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Pulitzer Center Update October 4, 2024

Grantees Hanes, Hellerman Launch Sharp Journalism Seminar With a Call for Curiosity

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West Virginia has long been ranked as one of the least healthy states to live in.

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As part of a three-day visit to William & Mary for the Sharp Journalism Seminar, medical journalist and Pulitzer Center grantee Caleb Hellerman speaks in Professor Brent Kaup's environmental sociology class on September 10, 2024. Image by Tess Willett. United States.

This article was originally written for The Charles Center at Campus Consortium partner William & Mary.


Could journalism provide an antidote for some of the most pressing problems of our time—distraction, divisiveness, and indifference?

For the 12 students in this year’s Sharp Journalism Seminar—which kicked off on September 8, 2024, in Blow Hall’s Grimsley Boardroom at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia—the message from their instructors was clear: If not a panacea, high-quality journalism, fueled by curiosity, provides thoughtful life lessons for the reporter, readers, and, perhaps, even our republic.

Pulitzer Center grantee Stephanie Hanes, an environment and climate change writer for The Christian Science Monitor, leads the four-credit, two-semester course and, for the first class, was joined by medical journalist and fellow grantee Caleb Hellerman of the Global Health Reporting Center.

“Paying attention is under attack in America now,” Hanes told students. “So, as a journalist, you have to train yourself to open your aperture, to listen to others who are different, with different perspectives, and observe with intention.”

 

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Grantee Stephanie Hanes, an environment and climate change writer for The Christian Science Monitor, met with students in Associate Teaching Professor Caitlin McGill's Creative Nonfiction Writing class during a visit to William & Mary in February 2024. Image by Tess Willett. United States.

Hanes urged students to sharpen their reporting skills, beginning with “deeply interrogating your own beliefs and perspectives and making sure that what’s guiding you is curiosity, not a position.” 

“Good journalism is inquiry-driven and isn’t a linear process," Hanes said. "If you’re reporting a story well and sponging it all up, your working theory changes course constantly.”

Hellerman echoed Hanes while explaining the through line in his career as a reporter, director, and producer with such outlets as CNN, ABC News, and PBS NewsHour: “As journalists, the heart of what we do is driven by curiosity."

The Sharp seminar, which began in 2011, is sponsored by William and Mary's Charles Center, in close partnership with the Pulitzer Center.  Both Hanes and Hellerman are among dozens of journalists worldwide who receive Pulitzer Center support for their reporting projects.

In the course’s first semester, students practice pitching a topic of their choosing, identifying sources, and transforming that topic into a story through rigorous research, hands-on reporting, and the craft of creative nonfiction writing.  The shift from academic writing to prose for a public audience can be challenging for students, according to Hanes.

 

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More than 70 students attended Caleb Hellerman's public talk in William & Mary's Tucker Hall Theatre on September 9, 2024, asking questions for nearly an hour. Image by Emmanuel Sampson. United States.

“Journalism takes students out of the academy and into the world,” Hanes said. “We want you to talk to other humans, face to face; to step into their lives, join them at work, follow them on quests, and understand their hopes and fears. Journalism takes the intellectual, mixes it with the tangible, and then tells a story.”

Most of the students’ reporting occurs over winter break, when a Charles Center travel grant supports in-person, on-site interviews with sources. Last year’s cohort traveled to places as nearby as Norfolk, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and as far-flung as San Francisco and Tokyo.

In the spring, Hanes works closely with students to shape and narrow their stories into long-form pieces for nonspecialist audiences. The stories are then published on the Pulitzer Center website. 

Throughout the process, Hanes provides mentorship and an editor’s tough love, informed by years as a professional journalist, first as a newspaper reporter, then as a foreign correspondent, and now as a staff writer for an international magazine that takes her around the world reporting on climate and environmental issues.

“Working with William & Mary students is a highlight of my year,” Hanes said. “Their enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, and eagerness to jump into journalistic reporting and writing always brings me back to the best parts of my job.”

 

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Ann Peters, director of university and community outreach at the Pulitzer Center, is shown at the Center's Beyond Religion Conference held in June 2019 at the National Press Club in Washingtion, D.C. Peters has worked with the Sharp seminar since it started in 2011. Image by Jin Ding. United States.

