My first opportunity to write for the New York Times was a stroke of luck. I was in the right place — Arkansas — at the right time, when the New York Times was in need.

My invite to write for the publication was quite a shock since I didn’t personally know anyone who worked for the Times.

When the email came and the subject line read “From the New York Times” I figured it was spam.

Still curious, I opened it. After reading for a few seconds I almost spit out my post-lunch coffee.

“Hi Alissa,

I’m the retail reporter for the New York Times. I read some of your clips online and liked them, and was hoping you might be free next Thursday and Friday to cover Wal-Mart’s shareholders’ meeting in Fayetteville. I usually go, but I have to cover a couple of stories elsewhere. Would you let me know if you’re free and interested, and I can give you more details?

Thanks!
Stephanie Clifford”

Interested? Yes!

I received the email while I was working at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as an intern. I had been working my tail off and had no idea if the paper would allow me to take two days off to report for the New York Times.

My editor said I could go this one time as long as I made up the hours I missed. So it was official. Less than a week later I was off to Northwest Arkansas.

The first day of the event was a prep day for the actually shareholders’ meeting. I talked with Wal-Mart top executives and took notes elbow-to-elbow in a Wal-Mart Express store freezer with reporters from Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the Times of India and many other journalists.

I had an hour to write a story about Wal-Mart’s new express stores while riding on a charter bus. After I got off the bus, I ran to my car to find an Internet connection so I could file. I ended up filing at a gas station a minute before deadline.

The next day, I was up at 4 a.m. ready to venture into what felt like the MTV awards intertwine with an official business meeting.

In between listening to top Wal-Mart executives speak, Will Smith cracked a few jokes as the host of the event, and the Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys and American Idol winner, Scotty McCreery took the stage.

Employees from around the world were at the meeting waving flags, cheering and doing the Wal-Mart squiggly dance. The African employees kept tooting their vuvuzela horns.

There I was — the rookie— standing with my notepad and pen in one hand, and smartphone in the other ready to write and tweet furiously about the Wal-Mart shareholders’ meeting for the New York Times.

The experience was unforgettable. I learned a lot and realized I have a lot to learn about business reporting. I often read about the stock market, but the Wal-Mart shareholders’ meeting was my first experience reporting and writing about hard business news.

Before the meeting, I felt that I didn’t know what I was doing.  But hey, the story turned out great. I knew more than I thought about stocks and shares, and I figured out what I didn’t know along the way.

I learned from this entire experience to always do my best on every story I write — I advise other journalists to do the same. Who knows, a New York Times reporter could be paying attention to your work.

Belinda Wright

When Belinda Wright left small-town Nebraska for a UNL education in public relations she had no idea she would be representing herself and her state on a national stage. In May 2010 Wright had the opportunity to participate in the Miss USA Pageant in Las Vegas. But one week before competition began, she got a call that would send her back home to Scotia, Neb. Her father, Harry Wright, had been killed in a farm accident.
Harry Wright was a farmer who loved history and hunting, but he was also a great listener who helped his daughter through stressful times. “He was also my biggest fan and believed in me no matter what,” she said.

“After I started thinking about it, I realized that I knew he would want me to go back and compete. At that point, there wasn’t a question that I would go back,” she said.

“Dad was really proud of her,” said Wright’s older brother, Maceo. “His chest got real big when he talked about her. He wouldn’t have wanted to have been the reason she didn’t compete.”

Belinda Wright returned to Las Vegas with the support of her town and many surrounding communities.

Wright competed on the national stage, becoming the first Miss Nebraska-USA to place in the top 15 in more than 30 years. She also became the first Miss Nebraska-USA to receive the Miss Congeniality award. Wright said she was honored that her fellow competitors, now some of her closest friends, chose her for the award. “That was something that meant even more to me than making the top 15,” she said.

Wright came to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2006 to study textiles and advertising. She said people usually first associate her with public speaking and fashion and are later surprised to learn she’s from a small town and has these interests.

In 2008, Wright landed a summer internship with Indigo Wild, a company specializing in making all-natural soaps and lotions. That internship would change her future.

“I was doing public relations there and I met a former Miss Kansas and Miss Missouri and they kind of talked me into doing Miss Nebraska,” she said.

Wright researched the pageant and realized it encompassed many of the things she wanted to accomplish:  community service, public speaking, modeling and making an impact on Nebraska.

