Catherine Palmer was already a seasoned student journalist at The Johns Hopkins News-Letter when Freddie Gray, a Baltimore native and black man, died in police custody, provoking protests across the city that swelled into what would be called the Baltimore Uprising. Even so, she was only 19 when she found herself one of the first reporters on the ground at a pivotal moment in April 2015, thrust onto the scene to cover the peaceful protests and outpouring of emotion in the wake of Gray’s death.
By the time the national news media swooped in to sensationalize the Uprising’s rare violent moments, Palmer, now the paper’s managing editor, and her co-editors had already decided to focus on what many students and the community members valued….
In West Virginia, Marshall University’s student newspaper, The Parthenon, has consistently covered the opioid epidemic, which has ravaged rural communities across the United States. It has highlighted bills introduced by Senator Joe Manchin to fight the epidemic, taught the student body about naloxone, which reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, and published editorials exposing the ease with which students can access prescription drugs…
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