all can do something to affect change.”

 

Gutiérrez is seeking asylum in the United States following death threats related to his reporting. Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, after war-torn Syria. Wallace House joined numerous journalism organizations including The National Press Club, Reporters Without Borders and the American Society of News Editors to collaborate in support of Gutiérrez’s case.

Wallace House, the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor community are eager to receive Gutiérrez and his son as the family works to resume their life in the U.S. and Gutiérrez has the opportunity to reconnect with journalism.  While at the university, Gutiérrez will study issues related to global press freedom and safety.

“Freedom was a big surprise for me. When it happened I was confused,” said Gutierrez, by phone from New Mexico, where he went following his release. “I feel nervous now, but so thankful. The fellowship, all of the supporters and friends who helped, they are our family here now. We are so thankful.”

 

Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowships invite a select group of accomplished, mid-career journalists to spend an academic year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor pursuing individual research and collaborative learning through classes, seminars, training workshops and travel. Knight-Wallace Fellows receive a stipend of $75,000 for the eight-month academic year plus full tuition and health insurance. The program is funded through endowment gifts by foundations, news organizations and individuals committed to protecting the role of a free press.

Wallace House Presents ProPublica’s Bernice Yeung

The 33rd Graham Hovey Lecture

“Unheard Voices of the #MeToo Movement: Telling the Stories of America’s Most Vulnerable Workers” with Bernice Yeung ’16

September 18, 2018 | 5 p.m.

Wallace House Gardens
620 Oxford Road, Ann Arbor

Welcome remarks by Mark S. Schlissel, President, University of Michigan

View video »

Bernice Yeung, 2016 Knight-Wallace Fellow, will discuss the sexual harassment and assault that migrant farmworkers and night-shift janitors routinely face on the job and examine what these workers have done to fight back and seek justice.

Yeung is a reporter with ProPublica who covers labor and employment. Previously, she was a reporter with Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, where she was part of the national Emmy-nominated “Rape in the Fields” reporting team, which investigated the sexual assault of immigrant farmworkers. The project won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Yeung also was the lead reporter for the national Emmy-nominated “Rape on the Night Shift” team, which examined sexual violence against female janitors. That work won an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative journalism, and the Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition. Those projects led to her first book, “In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers.”

Yeung has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree from Fordham University, where she studied sociology with a focus on crime and justice. ​​As a 2015-2016 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan,​​ she explored how journalists can employ social science survey methods in their reporting.

The annual Graham Hovey Lecture recognizes a Knight-Wallace journalist whose career exemplifies the benefits of a fellowship at the University of Michigan and whose ensuing work is at the forefront of national conversation. The event is named for the late Graham Hovey, director of the fellowship program from 1980 to 1986 and a distinguished journalist for The New York Times.

Michigan Radio is a co-sponsor of the event.

Read the conversation between Wallace House Director Lynette Clemetson and Bernice Yeung ’16 regarding Yeung’s work in the context of the #MeToo Movement.

Wallace House Awards Press Freedom Fellowship to Emilio Gutiérrez Soto

Emilio Gutiérrez Soto accepting the National Press Club’s John Aubuchon
Freedom of the Press Award in October 2017. Photo credit: Noel St. John

Read the announcement in  Spanish

The Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists at The University of Michigan has invited Emilio Gutiérrez Soto to join its 2018-19 Fellowship class as a Senior Press Freedom Fellow. Gutiérrez, a Mexican journalist who is currently seeking asylum in the United States following death threats related to his reporting, has been held in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility near El Paso, Texas since December.

“On World Press Freedom Day, and every day, we must uphold the vital role of a free and independent press in the United States and around the world,” said Lynette Clemetson, director of the fellowship program. “Emilio Gutiérrez Soto’s accomplishments, experiences and commitment ensure that he will contribute much to the class of exceptional journalists selected as Knight-Wallace Fellows. It is our hope that U.S. Immigration officials will release Emilio so that he may accept this special honor.”

