Every year we at Eugene Weekly think our latest interns are the greatest journalism interns ever. And every year, we are correct. The journalists the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communications is producing are amazing, as are the students from Lane Community College — many of whom go on to the SOJC. Journalism is a rough gig these days, but nothing is holding these writers back. Jade Yamazaki Stewart is covering neighborhood eats at the Seattle Times this summer and fall. Joey Cappelletti and Jack Forrest are holding down Snowden internships at the Malheur Enterprise and The Oregonian, respectively. Joanna Mann is now the education reporter for Mid-Valley Media, which includes Corvallis Gazette-Times and Albany Democrat-Herald. Renata Geraldo is a data reporter for Sacramento Business Journal. Donald Morrison is now a news assistant at Law 360 (and up for a national award from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for the “Begin Modeling” story he wrote while at EW). Going a little further back, Michael Tobin is now at Bloomberg business news. Anna V. Smith is taking a leave from her position on the Indigenous Affairs desk at High Country News to participate in a nine-month Ted Scripps Fellowship at the University of Colorado Boulder Center for Environmental Journalism. Ryan Nguyen is spending his summer writing for the Wall Street Journal and will head to Seattle Times as a digital producer in August. We’ve been watching Alex Zielinski kick ass all through 2020 and more as the Portland Mercury news editor and listening to Meerah Powell on OPB radio. And on the radio note, Kelly Kenoyer is on the airwaves at WHQR in Wilmington, North Carolina, and we’re running out of space, but not out of interns to brag about!
• USA Track and Field has denied Sha’Carri Richardson, the greatest and most charismatic sprinter alive, her dream and redemption at the Olympics in Tokyo. Yes, one more great Black athlete is excluded from the Olympic pantheon. The angry ghost of long-time controversial International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage is smiling. Richardson proved herself on the track, cried in her grandmother’s arms after winning the 100 meter run here in Eugene, smoked some legal weed when she learned her mom was dead, then owned her “transgression.” If USATF wanted to make itself further irrelevant to the American public, it could not have made a more tone deaf decision. Will we see raised Black fists on the podium? John Carlos and Tommie Smith, your time, again, is now.
• “Defeating COVID: Vaccine Incentives from Coast to Coast” is the City Club of Eugene program airing on Facebook and YouTube starting at noon July 16. Speakers will be Cathy Kauffman of Kauffman Strategies, Craig R. Frank of Kaya Holdings and Tom Cosentino of Garden State Wine Growers Association. We hear the City Club is looking for a venue to start meeting in person again, a welcome change we’re looking forward to.
• We hope that President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan works its way through the legislative jungle including his proposal for a Civilian Climate Corps fashioned after the Civilian Conservation Corps of the New Deal. This would mean jobs for young people to fight the climate crisis. At one time, Biden was asking for $10 billion. But that is sure to change. Not exactly the kind of proposal that Mitch McConnell and his Republicans are backing, a new CCC would be a boost for young Americans who want to do the right thing.
• Looking for a sweet, mindless diversion from the pandemic, our ongoing climate disaster and the loathsome remains of the Trump administration? Check out Penguin Town, a delicious eight-part series now running on Netflix. The show documents — much in the cheerful style of old Disney wildlife episodes, had they been shot by a reality TV crew — a breeding colony of Cape penguins that annually invade a small coastal suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. Yes, it anthropomorphizes the birds, even giving them names like Mr. and Mrs. Bougainvillea, bringing some critics to get their scientific knickers in a twist. But it’s fun, it’s (largely) factual and you might even learn something about the life of an endangered species.
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