The wonderful thing about community journalism is there is no shortage of compelling stories to tell.
I’m a firm believer that everyone has a story.
Like the old CBS news package “On the Road with Charles Kuralt” (and later Steve Hartman), one could just show up in any community, draw a random name out of a phone book (if those still existed) and find an interesting story about the person on the other end of the line.
Community newspapers hang their hat on feature writing and good storytelling.
While there is no shortage of compelling stories, there seems to be a lack of compelling storytellers.
In my day job at the university, I’ve committed myself to equipping the next generation of journalists with the tools they need to tell these stories.
As such, when I started at Tarleton in 2021, I inherited a class called “Advanced Reporting.”
It serves as the senior capstone class for all journalism majors.
I quickly reformatted the course to partner student journalists with community newspapers.
This way, our students spend the semester working beats for actual professional newspapers.
The results have been amazing.
The News-Record partnered with us on this endeavor long before Jennifer and I acquired the paper.
This semester is no different.
On the front page of this week’s paper, you will see an article written by Mackenzie Johnson.
She is one of our college journalism students at Tarleton.
Kenzie is a senior agriculture communications major, and she will be spending the rest of the spring writing feature stories specific to the equine industry in western Grayson County.
She aspires to be an equine writer when she graduates, and she is well on her way to that goal.
Kenzie is a native of Milan, Tennessee and is a barrel racer on the Tarleton rodeo team.
She is one of my brightest students, the managing editor of the campus newspaper and— without a doubt— one of the most talented student feature writers I have ever known.
She will be working closely with our editor, Jessica Edwards, to prospect and help tell the stories of our community.
I encourage you to welcome her and to reach out to Jessica with any story ideas especially relevant to our bustling equine culture in North Texas.
All people have stories.
We never get turned down when we ask folks to tell their stories.
I am encouraged to know and work with a generation of young journalists who are finding their passion for telling those stories.
We are happy to have Kenzie on board and hope you enjoy her stories.
We appreciate you for being a part of her educational journey towards college graduation.
Source: Freepik.com