The University of Michigan named its Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows for the 2018-2019 academic year on Monday, April 30. The program invites a select group of accomplished, mid-career journalists to spend an academic year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor pursuing individual research and collaborative learning through classes, seminars, training workshops and travel. If released and permitted to stay in the United States while his asylum case is appealed, Gutiérrez will join the class to study issues related to global press freedom and safety.

Gutiérrez, a longtime journalist in Mexico, came to the United States as a legal asylum seeker in 2008 to escape death threats tied to his investigative reporting on drug cartels. Mexico is consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous countries for reporters. “Mexican authorities have failed to prosecute the killers of journalists. They have also failed to provide adequate protection for journalists under threat,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which tracks threats and violence against reporters.

In 2017, an immigration judge in El Paso denied Gutiérrez’s asylum request and he was scheduled for deportation. The deportation was halted after protest from numerous journalism organizations including The National Press Club, Reporters Without Borders and the American Society of News Editors. The Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists is one of several organizations that signed amicus briefs organized by The National Press Club in support of Gutiérrez’s case.

Clemetson will discuss the fellowship award to Gutiérrez at a press conference at 1 p.m. on May 3 at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The event will be live streamed on the organization’s website.

Knight-Wallace Fellows receive a stipend of $75,000 for the eight-month academic year plus full tuition and health insurance. The program is funded through endowment gifts by foundations, news organizations and individuals committed to journalism’s role in fostering an informed and engaged public.

Read the announcement in Spanish

University of Michigan Names Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows

 

 

The University of Michigan has named its Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows for the 2018-2019 academic year. The group, which includes 12 American and six international journalists, is the 45th class of journalism fellows at the University.

“Part of upholding the essential role of journalism in our society is supporting the careers of journalists. It is a privilege to be able to recognize and nurture the talents of this wide-ranging group of Fellows through a year of academic research and experiential learning,” said Wallace House Director Lynette Clemetson.

Knight-Wallace Fellows spend an academic year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to pursue individual study plans and to engage in collaborative learning through fellowship seminars, training workshops and travel. Through twice-weekly seminars, Fellows engage with visiting journalists, eminent scholars and creative thinkers from a range of fields. Weeklong international news tours provide broader context to political, economic and social forces shaping their fields of study, and to trends and challenges facing journalism in other countries. In recent years, Fellowship classes visited South Korea, Brazil, Canada, Turkey, Argentina and Russia.

The program is based at Wallace House, a gift from the late newsman Mike Wallace and his wife, Mary. Knight-Wallace Fellows receive a stipend of $75,000 for the eight-month academic year plus full tuition and health insurance. The program is funded through endowment gifts by foundations, news organizations and individuals committed to journalism’s role in fostering an informed and engaged public.

Fellows and their study projects are:

Itai Anghel, Senior Correspondent, UVDA, TV Channel 2 (Tel Aviv, Israel). Tribalism and the politics of fear in the Middle East following the Arab revolutions

Michelle Jolan Bloom, Senior Designer, Politico (Washington, D.C.). Visual storytelling through social media

Seungjin Choi, Reporter, Maeil Business Newspaper (Seoul, South Korea). Reshaping strategies for digital news distribution

Arnessa Garrett, Assistant Business Editor, The Dallas Morning News (Dallas, Texas). Rebuilding trust with local audiences through digital strategy and engagement

Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, Press Freedom Fellow.  Issues related to safety and freedom of journalists

Sharilyn Hufford, Deputy Editor, The New York Times (New York, New York). Creating high-impact news products and best practices for workflow

Anders Kelto, Creator and Senior Producer, GameBreaker with Keith Olbermann (Ann Arbor, Michigan). The connection between sports and social movements

Fredrik Laurin, Editor for Special Projects, SVT Swedish Television (Stockholm, Sweden). Exploring and developing tools to protect news content from digital manipulation

Catherine Mackie, Team Leader, Digital Video, BBC Midlands (Birmingham, England). The impact of class on news consumption and reconnecting with audiences

Seema Mehta, Political Reporter, Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California). How automation will impact the economy and the 2020 presidential election

Aaron Nelsen, Rio Grande Valley Bureau Chief, San Antonio Express-News (Mission, Texas). The effect of militarization on communities along the U.S.-Mexico border

