Category: Featured Class Notes

Meribah Knight won a 2021 Peabody award for the second season of her podcast, The Promise. The series, reported and hosted by Meribah, tells the story of two neighborhood schools divided by race and economics: one almost entirely Black and low-income, the other almost all white and well off.

Meribah is a senior reporter/producer of special projects with Nashville Public Radio. She lives in Nashville with her husband, a photojournalist at the Tennessean, their 2-year-old son and the family’s five cats.

Joanne C. Gerstner was elected to the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame, for its 2021 class. She joins the two other female sports media already elected to the Hall, and she is the first female sports writer. She is being honored for her award-winning career and leadership to advocate and promote women in sports media.

Cate was recently promoted to Director of Integrated Marketing overseeing all Beauty, Wellness and Luxury partnerships at Vice Media Group (which includes VICE, ViceTV, Refinery29, i-D, Garage, Pulse Films and Virtue Worldwide). Her experiences also includes being a Lead Strategist at Byte New York, a digital innovation agency, where she worked on accounts such as UGG, Johnson & Johnson and Ariana Grande.

James Edwards hosted and reported the investigative podcast series Un(re)solved. Produced by FRONTLINE PBS, the series examines the U.S. government’s efforts to investigate dozens of cold case murders that date back to the civil rights era. Un(re)solved made its world premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Festival as a Narrative Nonfiction Official Selection in the Festival’s Competition Program.

Ed Sealover, a senior reporter at the Denver Business Journal, was honored recently as Colorado Journalist of the Year by the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He won the award for his coverage of the devastating effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the state’s business community, which included more than 500 stories written in 2020 on the suffering of businesses, the public policies that impacted them and the way that many were changing in order to survive. SPJ Colorado described his “commanding deep sourcing, fast turnaround and a near-encyclopedic knowledge of Colorado business” in the news release announcing the honor. He also received three first-place awards in the four-state competition in the categories of business news, business enterprise reporting and political news. Sealover lives in Wheat Ridge, Colorado with his wife, Denise Jobin Sealover (BSJ ’95) and their children, Lincoln and Jane.

Eve Chen is thrilled to join USA TODAY as a Consumer Travel reporter. She previously worked closely with USA TODAY, covering the nation’s top stories as a senior producer with Gannett’s Video Production Center. Eve serves as co-chair of Gannett’s Asian American employee resource group, Asian American Forward. She is honored to be part of AAJA’s Executive Leadership Program 2021 cohort.

With more than eight years brand marketing experience in FMCG industry in Taiwan, developing marketing strategy and driving business growth for several well-known brands, Debbie is joining Nike Shanghai as Senior Brand Manager. After graduating from IMC program, Debbie still keeps reminding herself to use consumer centric, and data driven focus to communicate with consumers, to keep building successful brands that resonate with consumers.

Andrew Theen is the new podcasts editor at The Oregonian/OregonLive. Theen will oversee podcast creation and production at the largest news organization in Oregon. Theen started his career in public radio, where he was a reporter and producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting. After completing his MSJ, Theen begin working as a staff reporter at The Oregonian. He’s covered Portland City Hall, environmental issues, transportation and higher education at the paper since joining the staff in 2012. Theen created and launched The Oregonian’s first podcast — Beat Check with The Oregonian – in 2019 and will now oversee all podcasts at the paper. He lives in Portland with his wife and two daughters.