Her decision made, Wright started intensive preparation for the 2009 Miss Nebraska-USA competition. The winner of the state competition goes on to represent Nebraska in the Miss USA pageant. The winner of the Miss USA title goes on to compete in the Miss Universe pageant.

In preparation for the pageant, Wright began spending more time volunteering, developed a platform on education she could promote in case she won, wrote her opinions on current events each evening, exercised daily and practiced public speaking. Although she didn’t win the 2009 title, she tried again and her work resulted in the title Miss Nebraska-USA 2010.

“I had watched the Miss USA pageants on TV, but I never thought I’d be doing it one day,” she said.

Winning Miss Nebraska-USA 2010 on Oct. 25, 2009, meant more work and more preparation, this time for the May 2010 competition and the title of Miss USA. Wright said being enrolled in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications gave her an advantage.

“As far as communication skills go, we always have to do presentations in both my textile and my journalism classes,” she said. “And I actually went to some of my professors for advice on public speaking and they were able to help me.”

All 51 contestants arrived in Las Vegas two weeks before the Miss USA competition began.

“We’d have 12-hour rehearsals,” Wright said. “With 51 girls, it’s a pretty big task to get everyone on the same page. And since you don’t know who’s going to be in the top everyone has to know what to do if you move on.”

“I just had so much support from all these small towns across the state,” she said. “I was getting thousands of messages and e-mails. They played it (the pageant) at a theater in a surrounding town and I know they said the theater was packed. I think I was really blessed in that aspect because that was just the power that small towns have. They back up anyone that comes from a small town, and so I think that really helped me get through.”

Wright’s reign ended Oct. 24, 2010, when she helped crown Miss Nebraska-USA 2011. Wright said the end was bittersweet, but she doesn’t plan to compete in any more pageants. After her December 2010 UNL graduation, her plans include graduate school and possibly a different side of pageant work.

“Maybe later on I would think about coaching girls through the pageant,” she said, “but as far as competing in another pageant, I don’t see myself doing that because Miss USA is kind of the Super Bowl of pageants.”

One of her journalism professors, Ruth Brown, said she believes Wright will be successful in whatever she pursues.

“She’s just a modest person with a lot of abilities,” Brown said, adding that she’s also a Facebook friend with Wright and often follows her activities. “She presents herself so well. She’s an excellent role model who does more than say the right things. She lives the right life to back them up.”

Garrett Durst

One decision may certainly throw you; turn your life inside out, upside down. This was made literal for senior broadcasting major Garret Durst, around midnight on August 9, 2009.

Earlier that day, Durst had nothing but high expectations as he geared up for his final year in the UNL the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. He was a former scholarship gymnast with the UNL men’s gymnastics team and held an internship with the Channel 8 sports team, as well. It was just supposed to be a fun night out with friends at Pla Mor Ballroom. That is, until he became a passenger in a car, not knowing about events that would unfold.

“I figured he (the driver) was fine,” said Durst.

Durst had previously been in a vehicle with the same driver, who occasionally “jumped hills” on the country roads for fun. On this night, however, he had lost control of the car, which rolled several times. Durst landed in a 10-day coma while the other four passengers suffered less severe injuries.

“They thought I was dying that night. They really did,” Durst reflected.

He also spoke of the reactions by family and friends, including his coach, who burst out of his hospital room in a rage of anger. Durst does not remember waking up from the coma.

“I was in some weird place, had no idea what time it was or where I was at.”

For six months after the accident, Durst was in a wheelchair and unable to speak.

Despite his serious injuries, Durst pulled through, even surpassing the prediction that he would never again live a normal life. Many of his doctors and nurses at Lincoln’s Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital did not expect him to return to school anytime soon. In fact, Durst enrolled in two courses in the spring semester of 2010. Although he was not planning on returning to the UNL men’s gymnastics due to another injury before the accident, he has been keeping in shape, too.

“I always knew I would be fine,” said Durst.

He didn’t become optimistic right away. Many days in the rehabilitation hospital proved to be frustrating. As he continued to persevere, healing became easier. Today, Durst amazes the people in his life by continuing his education. He will graduate from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications in May 2011.

Although proud of the gains he has achieved, Durst does realize the impact of his decision to step into that vehicle on the night of August 9, 2009.

“When the kid was driving, I had to have been thinking ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ They (my parents) always thought I made good decisions.”

Durst was not wearing his seat belt that night. He had not generally worn seat belts before the accident, either.

