Backpack students talk to faculty member Scott Winter about teaching journalism and telling the stories that matter.
Senior Lecturer and Charnley Projects Professor Scott Winter has chased stories around the globe — from teaching aspiring journalists in Delhi, Kosovo and Ethiopia to covering high school hockey games in small-town North Dakota. Yet, despite his international experience and award-winning students, Winter’s dream professional destination has always been Murphy Hall at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Winter guides students to tell bold, imaginative stories surrounding social justice issues, particularly in international news and sports journalism. His students’ work has earned national recognition, including Hearst, Associated Collegiate Press and Robert F. Kennedy awards. But for Winter, the real reward is preparing students to tackle meaningful stories with purpose, skill and rigor.
We sat down with Winter to talk about how he’s preparing students for professional careers, the lessons he learned covering sports and teaching overseas, and why storytelling — in any form — matters more than ever.
Backpack: How did you end up at Hubbard?
Scott Winter: It’s always been a dream of mine to teach in this building. I was a fan of the Gophers as a kid growing up in North Dakota, and I took a crazy route. I was a journalist for a while. I was a high school teacher for a while, and then I went back to get my PhD in Nebraska, wound up with a job there — did that for nine years — came up to Bethel for another decade. Now I’m here, and it was just always the dream. To be here and to be part of Murphy Hall and being a part of the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication was always a dream destination.
Q: You’ve had students who’ve won prestigious awards like the Hearst Journalism Awards and the Robert F. Kennedy Awards. How do you prepare your students for that level of success in the classroom and beyond?
SW: My thinking is the more stories you do, the more exposure therapy you get — interviewing people you don’t know, taking on big issues and publishing them. By getting the thrill and accountability of that experience, the better your best stories will be.
I always try to get students to publish three stories in every class I teach, no matter the subject, to build up their portfolios. That way, when they’re juniors and seniors and taking in-depth reporting, a magazine class with GG or an arts and culture class, they’re ready to take on something substantial — something with social justice relevance — and they can meet that moment.
So, the short answer is: do a lot of stories and your best stories will be really good. Take on social justice issues with substance, and you’ll make a real difference in your community. And if you’re doing that for the right reasons, who knows — maybe you’ll win some awards too. But that’s secondary.
B: Before academia you worked as a sports journalist and editor, how has that learning experience shaped your perspective on teaching journalism here at Hubbard?
SW: Sports taught me how to meet deadlines and forced me to write a lot of stories. When I was in college working for the local paper, I was cranking out four or five stories a week. Doing that many stories meant I had to get really creative so I wouldn’t get bored. When you’re covering games — two teams in, one team out a winner, one a loser, coaches and players saying the same clichés —you’re going to hate your life if you don’t find a way to make it interesting. I found that through my literary background. I was an English major, not a journalism major, so I brought what I learned about story to sports, and that made me different. All those deadlines and reps made me get better faster. Sports gave me a lot in that respect.
B: What impact has teaching journalism abroad had on your teaching here?
SW: I felt pretty smart before I ever went abroad — I didn’t travel until I was about 37. But once I started teaching journalists and graduate students in developing democracies like Kosovo, Ethiopia and India, I realized I had never truly understood the importance of the First Amendment. I had taken accountability journalism for granted and assumed journalists were seen as superheroes everywhere on the planet. That wasn’t the case. Journalism looks very different around the world, and seeing that helped me understand journalism in America. I got addicted to it, honestly. Now I love taking students to developing countries to talk about social justice issues, to learn from the beauty of different cultures and to tell stories from places like India, Guatemala and the U.S.-Mexico border. I mean, I really believe in these stories.
B: What is one thing you want students to know about Hubbard before graduating?
SW: I think it’s the faculty here — and it’s obvious, even in my short time here — they are so invested in students that they see their own success through their students’ success. They have to list all the presentations they’ve given, all the research they’ve done, all their publications, everything they teach, and their CVs are around 30 pages long. But in the end, it’s really clear to me that all they really care about is whether their students are learning and successful. That seems to be number one around here, and that’s one of the reasons I came and one of the reasons I’m so happy to be here.
B: What is your Hubbard Hot Take?
SW: You don’t have to be hard news to make the front page or the lead story in a broadcast. You can talk about social issues, arts, culture coverage, sports coverage and spirituality coverage. There are a lot of ways to make a difference in journalism. You don’t have to be a Pulitzer Prize winning bulldog reporter.
To learn more about Scott Winter and his research, visit his CLA faculty profile.
Text by Ashaar Ali, photo by Jessica Chung, Office Hours logo by Reagan Frystak, Backpack students.