HTC journalism students work to share news in four Ohio communities

Where can people who need food, accessible internet and reasonable transportation go to find it? This is what journalism students at Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University mapped, designed, and sent to libraries in Athens, Albany, Plains, and Nelsonville.

A class of eight first-year journalism students from Honors Tutorial College (HTC) worked on the project for five weeks, conducting original interviews to illustrate the resources of these four communities.

“The HTC Journalism freshman class serves to acclimatize students to journalism, the honors program, university and surrounding communities,” said Victoria LaPoe, Ph.D., director of journalism studies at Honors Tutorial College and associate professor at EW Scripps School of Journalism. “We worked together as a collaborative group to use journalism skills to help support those on and off campus. We were convinced that we needed to focus on more than one community and use journalism skills – interviewing, researching, writing, storytelling, data visualization, audio recording / editing, online content creation and public relations – which are used in both our information and strategic communication courses.

The class created an infographic mapping institutions in Ohio and Athens University that provide free Wi-Fi to the public, as well as locations and details of food banks and similar establishments. They also included maps and information on public transport options.

“I enjoyed collaborating with my fellow journalists at HTC because I felt like I hadn’t had the chance to see how we all work as a group yet.” HTC’s journalism program freshman Mimi Calhoun said. “It was nice to see how everyone’s different styles and work ethic fit together. Being able to have even a small impact in the surrounding community is very important to me and my peers.

The class sent out printed copies of the information to all libraries, so those interested did not need to have a cell phone to access it. For those who had access to a cell phone, the The placemat included QR codes to SoundCloud interviews, which were also linked to these resources.