Note that this episode was recorded and produced before the June 30 news broke about the Coast Guard's failure to pursue criminal investigations of a large number of sexual assaults of former students at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. You can read about that here.
Sonner Kehrt is an investigative reporter for The War Horse, a non-profit newsroom covering the military and veterans. She’s based in California and has been a journalist since 2015 and a lecturer at Berkeley since 2018.
Prior to that she served in the United States Coast Guard for 5 years. So she has a military-experience perspective in the work she does.
Sonner talked about her path to journalism, the experience of going to the Coast Guard Academy, and how her military time prepared her for journalism.
She walked us through the different stories she’s done, including ones on being an LGBTQ military member (or parent of an LGBTQ child) in a state where anti-LGBTQ legislation has passed, on the damage done by military burn pits post 2001, some first-person experience stories about her time at the Academy, and a lighter pre-War Horse piece on watching Isle of Dogs with dogs.
Sonner’s advice: Turn every page when reviewing documents
Sonner’s salute: Berkeleyside
Thank you as always for listening. Please send us feedback at journalismsalute@gmail.com, visit our website at thejournalismsalute.org and Mark's website (MarkSimonmedia.com) or tweet us at @journalismpod
Carrington Tatum, Reporter - MLK50 Memphis
Journalism Documentary Filmmaker Don Colacino (Trusted Sources)
Ashleigh Fields, Editor-in-Chief of The Hilltop (Howard University)
Russell Midori: TV Field Producer, Co-Founder: Military Veterans In Journalism
April Alonso of the Award-Winning Cicero Independiente
Bradford William Davis, Investigative Writer, Insider (formerly NY Daily News)
Alex Coffey, Sports Enterprise Writer
Music Journalist: Ken Partridge on Writing A Book (Hell of a Hat)
David Cutler: Teacher & Executive Director of the Private School Journalism Association
César Rodríguez, Photojournalist - The GroundTruth Project
Farnoush Amiri of the Associated Press, Report for America
Adam Rhodes, Chicago Reader, NLGJA Chicago
Photojournalist Aryana Noroozi of The GroundTruth Project and Pulitzer Center
Sean Lahman on Data-Driven & Watchdog Reporting at The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
REAIR: Allison Augustyn of InvestigateWest
Mona Holmes of Eater LA - Food Journalism is About People Too
REAIR: What is Dialogue Journalism? Eve Pearlman of Spaceship Media
Carol Robidoux: Manchester Ink Link & a Lesson in Entrepreneurial Journalism
Aaron Elson: On Copy Editing & World War II Oral History
Steve Novotney, Lede News (West Virginia)
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