Daigo Oliva, Deputy Photo Editor, Folha de São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil). New ways to publish image-driven narratives

Ben Penn, Reporter, Bloomberg Law (Washington, D.C.). The impermanent future of work

Rachel Rohr, Managing Editor, The GroundTruth Project (Boston, Massachusetts). New approaches to news and media literacy for teens and young adults

Stephen Ssenkaaba, Contributing Editor and Senior Features Writer, The New Vision (Kampala, Uganda). Inclusive online news strategies for emerging news markets

Jawad Sukhanyar, Reporter, The New York Times (Kabul, Afghanistan). Afghan women’s issues in the global context

Luis Trelles, Reporter and Producer, Radio Ambulante (San Juan, Puerto Rico). The politics of reconstruction in U.S. territories devastated by natural disasters

Neda Ulaby, Correspondent, NPR (Washington, D.C.). A cultural history of the veil in world religions

AJ Vicens, Staff Reporter, Mother Jones (Washington, D.C.). How artificial intelligence, cyber security and data shape modern society

The selection committee included Wallace House Director Lynette Clemetson and Associate Director Birgit Rieck; Teresa Frontado (Digital Director, WLRN, Miami), Kate Linebaugh (Deputy National Editor, The Wall Street Journal), Mosi Secret (Investigative and Literary Journalist) and Yvonne Simons (Assistant News Director, CBS 13, Sacramento); and University of Michigan Professors Bobbi Low (Environment and Sustainability) and Carl Simon (Mathematics, Complex Systems and Public Policy).

About Wallace House
Committed to fostering excellence in journalism, Wallace House at the University of Michigan is home to the Knight-Wallace Fellowships and the Livingston Awards, two programs that recognize exceptional journalists for their work, leadership and potential.
Wallacehouse.umich.edu


Read more on the Class of 2019 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows

Korea Without Frilly Clothes

A highlight of the trip: revisiting my grandparents’
place in Seoul and digging up old photos that I didn’t
find as interesting on previous trips.
Photo submitted by Candice Choi

Staring at video of the Samsung chairman allegedly with prostitutes, I knew this trip to Korea would differ from my past visits.

The hidden camera footage was published by Newstapa, an investigative group formed in 2012. The newsroom was one of the first stops for the Knight-Wallace Fellows and signaled I’d be seeing the country from new perspectives.

My last trip to Seoul was more than 20 years ago, when I was in high school. Upon arriving for childhood visits, my conservative grandparents would take my brother and me shopping for stuffy clothes and make us wear them to a formal restaurant. The ritual made me see new clothing and the entire country of Korea as suffocatingly superficial.

Yet after learning the Fellows were headed to Korea, I grew excited about returning with a reporter’s mindset. I read up on modern Korean history and politics and began to see the country’s vibrancy.

Among our stops were a museum of antique Korean furniture, the taping of a K-pop TV competition, and a U.S. military base. We also went to the Demilitarized Zone, which jarringly played to tourists with cardboard cutouts of soldiers for photo ops while also reminding us of the peninsula’s tragic past.

Our visit would take on added significance weeks later, when the leaders of North and South Korea would meet at the same site to discuss denuclearization and perhaps formally ending the Korean War.

Back at the Newstapa office, our host was a young woman who left her job with the police force to become a reporter, inspired in part by the movie “Spotlight.” She wore a modern black hanbok that gave her an authoritative presence as she explained libel laws that allow journalists to be criminally charged.

Newstapa nevertheless published video that appears to show the Samsung chairman with prostitutes. Adding to the intrigue, the tapes were apparently obtained for blackmailing purposes before ending up with Newstapa.

It was ethically messy, making the decision to publish all the more daring.

Newstapa’s model of relying on reader donations is also provocative. The idea is to gain public support as an independent news source in a society where conglomerates have huge power. The approach is a challenge to news outlets around the world.