“Most people don’t come out of comas as quick as me,” he said. “In a way, this wreck was a blessing because of how it changed my life. I am more focused and determined to being better than I was.”

And that is what Durst continues to strive for today: to be better than he was. Many family members, friends and acquaintances of Durst have pointed out that he is an example of a student who did not give up when obstacles got in the way. Faith and good people are what gave him the ability to pull through.

“I think God played a big role in this,” he said. “If I can overcome something this bad, they can, too.”

Associate professor of broadcasting, Richard Alloway, agrees.

“I think he’s an inspiration to everyone in this college to be able to jump back into such a demanding major. We were delighted to see him return.”

Emily Ingram (photo courtesy ACES UNL)

As a University of Nebraska student, Emily Ingram was one of just five students nationally to win an ACES scholarship last April.

Just a few months later, she was hired as an overnight producer at The Washington Post. She’s come a long way from Franklin, Neb., a town of about 1,100 people where Ingram grew up on a farm not far from the Kansas border. It’s a one-stoplight town, she said, if you count the light that only flashes red or yellow depending on the direction you’re driving.

Moving to D.C. has been a cultural shift.

“It is strange being in a city where so much of the town is — in one way or another — government-related,” she said in an e-mail. “Look left and you see an embassy, look right and there’s some sort of a federal agency.”

But the biggest change hasn’t been about adjusting to D.C. It’s been reorienting to post-college life. She credits her student involvement with ACES for helping her make the transition to the big leagues smoothly.

“My involvement with ACES has, of course, pushed me to improve my skills as an editor,” she said, “but more than anything, it helped me get to know professionals while I was still a student.”

Ingram was paired with Paula Devlin, online news editor at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, in one of the first ACES mentoring matchups.

“Our sessions always seemed to revolve around issues of managing her time and managing people, not the nuts and bolts of our craft,” Devlin said in an e-mail.

“Emily is one of those people who wants to learn everything, and to excel at everything. She has a drive and an enthusiasm that is refreshing and, frankly, a bit frightening,” Devlin said. “That’s because she truly is good at everything she does: web design, reporting and editing for print and video, producing, online writing and editing, managing social media platforms – and she enjoys training others in what she has learned. I don’t know when or if she sleeps.”

Both benefited from their relationship. When Devlin moved to the online desk, Ingram offered her pointers.

Ingram was an officer in the ACES chapter at UNL and even created the chapter’s website. She attended regional and national conferences and came away with lessons she uses in the real world.

“When I’m attaching graphics to stories online, I remember Bill Cloud’s examples of common errors in graphics — and I make sure ours don’t have any of them, “ she said. “How to watch for libel, how to figure common math problems, what makes a good headline online — ACES has taught me about most all the things I handle on a daily basis.”

Before landing a full-time job at the Post, Ingram had several copy editing internships. She worked for the Lincoln Journal Star, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Meeting professional editors at ACES meetings helped her understand how newsrooms operate and made transitions easier.

“It always helps to have someone on the inside who can give you advice or put a good word in for you,” Ingram said. “ACES provides a place for you to make those connections.”

After spending a year at UNL’s student paper working as a Web editor, Ingram was hired last summer as a Web producer intern at the Post. The paper offered her a full-time job before the internship even ended.

Ingram sees many similarities between copy editing and working as a Web producer. In both cases, you’re the advocate for the reader.

“You’re saying does this make sense? Is it logical? Would a graphic here make a complex scientific topic more understandable? As a Web producer you’re doing many of the same things.”

As the number of editing jobs shrinks, Ingram suggested students who like copy editing might want to think about web producing, too – especially if they are a bit “geeky.”

“A lot of the same questions you would pose as a copy editor you can pose as a web producer, too. “

Devlin said Ingram’s career offers lessons for others.

“Emily’s path through college and beyond shows the value of opening yourself up to all forms of journalism, to find what you have a passion for and what you’re best at,” Devlin said. “Her desire to seek an ACES mentor illustrates her lack of ego despite all her accomplishments, and her belief that there is always something more to learn. “

And now, like many copy editors, Ingram is learning to adjust to strange hours. She starts her shift at 11 p.m. As an overnight producer, she loves the weeks when big news happens overseas. When President Obama was in Asia for 10 days, Ingram was exceptionally busy with breaking news.

That’s a far cry from the laid back pace of rural Nebraska.

Now, Ingram said, if only she could get back to Lincoln for more Husker game days, life would be just perfect.