Students also benefit from the editorial guidance of Ann Peters, director of university and community outreach at the Pulitzer Center. Peters also worked as a professional journalist at home and abroad and has guided the Sharp seminar since its inception.

Founded in 2011, the seminar is supported by Anne Sharp (’82) and Barry Sharp (‘81), whose vision for greater mentorship at William & Mary for aspiring undergraduate journalists inspired the program’s design. The course continues to evolve in response to the rapidly—and drastically—changing field of journalism.

“From the beginning, the Sharp seminar has been dedicated to expanding students' horizons,” Peters said.  “We wanted them to use their strong research skills and academic interests to learn foundational journalistic techniques to craft clear stories for other citizens on important topics of the day. It's wonderful to see how many students are eager to embark on this opportunity year after year."

 

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Students created this hashtag cloud in response to Caleb Hellerman's September 9, 2024, visit to Assistant Professor Reya Farber's Politics of Global Health class at William & Mary. Image courtesy of Reya Farber. United States.

Another set of aims, Peters said, is to show students the interdisciplinary nature of journalism and to open their eyes to how they might incorporate reporting and media literacy into whatever careers they pursue.

The seminar not only provides close mentorship but also seeks to realize the Sharps’ vision of connecting professional journalists in a mentorship capacity to the broader campus community, according to Peters. Visiting journalists typically speak to students and faculty in the classroom and meet informally with small groups of students, when possible.

During his three-day visit, Hellerman delivered a public talk in Tucker Hall Theatre, hosted by the Sharpe Community Scholars Program, met with the 1693 Scholars and Flat Hat filmmakers in small settings over lunch, and visited two classes—Assistant Professor of Sociology Reya Farber’s Politics of Global Health class and Sociology Professor Brent Kaup’s environmental sociology class.

 

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Caleb Hellerman's public talk on September 9, "Whose Voice Will Be Heard?", was co-hosted by the Sharpe Community Scholars Program. Image by Emmanuel Sampson. United States.

In the classroom, it was students’ turn to ask the journalist questions.

“As a journalist, you have a license to be nosy—to ask others nosy questions,” Hellerman told Farber’s students, explaining what drew him to the field. “Our job is to build a world out of words and images and create an emotionally resonant experience that represents multiple voices with integrity.”

Assignments have taken Hellerman to such far-flung spots as a Cuban crocodile preserve, a Brazilian DNA-modified mosquito factory, and an Ebola vaccination clinic in Sierra Leone.

“One of the things you get to do as a journalist is you get to go places other people aren’t able to get to,” Hellerman explained to Kaup’s class. “We get a kind of backstage pass to see all sorts of things other people will never be able to see, and we have to somehow find a way of conveying it to them.”

Public policy major Harper Wagner said she enjoyed the class discussion and seeing how multiple fields—environmental science, sociology, and journalism—intersected in unexpected ways in Hellerman’s reporting.

 

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Caleb Hellerman fields questions from William & Mary students in Assistant Professor Reya Farber's Politics of Global Health class on September 9, 2024. Image by Ted Maris-Wolf. United States.

“The most interesting thing to me about Caleb's work as a health science journalist is the crossing of fields between science and journalism,” Wagner said.  “Being able to take on both journalism and science from a different lens and perspective, being able to travel the world, and just simply being in love with the work and process was inspiring to see.”

Hellerman responded to many student queries with tough questions of his own, ones that students will likely continue to grapple with throughout the academic year and, perhaps, their lives: How do you create a true two-way conversation with those you’re speaking to or interviewing?  Whose voices need to be a part of the conversation?  And how do you best represent opposing viewpoints with integrity?

Current Sharp seminar students will present their work at a showcase that will be held at 4:00pm on March 27, 2025, in William & Mary's Grimsley Boardroom (Blow Hall 201).  Seminar alum and New York Times video journalist Claire Hogan (’22) will moderate the panel discussion.

Applications for the 2025-26 seminar will open in the spring and will be due on April 1, 2025.

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