Academic Multimedia

UNC launches “Coal: A Love Story” for 2011 Powering a Nation installment

You might remember me blogging about the website “Powering a Nation” the past two summers (2009 | 2010). I was part of the 2010 team of producers, and it’s inspiring to see what the 2011 team did this year.

Rather than covering a handful of stories like what was done the first two years, this year 11 UNC students focused all of their efforts on “Coal: A Love Story.” Furthermore, they strung the content together in an interactive interface – the result of which is a fun and engaging visual exploration of our obsession with coal.

While I was really impressed with all of the content within this package, my favorite story was “Born into Coal” by students Catherine Orr, Catherine Spangler, Hadley Gustafson and Sarah Riazati.

“Coal queen pageant contestant Arianna Bailey competes for a crown to represent her family’s way of life. Former miner Goose Stewart lives with the memories of a mine explosion. One thing binds both families: coal.”

Powering a Nation is a part of the News21 project funded by the Carnegie-Knight initiative. To date, twelve journalism schools across the nation are involved in this project. Going forward, it looks like all students and journalism schools are eligible to take part.

Editor’s Note: While I have never claimed to be unbiased in which content I choose to publish on II, I do want to help promote a wide variety of student work, not just that of UNC. Thus, if you are part of a News21 team at another school and would like to write a behind-the-scenes post to correspond with the launch of your site, please get in touch and I’d be happy to give you the floor.

Other posts that might interest you:

• UNC students launch 2010 multimedia stories for “Powering a Nation” website
• Carolina Photojournalism Workshop launches 2010 site documenting life in Little Switzerland, NC
• Multimedia must-see: “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Cheatham Williams

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