Cover photos were taken by:
David Smith,West Virginia University, Reed College of Media
DeWayne Wickham, Morgan State University, School of Global Journalism & Communication
Jackie Jones, Morgan State University, School of Global Journalism & Communication
Karen Houppert is an assistant professor in the Department of Multimedia Journalism (MMJ) at Morgan State University. A former staff writer for The Village Voice for nearly 10 years, she has won several awards and numerous fellowships, grants and residencies including a 2013 John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Reporting Fellow. Houppert’s reporting has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including The Washington Post and The New York Times. Her most recent book, Chasing Gideon: The Elusive Quest for Poor People’s Justice takes the pulse of the public defense system 50 years after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright. She writes for the MGJR about the experience of real time, in-depth reporting.
Emily Pelland is a senior at Morgan State University, focusing on visual journalism. Pelland was a member of the SGJC team that visited Cuba. Pelland was also part of a team of faculty and students involved in a joint social justice reporting project with a team from West Virginia University, which visited Selma, Ala., to look at what the city that symbolizes a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement has become in the 50 years since Bloody Sunday. With Synclaire Cruel, she writes about what those immersive reporting experiences taught her.
E.R. Shipp, a regular contributor to the MGJR, is an associate professor and journalist in residence at Morgan State University. Shipp was the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. She is a former ombudsman at The Washington Post and taught at Columbia University and became the Lawrence Stessin Distinguished Professor of Journalism at Hofstra University before joining Morgan. Shipp writes about the decision to use Selma as the location for the major civil rights march 50 years ago memorialized as “Bloody Sunday.”
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Betty Winston Bayé is a veteran journalist, published novelist, motivational speaker, humorist and storyteller. She earned a masters’ degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, won a prestigious Nieman Fellowship, which allowed her to spend an academic year at Harvard University and held various positions - reporter, editor, editorial writer and columnist at The Courier-Journal, Kentucky's largest daily newspaper for 27 years. Baye writes in this issue of MGJR about the complex relationship between Americans and Cuba.
Denise Cabrera is a lecturer in the Department of Multimedia Journalism (MMJ) at Morgan State University. Cabrera was the first African American woman to be a bureau chief for The Associated Press and is the former executive editor of the Frederick (Md.) News-Post. In addition to her teaching responsibilities at Morgan, Cabrera is the director of the MMJ’s Digital Newsroom, through which students get practical experience covering breaking news. She writes about the delicate balancing act between ensuring students get real world experience and protecting them in potentially hazardous situations.
Synclaire Cruel is a senior journalism major at Morgan State University. Cruel, whose emphasis is on broadcast reporting and production, was part of a team of faculty and students from the School of Global Journalism & Communication who visited Cuba in June to uncover the truth and expose some myths about the island nation. She writes about the benefits of real time, immersion reporting.