Outside newsrooms, some of the best moments were unscheduled, such as people watching on the subway and wandering alone on the striking campus of Ewha University. Over a late night coffee, a friend who works as a TV sports analyst explained his quest to emulate the argumentative style of New York sports radio. I laughed imagining a Korean version of “Mike and the Mad Dog.”

The highlight of the trip, though, was returning to my grandparents’ apartment, which was largely unchanged from my childhood. My grandfather died of stomach cancer years ago and my grandmother has Alzheimer’s disease, making it too late to ask about their pasts. But I dug out stacks of old photo albums I had never bothered looking at before.

The black-and-white images showed them in unfamiliar contexts – smiling on a train, mingling at a garden party, wandering down a Seoul alley. I realized how little I knew about their lives, which spanned Japanese colonialism, the Korean War and the country’s economic boon.

Growing up, I thought my grandparents were overly conservative and limited in their worldview, traits I chalked up to their Korean background. In the years since, I’ve come to see the immaturity of those judgments, a realization this trip helped underscore.

Candice Choi is a 2018 Knight-Wallace Fellow and Food Industry Writer for the Associated Press (New York, N.Y.).

China’s Soft Power: Understanding Beijing’s Growing Worldwide Influence

Louisa Lim, Mark Magnier and Dayo Aiyetan

Knight-Wallace Fellows Louisa Lim, Mark Magnier and Dayo Aiyetan at the Eisendrath Symposium

March 20, 2018 | 3 p.m.
Rackham Amphitheatre, fourth floor
915 Washington Street, Ann Arbor

Watch the discussion
Have a question about the topic? Tweet using #WallaceHouse.

 

 

On stage with the foreign correspondents of Wallace House
China’s move to change the constitution, allowing President Xi Jinping to remain in power, could have a major impact on its global influence. A panel of Knight-Wallace international journalists examines China’s growing clout and how this power is being deployed around the world, with implications for media, academia and the entertainment industry. Is Beijing already influencing what we read and watch or are fears of its influence overblown?

The Eisendrath Symposium honors Charles R. Eisendrath, former director of Wallace House, and his lifelong commitment to international journalism.

 

About the Speakers
Dayo Aiyetan is a 2018 Knight-Wallace Fellow,  investigative reporter and founder and executive director of the International Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news agency in Abuja, Nigeria. In this role, he has trained more than 100 reporters, aiming to promote a culture of data-driven accountability journalism in Nigeria.

Louisa Lim is a 2014 Knight-Wallace Fellow and the author of “The People’s Republic of Amnesia; Tiananmen Revisited.” She reported from China for a decade for NPR and the BBC. She is now a senior lecturer in Audio Visual Journalism at the University of Melbourne and the co-host of the “Little Red Podcast,” a monthly podcast focusing on China beyond the Beijing beltway.

Mark Magnier is a 2018 Knight-Wallace Fellow and the Beijing-based China economics editor for The Wall Street Journal, where he oversees coverage of the world’s second-largest economy and its seismic impact on Chinese society and the rest of the world. Previously, he served as bureau chief in New Delhi, Beijing and Tokyo for the Los Angeles Times.

 

About the Moderator
Mary Gallagher is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, where she is also the director of the Center for Chinese Studies, and a faculty associate at the Center for Comparative Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research. Her research areas are Chinese politics, comparative politics of transitional and developing states, and law and society.

 

Free and open to the public.

For questions about the event email: WallaceHouseEvents@umich.edu

This event is produced with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Michigan Radio is a co-sponsor of the event.

Figure it out – Apply for a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan

Now is the fight time to apply for a Fellowship
Mosi Secret 16′ explains how a Knight-Wallace Fellowship
changed his life both personally and professionally.

Mosi Secret, Knight-Wallace Fellows Class of 2016, shares on Medium how his Fellowship year changed the trajectory of his professional life and how it impacted his personal life.

He explains why he left his job as a reporter for The New York Times, a position that for many represents the pinnacle of American journalism. 

He discusses how it felt walking away from his comfortable life in New York in pursuit of what he describes as an ill-defined dream. Secret maintains that his time at the University of Michigan was the beginning of a march toward a deeper and more sustainable sense of happiness and professional satisfaction.

