During the most recent U.S. presidential election, students engaged with the local community to produce a seven-hour marathon newscast covering the results of voting across the country. 

By Greta Solsaa

In Abilene, Texas, the local Abilene Reporter-News is understaffed and overburdened, according to Kenneth Pybus, professor and chair of the department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. The university’s journalism program primarily focuses on student media, but Pybus and other faculty saw the local newspaper’s problem as an opportunity for their students to fill the void of community news in the region.

“The local newspaper has just foundered, and so I do think there is an open door to providing more local news coverage,” Pybus said. “I think that's a big opportunity, because we're such a big state and have a lot of cities that we can distribute to.”

Students at Abilene Christian University produce a daily newsletter of statewide stories that local residents would not hear about from national news sources.

Through their journalism classes, students have had their work published in local news outlets including Hispanic Life Magazine and the West Texas Tribune. The Texas Standard, a statewide network of news outlets, picked up 12 stories written by students at Abilene Christian University last year.

That kind of reach — expanding local stories to a broader audience — can “get students access to bigger and bigger markets,” Pybus added.

The 37-year partnership between Abilene Christian University and KACU 89.5 Abilene Public Radio has been particularly fruitful, according to Heather Claborn, general manager of KACU. The station is based at the university and regularly takes on students as paid interns to help with the radio’s coverage of business, economic development and local politics. They report on city council meetings, as well as human interest stories, community events and happenings at the Abilene Christian University and the other universities in the area.

“We are in a spot that is just so small and so remote that I don't think that we could very easily function if we didn't employ students,” Claborn said. “If we didn't have the support of the university for our space and our basic operations, I don't know how the station would survive.”

During election season, the radio station’s staff and students have worked together on a series of interviews with each of the local candidates, ensuring that the community has a resource to understand the issues.

“We've heard from several people that they actually really appreciate that, and they felt like they entered the ballot box more informed and really valued what we put out,” Claborn said.

KACU not only trains students on radio reporting and understanding the local audience but also encourages them to pursue their own interests and skills through their work at the station. One student who was passionate about environmental reporting covered a story about butterfly migration that won awards and another about the two-year drought in Texas that was National Public Radio picked up.

“As [students] grow in their ability and their understanding of not just news but our audience and making sure that we're serving our audience — so our mission and our values— then we can trust them a little bit more to delve into those deeper stories,” Claborn said.

Abilene Christian’s journalism department is one of the smallest programs accredited by the Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Pybus sees the size of his program as a strength, because program leaders can work with students individually.  

“I think we try to take advantage of being small so that we can provide one-on-one interaction with students,” he said.

Pybus points to the number of award-winning student stories as a measure of success of the school’s news-academic partnership. He was particularly proud of a student whose piece and won first place for news in-depth, new reporting and feature reporting for radio at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association statewide competition.

“That's a testament to her skills,” Pybus said, “but it's also a testament to the partnership that we have getting the stories distributed.” Claborn echoed his sentiments about the quality of the students’ work.

“We had 12 awards our students won in the past year,” she said, citing the statewide collegiate competition, as well as the students’ entries into the Society of Professional Journalists and Public Media Journalists Association contests. “We're pretty proud of the work that our students do and really excited for the future.”