Roosevelt University Journalism Convergence: ABOUT THE PROJECT

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Student Maiya Shackelford takes aim during a Sunday service inside the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church of Flint.

In spring 2016, students enrolled in the Convergence journalism course sought to tackle two subjects. One: “Environmental and Social Justice.” The other: “Youth Activism.” The topics were selected by the students themselves.

Their attention quickly turned to the city of Flint, Michigan, caught in the middle of a national crisis over its drinking water that left many residents and homes with toxic lead levels. In this Midwest county seat city of 100,000, the Environmental Protection Agency, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and local authorities and political officials as well as community leaders scrambled to address the crisis.

Meanwhile, local residents grappled with the effects, many finding themselves in the midst of a health crisis—many having ingested the water and suffering from lead poisoning that experts say will leave children with permanent brain damage and others, including adults, with other irreversible effects for the rest of their lives.

Flint is a less than 4-hour drive from Chicago. The Roosevelt journalism students, led by their professor, John W. Fountain, sought to travel to Flint in hopes of covering the story as part of this semester’s convergence project. Much had already been written as the national media converged on the crisis. But there still seemed stories to be told—human stories.

The human crisis caused by poisoned drinking water remained, even as the national coverage ebbed and flowed amid a national presidential campaign that absorbed much of the mainstream national media’s attention. The Roosevelt students sought to cover the story for themselves. To lend their reporter’ eyes, pens and storytelling ability to the crisis in Flint. To capture the stories of those most impacted—the faces of the poisoned.

So, on a cold day this past spring, the team climbed aboard a coach bus before dawn and departed from Roosevelt’s downtown campus bound for Flint. They set out to complete weeks of reporting and preparation by hitting the ground running and immersing themselves in the story over the course of two days. It was the students’ first foray into national reporting and also correspondence.

What they discovered in the stories of those they met and interviewed—the faces, voices, expressed hope and tears—is presented here as written narratives, podcasts, videos, sound slideshows and more. And it is their contribution with hope to the plight of the people of Flint whose story has left these student-journalists forever changed. Transformed by the experience of reporting: The Faces of The Poisoned.

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