Mijoe Sahiouni

Discovering what one wants to do after college graduation can be tough. As a double major in journalism and theater, Mai Mijoe Sahiouni wasn’t sure about her career goals — until she participated in UNL’s UCARE project. Now she has a clear goal in mind that allows her to pursue both her passions.

UCARE — the Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experiences program — supports undergraduates who work with faculty on such activities. Funded by the Pepsi Endowment and Program of Excellence, UCARE grants support most students for two years.

The first year focuses on learning by doing; the student assists the faculty member in his or her current research or creative activity project. In the second year, the student works independently on a project with the faculty member serving as a mentor.

UCARE project combines theater and advertising skills

Sahiouni, a senior at UNL, is one of many undergraduates who have participated in the program. Sponsored by faculty member Juliana Hagemeier, Sahiouni spent her first year in the UCARE program as assistant to the general manager of the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. During this time, Sahiouni used many of the advertising and journalism skills she had learned in the classroom.

“Basically, I did everything. I wrote press releases, created a marketing plan for a fundraising gala and arranged housing for guest audiences,” she said.

Mijoe Sahiouni met Dick Cavett during her UCARE internship

In her second year, Sahiouni conducted research on audience development for the Nebraska Repertory Theatre while she worked as the marketing associate for the theater.

Hagemeier described Sahiouni’s work as exceptional.

“She excels in each of these qualities — diligence, organization, strong interpersonal skills and the ability to multitask.”

But Sahiouni also has other admirable attributes,  Hagemeier said.

“She has a personable manner, a sparkling personality that charms youth and adults alike, is particular in her artistic choices and has boundless energy.

Academic and career goals come together

One of UCARE’s goals for undergraduates is that they identify academic and career interests, and that’s exactly what Sahiouni has done. The UCARE program gave her the opportunity to explore both of her majors, theater and advertising, and allow them to interact with one another.

Academically she found a way to build off each major, using what she learned in one to help her with the other. UCARE also helped her experience theater and advertising in a professional manner.

Hoping to graduate August 2010, Sahiouni plans to use her public relations skills in the entertainment industry.

During its 10 years, the UCARE program has helped thousands, said Troy Fedderson of University Communications.

“Since the start of the program in 2000, more than 2,500 undergraduates and 800 faculty members have participated in the program,” he said.

For Sahiouni, it’s provided not only an added advantage to her undergraduate education but also a way to figure out what she wants to do after she graduates.

Rachel Albin

During spring semester, 13 students were enrolled in the first half of a yearlong depth report on Bolivia — but one of the students was never in class.

The “absent” student was Rachel Albin, a news-editorial and Spanish major who plans to graduate in May 2011 and aspires to become a bilingual journalist. Albin was studying abroad in Mexico and participated in the first semester of NEWS 401 via Skype, a software application that allows users to make calls to other Skype users over the Internet for free — even international calls. Calls can be either audio only or audio and video, depending on whether the computers being used have cameras.

Through the cameras on her computer and on the instructor’s laptop in the Andersen Hall classroom, Albin was able to see the class and interact with the students and the teachers, Luis Peon-Casanova and Carla Kimbrough.

“It has been a great opportunity, but this experience is not like sitting in a classroom,” Albin said.

“There are 12 people in the classroom, and Luis opens his laptop and has my face on the screen. The class has to remember to turn me and pass me around so I can see who is talking and what is going on. If there is a PowerPoint or a presentation, it works best if they send me a link so I can follow along on my own computer instead of trying to read the screen.”

Although this is a non-traditional way to deliver education, Peon-Casanova thinks it has advantages.

“I got my master’s over the computer, and the experience was very strong. The difference is that you have to be disciplined and do all the work yourself,” he said. “It is more of a student-learning environment instead of the teacher. I think that way, your learning can lead to be more active because you have more of an ownership in what you do.”

Peon-Casanova likes using Skype because “it is so transparent, and it works so well.”

A passionate interest in Bolivia

The J school announced last fall that it would undertake a depth report about Bolivia as part of a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Peon-Casanova and Kimbrough asked students to apply for the class, and Albin was eager to be part of the project. She had wanted to visit Bolivia since she learned about the nation in a high school Spanish class.

But, in her application, Albin had to explain that she was going to be abroad during the first semester of the course. She told the faculty that she would do anything to be included and suggested Skype as an option.

