Hussman students to cover their first Winter Games – UNC-Chapel Hill

Hussman School of Journalism and Media

Hussman students to cover their first Winter Games

The 25 journalism students will produce stories at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics in Italy for NBC and local stations.

By Caroline Daly, University Communications and Marketing, Friday, January 30th, 2026

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A group of 25 Carolina students will gain hands-on experience in live television and sports writing during the 2026 Winter Olympics (Feb. 6-22) with the support of a sports broadcasting professor.

The UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media students, alongside C.A. Tuggle, John H. Stembler Jr. Distinguished Professor, will travel to Milan and work as reporters during the Games. Since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Hussman has sent students to cover the Games as official reporters for the International Olympic Committee and NBC News. This will be the fifth Olympics covered by Hussman students, but the first Winter Games.

“A couple of the students have never left the country, so this will be a brand-new experience for them,” said Tuggle. “The Winter Olympics are also staged differently, so this will be a different kind of experience for the students who have gone before.”

The students will report around the city, speaking with fans and families of Olympians to find stories with a North Carolina connection. The content and stories produced by the students will be available to every NBC News station across the country.

Students will communicate with media outlets in the Triangle area, the coast of North Carolina and Pennsylvania to develop story ideas and video packages that will run on live local news broadcasts. They will also pitch stories to any market in addition to their primary partners and translate content into Spanish for Telemundo.

Each student team will include a writer, television reporter and an audio reporter. All students will also produce social media content throughout the Games.

This experience will give students practice with same-day turnarounds on stories and television packages. A team of students will also spend part of the Games in Cortina, along with making trips to the ski villages.

Sophomore Eliza Jennings will produce broadcast video packages for WITN-TV and Curtis Media Group while in Milan. Jennings has never been to the Olympics before and is excited for the opportunity.

“When you decide to come to Carolina, these are the kind of moments you dream about,” said Jennings. “Most people work their whole lives for an opportunity like this, and to get to go to the Olympics as a sophomore in college kind of feels like a journalism student’s version of winning a national championship. It just doesn’t get much better than this.”

Senior Kyla McGhee, who went with the Hussman team to the 2024 Paris Olympics, is going again to Milan. She will produce video packages with North Carolina stations WRAL and WITN-TV.

She plans to pursue a journalism career after graduating this May and hopes the experience will be helpful in preparing for her future work with tight turnarounds and deadlines.

“I feel blessed to be working for another Olympics. Not many people can say they’ve attended the Olympics, and I have the opportunity to add two Olympics to my resume,” said McGhee. “I’m looking forward to the whole experience. I’ve never been to Italy, so I’m excited to explore a new country and see sports like figure skating, hockey and snowboarding.”

Jennings thinks the experience will be “life-changing” for the students’ careers. “It’s an incredibly unique opportunity you don’t really hear college students getting to do,” she said. “It makes me feel like I’m capable of achieving anything I work hard enough for in the future.”

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Hussman students to cover their first Winter Games | UNC-Chapel Hill

College-Affiliated #PublicMedia Stand to Lose Big Under Cuts

The Trump administration’s cuts to #PublicRadio and television may create #NewsDeserts and limit experiential learning opportunities for students.

By Ashley Mowreader, July 23, 2025

"Recent federal cuts are hacking at an additional piece of college and university budgets and operations: on-campus broadcast and radio stations.

"On July 18, Congress voted to rescind $1.1 billion in federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (#CPB), which gives money to #NPR, #PBS and their member stations. The move hurts #LocalStations across the country, particularly in #rural regions, as well as dozens of broadcast hubs located at or affiliated with #colleges.

"More than half of NPR’s 1,000 member stations are licensed to or affiliated with colleges or #universities, according to NPR’s website. A 2019 PBS article listed 49 university and college public television licensees, a majority of which belong to public institutions—many of them flagship or public #LandGrant universities, but some community and technical #colleges as well.

"Data analysis by Alex Curley, a former NPR staffer and author of the blog Semipublic, found that university licensees were far more dependent than non-college affiliated stations on 'non-operating revenue,' which includes #CPBFunding and other money allocated by their parent organization to cover losses. Out of the 173 public stations Curley analyzed, 129 university licensees relied on nonoperating revenue for about 41 percent of their total revenue, compared to the 21 percent it covered for non-college–affiliated stations.

