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Journalism Students Make History

Hampton University's Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications (SHSJC) students Austin Bogues, Eba Hamid and Angelica Rogers recently received an invitation to The New York Times' summer internship class. The invitation is a great honor for the students as well as HU. This is the first time in history that three students have been chosen from the same school for this prestigious internship.


Austin Bogues

The New York Times chose 18 college journalism students this year for its summer internship class.

"Congrats to you and everyone at Hampton for placing all the summer interns at The Times," said Don Hecker, Director of The New York Times. "It's quite an accolade. Forget whether it's a record for an HBCU, it's probably a record for any school, including the traditional heavyweights like Harvard, Yale and the big schools with long-recognized journalism programs. And, particularly impressive because we have one of the smallest internship programs among the big papers."

Hecker visited HU during the 2005-2006 academic year and has since invited four Hampton students to participate in the institute.

The Times and the Washington Press Club Foundation chose Austin Bogues as the only Washington bureau reporting intern among the 18 finalists due to his ability to write about a wide variety of subject areas. Angelica Rogers will be a design intern and Eba Hamid will be a copy editing intern.

SHSJC offers several opportunities for students to enhance their writing skills. The principle program for writing development is the Academy of Writing Excellence (AWE). Dean Tony Brown credits Will Sutton, director of AWE, for the success of the program and how it is developing some of the nation's top writers.

"The primary focus is on significantly improving writing skills. That's done with a variety of methods, including but not limited to work on accuracy, balance, completeness, deadline and fairness, as well as speed with assignments and exercises... AWE writers are taught how to be good editors...The better you edit, the better you write," said Sutton.

Each of the students participated in Scripps Howard School's AWE program during their career at Hampton. Bogues, a broadcast journalism major from Newport News, Va., has been an AWE writer since his sophomore year. In addition, he is one of two executive AWE writers. Hamid, a print journalism major from Oxford, Miss., was in AWE her sophomore year and part of her junior year and Rogers, an advertising major from Memphis, Tenn., was also in AWE for part of her sophomore year.

The students all have ample experience in the writing field. Hamid, a McClathy scholar with plans to work at the Biloxi Herald when she graduates, has interned at The News & Obsever, a McClatchy newspaper, the Biloxi Herald and the Grand Forks Herald in Raleigh. Rogers has done freelance design work for The New York Times Co., interned with Landmark Communications in Norfolk and the Commercial-Appeal in Memphis. Bogues has interned with MSNBC's "Hard Ball with Chris Matthews" and the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. Each of the students has worked with the Hampton Script and are currently interning at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va.

"Having three Scripps Howard School students in a single summer internship class at one of the world's most prestigious newspapers is huge," said Sutton. "It's quite an accomplishment, and one that would make any university proud. Each student developed strong knowledge and skills in the classroom and outside of the classroom. In the end, however, this type of student success can be directly traced to the leadership and vision of Dean Tony Brown, who put an emphasis on diversity through excellence right at the beginning of his tenure."

-Amanda Broussard