“If you’re thinking of changing your life and career,” said Secret, “there’s no time like the present. Apply.” Learn more what about what attracted him to the program.

The Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists at the University of Michigan are accepting applications from U.S. applicants for the 2018-19 academic year. We’re looking for accomplished, mid-career journalists eager for growth and deeply committed to the future of journalism. The deadline to apply is February 1, 2018.

Read Mosi Secret’s reflection on his fellowship year on Medium.

 

Mosi Secret was a member of the Knight-Wallace Fellows Class of 2016. He is an independent journalist based in Brooklyn, NY.  Find out more about what Mosi Secret has been doing post-Fellowship.

Molly Ball Appointed to the Livingston Awards Judging Panel

 

Molly Ball
Molly Ball, National Political Correspondent
for Time

Wallace House is pleased to announce the addition of award-winning political reporter and Knight-Wallace alum, Molly Ball, to the Livingston Awards’ judging panel.

A prominent voice on U.S. politics, Ball serves as National Political Correspondent for TIME, covering the Trump administration, the national political climate, personalities, policy debates, and campaigns across America. She is also a political analyst for CNN and frequent television and radio commentator.

“Molly Ball brings a keen, intuitive eye and astute sensibility to everything she approaches,” says Lynette Clemetson, Wallace House director. “We are pleased to have her join us as a Livingston Awards regional judge. It is especially meaningful that Molly was a Knight-Wallace Fellow with a deep connection to our mission. We look forward to all she will add to our collegial and dedicated group of judges.”

Prior to joining TIME, Ball was a staff writer covering U.S. politics for The Atlantic. She previously reported for Politico, the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun. She has worked for newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Cambodia, as well as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Ball is the recipient of the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, the Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism and the Lee Walczak Award for Political Analysis for her coverage of political campaigns.

“Molly Ball brings a keen, intuitive eye and astute sensibility to everything she approaches,” says Lynette Clemetson, Wallace House director.

A graduate of Yale University, she was a 2009-2010 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan. Ball grew up in Idaho and Colorado. She lives in Virginia with her husband and three children.

The regional judges read all qualifying entries and select the finalists in local, national and international reporting categories. In addition to Ball, the regional judging panel includes: Stella Chávez, education reporter, KERA public radio (Dallas); Chris Davis, Vice President of Investigative Journalism, Gannett; David Greene, host, “Morning Edition,” NPR; Stephen Henderson, host, “Detroit Today,” WDET; Shirley Leung, columnist, The Boston Globe; and Raney Aronson-Rath, executive producer, “Frontline,” PBS.

The Livingston Awards national judges review all final entries and meet to select the winners in local, national and international reporting. The national judging panel includes: Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent, CNN, and host of “Amanpour on PBS,” PBS; Ken Auletta, media and communications writer, The New Yorker; Dean Baquet, executive editor, The New York Times; John Harris, editor-in-chief and co-founder, POLITICO; Clarence Page, syndicated columnist; Anna Quindlen, author; María Elena Salinas, host, “The Real Story with María Elena Salinas,” Investigation Discovery; Bret Stephens, op-ed columnist, The New York Times; and Kara Swisher co-founder and executive editor of Recode.

The Livingston Awards is now accepting entries for 2017 work. Entry deadline in February 1, 2018.

The Fellowship Life: Podcast Boot Camp

Mosi Secret, Alex Blumberg and Jonathan Menjivar
Mosi Secret, 2016 Knight-Wallace Fellow, Alex Blumberg, CEO and co-founder of Gimlet Media and Jonathan Menjivar
producer with “This American Life,” coach the Knight-Wallace Fellows at the Podcast Boot Camp.

 

During a typical Tuesday evening fellowship seminar at Wallace House, a reporter, author or professor joins our class of mid-career journalists for a stimulating off-the-record chat in front of the Wallace House fireplace. Our guest speakers are dynamic, all experts in their fields. Throughout these ninety-minute salons, Fellows get to sit back, soak up new ideas and ask probing questions. Our seminars are deeply engaging sessions, in a deeply comfortable environment.