" 'For stations that lose federal funding, especially those who are losing a lot in relation to total revenue, that’s going to put a huge burden on their parent organization [the college or university] because they’re the only ones who can cover that deficit,' Curley said.

"On average, CPB funding makes up 12 percent of independently owned and operated public radio stations’ budgets, according to Northwestern University’s Medill School 2023 State of Local News Report. Curley’s analysis found that 15 percent of all stations relied on federal funding for 50 percent or more of their total revenue intake.

"An Inside Higher Ed analysis of Curley’s data found that cuts to CPB and other relevant federal funding could decimate university-based stations’ expected revenue.

Methodology

"To compile his database, Adopt a Station, Curley drew on two types of financial reports by public broadcast statements to identify where they sourced their revenue and how much federal funding they received. Based on these reports, Curley estimated how a lack of CPB dollars and other relevant grants would impact total revenue sources. [See the full database at link below.]

"#HowardUniversity’s TV station, #WHUT — which was recently awarded two Emmys for its work—lost as much as 21 percent, based on 2023 numbers from the station’s financial reports of revenue from federal sources.

"#KISU, the local station for #IdahoStateUniversity students and community members—which produces the athletics broadcast for Division 1 sports—is also poised to take a hit; 30 percent of the station’s funding comes from student fees, but an additional 30 percent comes from CPB.

"Some institutions host both radio and TV stations that saw budgets slashed. At #VincennesUniversity in #Indiana, TV station #WVUT is projected to lose 39 percent of its usual revenue from CPB dollars, while radio station #WVUB could lose 27 percent, according to Curley’s data, which would place greater pressure on the institution to fill the gap.

"In #WashingtonState, #SkagitValleyCommunityCollege’s radio station, #KSVR—which provides bilingual reporting to the Mount Vernon community, hosted by staff, local and student volunteers—is projected to lose 20 percent of its revenue.

"The cuts will also likely reduce opportunities on many campuses for students to gain hands-on experience working in a newsroom or alongside professionals. When cuts took place at public media stations in the past, those affiliated with a college or university were less likely to see reductions in force, Curley said—in part because the university could cover the losses they incurred.

"Now, in an environment where colleges and universities are facing deficits across revenue sources, college-based media stations have less of a safety net.

" 'I have no idea what’s going to happen,' Curley said. 'It’s almost new territory for many university licensees.'

"#ElizabethCityStateUniversity’s on-campus station, #WRVS, has five employees and a gaggle of student interns, work-study students and community volunteers who keep the station up and running. But under the latest federal cuts, WRVS’s expected revenue will be slashed an estimated 71 percent.

"Not every university-affiliated station has the same reliance on federal dollars; the University of Georgia’s WUGA, for instance, reported that just 1 percent of total revenue came from federal funds in 2023. The University of Florida’s WUFT-FM received about 5 percent of total revenue from the government, thanks in part to #fundraising efforts and in part to the success of the station in its local area, Curley said.

"A 2023 survey of 215 public radio stations found that, on average, colleges contribute less than 15 percent of funding to affiliated radio stations, and 80 percent of stations thought it was unlikely that they would receive additional financial support from their institution.

"In some parts of the country, student publications, radio and TV stations are the singular source of news for communities. But a lack of funding and support for current operations remains a primary barrier to getting more students involved in public media, according to a 2023 survey by the University of Vermont.

"The move to cut funding for CPB is generally unpopular with Americans. A Harris Poll on behalf of NPR published in July found that two-thirds of nearly 2,100 Americans surveyed support federal funding for public radio, with a similar number calling it a good value for taxpayer dollars. A 2025 survey found that 47 percent of viewers say PBS’s value for public dollars is excellent and an additional 29 percent said it’s good."

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/business/financial-health/2025/07/23/college-affiliated-public-media-stand-lose-big-under-cuts#

#AdoptAStation Database:
https://adoptastation.org/

#CBPFundingCuts
#CollegeRadio #DumbingUsDown #KeepingUsInTheDark #TrumpSucks