The Journalism Salute

On this episode, Mark Simon talked to Steve Novotney , a 30-year journalism veteran who co-founded Lede News to cover the Upper Ohio Valley in West Virginia. Steve talked about his background in baseball, print media, and radio talk shows and all that led him to his current position as publisher and podcast host. Steve talked about the decline of local news and how his online newspaper intends to...

This week, Mark Simon and Emmy Liederman are joined by Kassidy Arena , a reporter for Iowa Public Radio and a product of the Report For America program. Kassidy talked about her radio career and the work she does covering issues impacting Iowa’s growing Latino community. She also discussed her background as a journalist and how she didn’t think she would go into radio because she was hard of heari...

In this episode, Emmy Liederman is joined by two other student journalists, Hadriana Lowenkron and J.D. Duggan. Hadriana is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian and J.D. is the city editor of The Minnesota Daily.      They share what they’ve learned from covering race relations in their cities over the past year and best practices for making sure that all audiences are adequately represe...

In this episode, Emmy Liederman is joined by multilingual journalist and author Fernanda Santos. Santos was the first Brazilian to work as a staff writer at The New York Times, where covered the American Southwest. She is now a full-time professor at Arizona State University and a contributing columnist at The Washington Post.  Fernanda’s book, “The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hot...

On this episode of The Journalism Salute, Mark Simon and Emmy Liederman were joined by Graham Lee Brewer, a newly-hired enterprise reporter for NBC News Digital, a former reporter and editor for High Country News, and the secretary for the Native American Journalists Association (Graham is a Cherokee Nation citizen).   Graham talked about his new job and the reporting work he had done on Native Am...

On today’s episode, Mark and Emmy are joined by Dr. Ed Madison, a professor at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of The Journalistic Learning Initiative, a program aimed at getting students to learn through journalism at a young age. Dr. Madison described the history of the program, how it works with middle school students in Oregon and California, and shared the many successes the progr...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Ben Chase, a reporter for The Huron Daily Plainsman in Huron, South Dakota (population 13,000). Ben took an interesting path to his position, having previously worked as a social worker, in youth ministry, and as a freelance baseball writer. Ben discussed working as a jack-of-all-trades who takes curiosity and his desire to help people into his work. One da...

On this episode, Mark Simon and Emmy Liederman are joined by Iliana Limón Romero and Ashley Colley, the chair of the board and president of The Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM – pronounced “Awesome”). Iliana is the deputy sports editor of the Los Angeles Times. Ashley is an associate producer at ESPN. They discussed the goals of the organization and initiatives for members related to c...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Barbara Crossette, senior consulting editor and writer for PassBlue, a non-profit journalism organization that covers the United Nations. Barbara is a former international reporter and editor for the New York Times, who has more than 50 years of journalism experience (she turns 82 in July) Barbara gave examples of the kinds of stories she and the site cover...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by publisher Donna Ladd and senior reporter Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press, a non-profit media outlet that has published a considerable amount of important reporting about the state. Donna and Ashton talked about the origin of the site and multiple stories that they’re working on. The most prominent of those is a series of pieces following racist...

On this episode, Mark Simon talked to Khushbu Shah, the editor-in-chief of The Fuller Project. Khushbu talked about The Fuller Project’s groundbreaking reporting on women around the world. She shared examples of reporting they’ve done and how they come up with the stories they publish on topics such as childcare challenges during the pandemic and immigration issues, focusing on the people impacted...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Dr. Hannah Brown and Anna Hamilton of The Marjorie. The Marjorie is a woman-owned reporting non-profit covering women and the environment in Florida. Hannah and Anna explained their website’s name and explained what they cover, how they define “the environment,” and who their audience is. They shared examples of articles that had appeared on their website,...

In this episode, Mark Simon is joined by 3 college students formerly from Kirkwood (Mo.) High School: Emma Lingo, Maddie Meyers, and Kiden-Aloyse Smith to talk about a project they did for their high school newspaper in 2020. They were part of a group that took The 1619 Project, the Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles and podcasts from the New York Times and adapted it to cover their largely...

On this episode, Mark Simon talks with Hadar Harris, the executive director of the Student Press Law Center.  Hadar talked about what the SPLC does and the different things that the organization is doing to commemorate Student Press Freedom Day on Friday, February 26. She spoke extensively about the challenges that students faced in 2020 and how they overcame them, the different forms of censorshi...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Ken Lemon, a longtime TV reporter for WSOC-TV in Charlotte and vice-president for broadcast for the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). Ken talked about his career as a reporter, how he comes up with story ideas, a recent feature he did on an incident that happened at a baseball game many years ago, and a TV show he recently hosted, Conversati...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by P.J. Cabrera, a journalism teacher at Judson High School in Converse, Texas (not far from San Antonio) and the coordinator of the Scholastic Journalism Week committee for the Journalism Education Association. P.J. shared the story of his path to teaching journalism, the challenge of teaching in a pandemic and teaching journalism in a state that allows schoo...

On this episode, Mark is joined by FiveThirtyEight election analyst Nathaniel Rakich. Nathaniel talked about the path to his current job, how he collaborates with other members of the website on stories, how he comes up with story ideas, and the best way to understand polls and election data. He also provided advice to aspiring journalists who want to work extensively with data. Thank you for list...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Robin Kemp, the founder of the  Clayton Crescent  in Clayton County, Georgia. Robin talked about her 30+ year career and how she’s really been a journalist since she was “in utero.” Her path to her current role included stops at CNN as a news writer, The Weather Channel as a founding editor of the scrolling ticker that occupies the bottom of the screen, and...

On this episode, Mark Simon talked to Bay State Banner reporter Morgan Mullings, a recent grad of St. John's, whose opportunity to begin her professional journalism career began via Report for America. Morgan talked about her work with the Banner, and why it's important for a newspaper whose readership is geared to the African-American community to have a young black female writer. She sha...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Arelis Hernández, a vice president for print for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a reporter covering Texas and the US-Mexican border for the Washington Post. Arelis talked about the goals of the organization, making sure Hispanic journalists receive opportunities for advancement and aren't unfairly treated when it comes to the indus...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by University of Alabama journalism instructor, Meredith Cummings, who also is the director of the Alabama Scholastic Press Association (ASPA) and the National Elementary Scholastic Press Association (NESPA). Meredith talked about what teaching journalism to college students in a her state is like, the way she approaches her classes, and how sports has played...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Hillel Goldberg, editor and publisher of the Intermountain Jewish News, a weekly family-owned newspaper and website that has served the Rocky Mountain Jewish community for more than 100 years. Rabbi Goldberg talked about the evolution of the publication and the importance of both his father and mother to the paper’s direction. He explained the intent of the...

On this episode, Mark Simon was joined by Georges Budagu Makoko and Kathreen Harrison, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Amjambo Africa, a monthly newspaper and website published in 6 languages that is devoted to covering the African immigrant experience in Maine. Georges and Kathreen talked about Georges’ journey to the United States and Kathreen’s career as a teacher and how they came togethe...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by The Forward editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren, formerly a longtime reporter and editor for the New York Times . Jodi talked about making the move from The Times to an organization with a long, proud history of covering Judaism that is now a subscription-based online publication. She talked about stories they had done – from coverage of prominent issues like the...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Kinnelon (NJ) High School journalism teacher Alana Van Der Sluys, who is also a vice-president of the Garden State Scholastic Press Association (GSSPA). Alana explained the role of the GSSPA and shared her path to teaching. She described how the school’s journalism program, which has 3 classes and allows students to get college credit, works. Alana also tal...