Lynette Clemetson with Regina Boone, Candice Choi and Danielle Dreilinger
Wallace House Director, Lynette Clemetson assigns
Fellows into working teams.

A month before Thanksgiving break – just around the time our fellowship class settled into this cozy routine – we were thrust outside of our comfort zone.

Wallace House director, Lynette Clemetson, broke us up into teams, and gave us three weeks to develop a podcast pitch and gather and edit some sample audio. To up the ante, she told us we’d be pitching our concepts to producers from Gimlet Media and “This American Life” who would be joining us just before the holiday break for a two-day audio bootcamp.

Umm, yes please!

I’ve been a radio producer for nearly 15 years and I love “This American Life”-style narrative storytelling. So I was pumped at the chance to learn from two rock star producers. And I wasn’t the only one. You probably don’t need me to tell you that podcasts and audio storytelling are having a moment. Several Fellows had expressed interest in learning what it takes to create a successful podcast and how to make a story sing on air. We were about to get a very hands-on crash course.

Lynette handed out the piece of paper with our teams listed on it and surveyed the room, gauging reactions — a few smiles here, some nervous laughter there, more than a couple of blank stares. Most of the class had little to no experience in audio. Two of us came from radio, but we had never worked on podcasts, which differ in style and approach from broadcast news. We were all feeling a bit out of our element.

That’s one of the best things about this fellowship and what makes the time as a Knight-Wallace Fellow so special; it’s a chance to push yourself creatively in a supportive environment.

Jennifer Guerra and Lisa Wangsness
On assignment: Jennifer Guerra, Marcelo Moreira
and Lisa Wangsness report from a glassblowing studio.

I did a lot of solo work before coming to the fellowship, working on long-form audio pieces for months at a time with only the occasional check-in from an editor. So I welcomed the chance to work on a group project. My assigned podcast team consisted of a photojournalist, a print reporter, an international television editor, and me. Sounds like a joke set up, right? A photojournalist, a print reporter and a TV editor walk into a bar with a radio producer…

But seriously, it was a great project. Never in my career have I had the chance to collaborate on a new idea with such a varied group of smart, accomplished journalists. The medium might have been new, but we all knew how to dive into unknown territory on tight deadlines. It didn’t take long to settle on an idea. We decided to develop something kid-focused. We are all parents, and we knew from our own listening that podcasts for kids are an underdeveloped segment of the market. Within a few days we were in the field grabbing tape.

Our first stop? The city of Ypsilanti. With recording kits in hand and our own kids in tow, we visited a glassblowing studio where the kids felt the heat from the super-hot furnace and tried blowing some glass themselves through a long metal blowpipe.

The work was fun. But the thought of presenting it to our visiting experts was more than a little nerve wracking. Alex Blumberg is CEO and co-founder of Gimlet Media, a company that produces tons of podcasts you’ve probably listened to, including one of my favorites, “StartUp,” which Blumberg hosts. He also co-founded NPR’s “Planet Money” podcast and is a former “This American Life” producer. Jonathan Menjivar is a long-time producer with “This American Life” and has produced some of the show’s most memorable pieces.

Day two of boot camp: Fellowship team of
Chitrangada Choudhury, Azi Paybarah, Matt
Higgins and John Shields (not pictured)
pitch their podcast concept to the guest judges.

To help demystify the podcast process, Alex and Jonathan were joined by Mosi Secret, a 2016 Knight-Wallace Fellow. A print reporter who came to the Fellowship from The New York Times, Mosi had just turned a recent story about a 1960s experiment to integrate an elite private school in Virginia into an hour-long “This American Life” episode. He was there to make the process less intimidating and to push us to contemplate taking new chances post-Fellowship.

The first day of the bootcamp was like a typical seminar. Each speaker talked about their own careers and their editorial and stylistic approach. Jonathan was the producer who helped Mosi create his piece, and the two deconstructed their process for us, explaining how it differed from The New York Times Magazine print version of Mosi’s story.