Kimbrough and Peon-Casanova decided to make it work, and Albin and the rest of the students in the class spent the spring doing research about Bolivia’s geography, history and natural resources.

“I wasn’t totally confident that having Rachel appear via Skype would work, but it worked beautifully,” Kimbrough said. “Rachel has been an enormous asset to the class and has taken on one of the key topics — coca. I believe Rachel has a firm hold on the topic. Because of this experience with Rachel, I would be more likely to try this method again.”

Peon-Casanova said one primary focus of the class is to help students learn to approach journalism as “an integrated subject where you have to be able to interview, take your own pictures, broadcast and market your stories. Even if a student is primarily a writer, he or she is going to have to be versatile in different media in order to be successful.”

Bolivia’s situation is also unusual

The way the course is delivered to Albin isn’t the only unusual thing about the project. Bolivia itself is at a unique moment in history.

For the first time in its 470 years, Bolivia is led by an indigenous head of state, Evo Morales. Europeans have previously governed the nation, where 65 percent of the population is indigenous.

After studying about Bolivia during the spring and developing potential sources there, students visited the nation in June.  They’ll spend the fall semester writing stories about what they found and creating a magazine and website. They may even develop educational materials to use in classrooms. They are still determining how to market the material they plan to produce.

Albin said she appreciated being able to take the Bolivia class via Skype because her experience in Mexico has been irreplaceable. She has improved her Spanish for her trip to Bolivia, but she also gained a stronger Latin American perspective.

Despite the unorthodox teaching and learning method, Albin and her instructors are happy she was able to be part of the depth reporting team.

“I’m excited to have Rachel along,” Peon-Casanova said.

Allison Busch

Imagine being given an assignment on something you know nothing about. A project so demanding that it’s a government matter. Now imagine being a sophomore in college and having this assignment rest in your hands.

That was the daunting task facing junior advertising major Allison Busch in fall 2009.

That semester, Busch was an intern at the Global Innovation and Strategy Center, one of many sectors of the United States Strategic Command based in Omaha. The task? Figure out how to protect the commercial industry’s satellites from electromagnetic interference. In simple terms, this means stopping the disruption of satellite signals that are used around the world.

Teams take on STRATCOM challenges

Each year United States Strategic Command — STRATCOM — puts together several teams of people from different skill areas. The five members of the team are given one semester to address a problem facing STRATCOM.

The team’s goal was to create a report that contained suggestions on how to solve the disruption of the satellite signals. This report would then be presented to the students’ supervisors, and ultimately, to a four-star general.

Busch and her team began digging into the research.

“We had to dive in head first looking up information about satellites,” she said. “We were dealing with experts who had been in the field for 30 years.”

Busch’s colleague, Carrie Lacy said, “It’s definitely a fast-paced research environment where you are expected to provide real-life solutions to be used by the Department of Defense.”

Not everyone trusts the government

In addition to their heavy research load, the interns faced a challenge when workers in the commercial industry often were leery of working with anyone affiliated with the government.

“There is a trust issue,” Busch said. “Sometimes it’s hard to pull that information out of people.” But the team persisted and completed its task.

Busch was the third J school student to be accepted for the internship at STRATCOM. Past UNL interns in the program were Maggie Tunning and Adrian Whitsett.

The experience of working in a government environment and gaining a new experience was what made the internship so important to Busch. She said the most satisfying part was piecing bits of information together as they were discovered. Figuring out the cause of satellite failure also proved to be intriguing.

Despite the challenges her team faced, Busch recommends other J school students apply for the STRATCOM internship.

“Go with something outside of your comfort zone,” she said. “You won’t regret it in the end.”

Les Rose

It’s late on a Wednesday evening, and Les Rose is making the two-hour drive back to his home in Los Angeles. He shifts a little in his seat, stretching his shoulders, which are weary from 33 years of straining under a 28-pound camera.

It’s been another adventurous day for a Hawaiian shirt-clad Rose, who’s just finished shooting a news piece at a skate park in San Diego.

Being a CBS photojournalist often means 20-hour days and lots of driving, but Rose doesn’t mind. His job at CBS allows him to capture people’s stories on a digital disc and share them with the world. And for Rose, that’s worth the 20-hour days.

Because, in a word, Les Rose is a storyteller.

The May 2010 College of Journalism and Mass Communications master’s graduate seems eccentric enough to be a tall tale himself. He has a personality as large as his 6-foot-6 frame and a voice that crackles with electrical liveliness.

