COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Senior journalism major Karen Mawdsley has been named a News21 Fellow as part of the 2015 Carnegie-Knight News21 national multimedia investigative reporting initiative.
“I’m proud to be part of the News21 team, and I’m grateful for this unique opportunity,” said Mawdsley. “Through the seminar portion of the fellowship, I’ve learned a lot about accountability journalism and investigative reporting, so I’m looking forward to putting those skills more into practice this summer.”
Mawdsley will receive her B.A. in Multi-Platform Journalism this May with a minor in Spanish Languages and Cultures. She’s enrolled in Maryland’s Honors and Beyond the Classroom programs, worked at the Diamondback student newspaper and completed a number of journalism internships.
“Karen is just the latest outstanding Merrill College student to participate in News21,” said Dean Lucy Dalglish. “We know her experience at the Sun, McClatchy-Tribune wire and the Diamondback will come in very handy on the marijuana project.”
The News21 initiative is hosted by Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism. Fellows conduct in-depth reporting on critical national issues, traveling the country and using innovative digital reporting techniques. Past projects have investigated veterans’ issues, voting rights, food safety and transportation safety in America. Last year’s project, which examined gun rights and regulation, was published by more than 60 media partners, including The Washington Post, NBC News and USA Today. The investigation received a prestigious EPPY Award from Editor & Publisher magazine and was a finalist in the Investigative Reporters & Editors competition.
2015 PROJECT FOCUSES ON MARIJUANA
During the spring semester, Mawdsley is researching and reporting on marijuana issues with 28 students from 18 other universities as part of a seminar taught in person and via video conference by Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post and Cronkite’s Weil Family Professor of Journalism.
“We chose the legalization of marijuana this year because it is a historic change, debated in election referenda and legislatures in states across the country,” Downie said. “And News21, with student journalists at universities throughout the nation, is uniquely able to dig into all the issues that legalization poses.”
Following the seminar, students move on to paid summer fellowships during which they work out of a newsroom at the Cronkite School and travel across the country to report and produce their stories. The fellows work under the direction of News21 Executive Editor Jacquee Petchel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former senior editor for investigations and enterprise at the Houston Chronicle.
This article includes material from a News21/Arizona State news release.
Follow