Day two was more like a journalism version of “The Voice.” Alex, Mosi and Jonathan were the celebrity judges waiting to be impressed by our storytelling chops. We were the yet undiscovered podcast stars, hoping to blow their minds with our raw talent and bankable ideas. And we were asked to workshop our ideas in front of the entire fellowship class. I’ve never done a group edit before, and the idea of playing tape in front of a whole room of people was, frankly, kind of terrifying. But Alex and Jonathan are big proponents of the group edit — more voices in the room, more perspectives to draw from — and I’m happy to report that I am now, too.

Alex and Jonathan talked through each group’s pitch and showed us what it would take to get the concepts up and running as successful podcasts. Fellows chimed in with their own ideas on where to take the story, what voices to include and who would be the ideal host.

Everyone in the group encouraged each other and made the ideas stronger. The supportive input from other teams was invaluable. By the end of the bootcamp, I was convinced that the most important element of this Fellowship is fellowship.

And who knows, it could be one of us producing the hot podcast of 2018. 

Jennifer Guerra is a 2018 Knight-Wallace Fellow and a senior reporter at Michigan Radio, an NPR affiliate in Ann Arbor.

Taking Wallace House to the Public

 

Lydia Polgreen, Brooke Jarvis, Joshua Johnson and Bret Stephens
Wallace House campus events include public engagements with Lydia Polgreen, Brooke Jarvis, Joshua Johnson and Bret Stephens

 

Anyone who has spent time in Wallace House knows that, as an organization that supports the work of journalists, we are also defenders of free speech. It is a fundamental belief evidenced in the irreverent caricatures of politicians that ring our living room and the wide array of provocative books and periodicals that fill our library. It is a proclamation painted in the washroom just off the foyer, in black block letters, a central tenet impossible to ignore – even in the smallest room in the house: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

That sentence, penned by the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall in a 1906 biography of the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, is commonly referenced in defense of free speech. For journalists, it serves as a dramatic restatement of basic rights laid out in the First Amendment, that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”

At a time when that foundational right is being challenged and reexamined, it is all the more important to articulate its significance. Wallace House is working to do just that, through public events aimed at highlighting the vital role of journalism to document, interpret, analyze and investigate the forces shaping society.  

By moving journalism away from devices and distractions and into public spaces, we aim to close the gap between an increasingly indifferent public and the reporters taking stock of our times. In this era of echo chambers, we feel called to actively foster civil discourse across profound gulfs of mistrust and cynicism.

For journalists, a free press is inextricably bound to the broader principle of freedom of speech, a principal that is most critical to defend when it is inconvenient and difficult to stomach. Our winter 2018 events will tackle that complexity head on, with prominent speakers from NPR, The New York Times and HuffPost.

We’ll encourage audiences to wrestle with how the American ideal accommodates and protects both Colin Kaepernick and Richard Spencer. We’ll examine the continuum from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s long arc of the universe to hashtag revolutions and crowd-sourced justice. And we’ll elevate important stories subsumed by fast-paced news cycles, from the unseen tragedies of border crossings to the global implications of China’s expanding soft power.

Such tough discussions are regular fodder for the journalists who come through the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards, the truth-seekers and tellers who think, work and interact within our Wallace House walls. It’s pressing now that we move those conversations out into the open, to forums that prompt wider-reaching debate. Free speech and a free press, after all, are rights too precious to take for granted.

We hope you will mark these events on your calendar, share them with friends and join us.  

1/16/18 | “Who Gets to Define American Values?” with Lydia Polgreen of HuffPost

1/31/18 | “Beyond the Wall: The Human Toll of Border Crossings” with Brooke Jarvis, Livingston Award winner

2/15/18 | “Speak Freely: Debating the First Amendment in a Changing America” a special event with NPR’s daily news program “1A” and host Joshua Johnson

2/20/18 | “Free Speech and the Necessity of Discomfort” with Bret Stephens of The New York Times

3/20/18 | “China’s Soft Power” The Eisendrath Symposium on International News

Information on times, venues and speaker details can be found on our event pages.

Lynette Clemetson is Director of Wallace House, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards at the University of Michigan. She is a 2010 Knight-Wallace Fellow.