Every work day is different

There is no average day for Rose. His job at CBS has taken him to countless award shows, to Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial (and, some years after that, to 72 days covering Jackson’s death), to 12 days covering both O.J. Simpson trials, to spending a few days with Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. Rose has seen his fair share of danger, too, covering the wars in Central America in the mid 1980s, but he says the most dangerous assignment he’s ever been on was covering the LA riots of 1992.

But Rose will be the first to point out that occasionally dangerous situations are just another part of the adventure. And adventure, he said, is where the stories are.

“I’m always finding an excellent adventure,” he said. “This is a job where you don’t know where you’re going to go, who you’re going to meet and what you’re going to learn on any given day.”

Expanding the adventure into higher education

It was that sense of adventure and curiosity for learning that drove Rose to earn a master’s degree. The degree, he said, will bring his education “full circle.”

“I cold called a lot of colleges, but I called Nebraska out of loyalty,” he said. “I was born in Lincoln, after all, and my brother and father went to school here.”

His cold call landed him in the experienced hands of professor Nancy Mitchell, who directed him to UNL’s online master’s program. Mitchell also headed his three-person thesis committee.

Rose’s thesis, a culmination of almost two years of work, is a piece on Edward R. Murrow, the “patron saint of CBS News” and a storyteller himself. But those two years of thesis writing and studying were hard-fought because once Rose decided on Nebraska, he had to find a way to bridge the gap between time for work and time for study. And to accommodate the time and distance gap between LA and Lincoln, Rose followed UNL’s online master’s program.

“Since a quarter of the class grade is participation, I had to be online and present at every single class. It was an interesting challenge because California time is two hours behind Nebraska time,” he said. “To make everything work, I’d find time between shooting footage to study in airports and hotel rooms at all hours of the day and night.”

He laughed a little. “I didn’t used to drink coffee, but I sure do now.”

Despite the hectic schedule, Rose still had time to make a positive impression on Mitchell.

“He’s one of those students you just never forget,” she said, glancing at a strange molten piece of metal that Rose sent her in the mail. It’s got a letter attached to that has a CBS header and Rose’s familiar scrawl explaining that it used to be part of a fancy car but was melted in a California fire.

“He found this one on one of his adventures.”

Professor Barney McCoy, another one of Rose’s thesis advisers and a former broadcast journalist himself, shares Mitchell’s enthusiastic view of Rose as a student.

“It’s been wonderful to have him as a graduate student because he’s always trying to add more to the equation,” he said. “Les has an infectious personality that’s driven by his curiosity. All those things make him a natural at what he does.”

Naturally, McCoy agrees, that’s storytelling.

And working in LA, that often means telling celebrity stories. But after nearly 40 award shows, Rose isn’t really interested in celebrities. He doesn’t get star struck anymore.

“Celebrities kind of bore me,” he said. “They’re always selling something, like a movie.” After a moment, he relented. “But I really did like Tom Hanks. He was nice.”

Everybody has a story

So after tiring of covering the celebrity scene, Rose and his CBS colleague Steve Hartman set out on a new adventure:  to tell the stories of ordinary Americans.

Their adventure began some 12 years ago when Hartman had the idea of throwing a dart at a map of America and following wherever it landed. The series, originally called “Everybody Has a Story,” lasted six years.

Once they reached their destination, they would grab a phone book, flip to a page and start calling. One time, it took up to 44 calls before someone agreed to tell their story.

Currently, whenever New York-based Hartman is west of the Rockies, he and Rose work together on “Assignment America” which airs Monday nights on the CBS Evening News. Those pieces also are heartfelt and often humorous feature stories, but this time the people are not picked at random.

Hartman recently renamed “Everybody Has a Story” to “Everybody in the World Has a Story” for a three-part series on the CBS Evening News

“These are people without publicists,” Rose said. “They have these great stories to tell, but no one ever asks. When we say everybody has a story, we mean it.”

There’s Ken in Arthur, Neb., who proposed to his wife the day she learned she had terminal cancer. She died a year later.

And there’s Suzie in Pennsylvania, the woman who had a hysterectomy at the age of 25 and has since adopted six boys.

“How can you compare a story like that to a celebrity?” Rose said. “I would trade any celebrity story any day for an ‘Assignment America’ story.”

Born to tell stories

And telling those stories is what Rose believes he was made to do.

“I love story telling,” he said. “Stories are about people, and my goal is to make people feel comfortable, and so then they do what they do, and I just disappear and capture it all.”

