Chroniclers of War

What’s the best way to teach journalism students how to cover a war? Send them to a war

zone. That might sound extreme and risky, but it’s exactly what UAF Journalism

Professor and Department Chair Brian O’Donoghue did in August 2009. And

O’Donoghue didn’t just send students to Iraq with Fort Wainwright’s 1st Stryker Brigade

Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division - he led the way.

   

Out of an initial applicant pool of twelve students, O’Donoghue picked UAF students

Jennifer Canfield, Tom Hewitt and Jessica Hoffman to spend one month as embedded

reporters in Iraq, honing their on-the-scene skills. “A journalist gets the most out of short-

term, very intense experiences, such as elections, natural disasters or the Yukon Quest,”

O’Donoghue explains, “where you have a finite amount of time. So you’re motivated,

you can push yourself to the deadline and finish.”

   

The project was funded entirely by the UA Foundation with a $35,000 grant from funds

donated by BP and ConocoPhillips. “The biggest expense was transportation,” said

O’Donoghue, along with new field equipment, which was crucial to the project. The

grant allowed the purchase of $11,000 in sturdy, portable and, above all, reliable

equipment for the team to use to write, film, record, edit and transmit information under

less-than-desirable conditions. Use of field equipment, and dealing with the inevitable

breakdowns and delays, is a crucial part of the journalist’s learning experience.    The

team maintained regular contact with Alaska news sources as well as “shorttimers,” a

routinely updated blog.

The project attracted a lot of national attention, and the students found themselves on the

other side of the interview.    Their story has been covered by CBC/Radio Canada, NPR,

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Anchorage Daily News, The Chronicle of Higher

Education, The Sacramento Bee, and several other news organizations. O’Donoghue and

his students are still giving interviews and presentations about their experiences, and the

blog features regular updates.   

The project has had a broad impact, not just on the team itself. The soldiers from the

Stryker Brigade, stationed in Diyala province north of Baghdad, felt differently about

O’Donoghue’s team than about other reporters. They knew the reports the team generated

would be going back home to Alaska, where soldiers’ families would hear what was

going on with their soldiers, not just general war coverage by larger news media.   

Back in the States for several months now, the students have an even clearer idea of how

they want to pursue journalism. Jennifer Canfield is now the editor for the

tundratelegraph.com, a site devoted to the news from Alaskan villages. Jessica Hoffman

specializes in broadcast news, and is working finishing her degree at UAF.

Tom Hewitt has become the editor for The Sun Star, the newspaper for the University of

Alaska Fairbanks, and is also redesigning The Sun Star website.

While no trips into the war zone are planned for the immediate future, O’Donoghue

stresses that there is now a need, in a journalism program, to include training in war

coverage. In 2004, O’Donoghue conducted the first “Pen and Sword” class. “It gets

students learning how to cover the military as a beat,” says O’Donoghue. “The role of a

journalist,” he continues, “is to learn how to cover army talk even if you’re not in a battle

zone.”