His dedication to telling stories goes even beyond his job. If Rose ever parts from CBS, he says it’s been his dream to teach others all that he’s learned from the field.

“I would absolutely love to teach, but my day job is a little too awesome to give up,” he said.  “I think I’ll just be satisfied with a master’s for a while now.”

Carson Stokebrand shows his "Late Show" I.D.

It sounds like a dream:  an internships on “Late Night with David Letterman.” But for one journalism graduate student, the dream has come true. Carson Stokebrand, in just his second semester of graduate school at CoJMC, is in New York, working for the Letterman show. Read his story on NewsNetNebraska.

Matt Buxton

Matt Buxton’s deep interest in telling stories has paid off in a big way for the senior news-editorial major.

Last summer, Buxton learned new ways to tell stories by participating in the Summer Fellowships for Young Journalists — a highly selective program at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. Buxton is now using those techniques as editor-in-chief of the Daily Nebraskan.

“While the skills I was learning focused on multimedia, they were really universal,” Buxton said in an e-mail. “Overall, the experience really showed me the power of a good story.”

Buxton, 21, said the fellowship helped him to see new possibilities in multimedia journalism and also made him curious about the future of journalism.

Originally from Portland, Ore., Buxton came to the J school determined to be a photographer, but he soon discovered an interest in Web development, production and multimedia.

“People want to experience a story in multiple forms,” Buxton said. “You don’t have to be a master at everything. Just understanding helps structure coverage. “

Buxton has had many opportunities to develop his interest in multimedia storytelling. He has been deputy editor-in-chief and assistant photo editor for the DN and has interned on campus at the Center for Applied Rural Innovation. Next summer he’ll be part of the News 21 Fellowship Program, interning at the University of California Berkeley.

Sue Burzynski Bullard, a J school associate professor, suggested Buxton apply for the Poynter Fellowship and recommended him for it.

“In my beat reporting class, he was one of the students who seemed the most interested in multimedia and learning about telling stories over different platforms,” Bullard said.

Buxton said the fellowship was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

“I didn’t have an internship at the time,” he said. “It seemed like an awesome experience.”

About 1,000 students applied for the fellowship, and only 39 were chosen to participate. The Poynter Web site describes the fellowship program as “a six-week long program for recent college grads from around the world. As the students fine-tune their skills in design, photography, graphics and reporting, they’re asked to think about new ideas for collaboration and ethical decision-making.”

The program tuition was free but attendees had to provide their own travel and hotel accommodations.

Sara Dickenson Quinn, who coordinates the program for Poynter, said she was happy to have Buxton in the program.

“He came to us with a diverse set of skills — photography, writing, design and so much more. He quickly became a leader within the group, helping others to understand the possibilities with storytelling and the Web.”

The fellowship’s aim is to “broaden the interests of students and new grads — to help prepare them for their first jobs,” Quinn said. “Matt was well on his way from the moment he walked in the doors of Poynter. We loved having him here.”

And Buxton loved it. Each day, he said, was an inspiration.

“There were dynamic professors and students, left and right,” Buxton said.

He learned about ethics, media law and interviewing. He also took part in an intensive story-telling project.

Each student was assigned a specific geographic area and a diverse range of stories and was to produce a two-to-three minute multimedia project.

In the late afternoons and evenings, Buxton was sent out on the streets of St. Petersburg to connect with the people and to find a story to tell. He started off by talking to the homeless. He ended up working on the topic of tattoos and met a man named Evil Don, a tattoo artist. Buxton got to know this artist and took an in-depth look at tattooing and this particular tattoo artist.

Through interviews, stories, observing Evil Don tattooing and through visiting his home and family, Buxton said he discovered that “evil” is just a word. Buxton’s multimedia piece on Evil Don is at inked.mattbuxton.com.

While studying at Poynter, Buxton said he grew as a journalist and made lifelong connections with people who share his passion.

“I learned that you can’t forget the reporting and that it’s not just about the flashy online stuff,” Buxton said. “There are wide ranges of tools available to tell a story. It’s up to you to figure out how to use them. Students need to pick up more than a pen.”

As journalism takes new twists and turns, Buxton said he has high expectations for its future.

“Hopefully, if people get their heads right, there will be more innovation. A time will hopefully come where there’s more than just video and audio slides. We have to think about what people want to see. No one has had to think about that before,” Buxton said. “We have to be more aware in the future.”