Meet this year’s News Product Alliance Summit Student Newsroom
Get to know the students behind the News Product Alliance Summit’s student newsroom.
The News Product Alliance has a wonderful group of students to cover this year’s summit.
I’m the editor this year of the newsroom, and I’m pleased to introduce you to the five students who will be producing content over the various workshops, talks and sessions.
The articles they write will be published on NPA’s website in the weeks following the summit. Get to know them below.
Yasmim Girardi is a fourth-year student at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil studying journalism. She has worked as a reporter and currently interns at a technology company managing communications. Yasmim is really into reading — her favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird, but she is also a huge Stephen King fan — cooking and playing futevolei — a Brazilian sport, which is like volleyball except you can only use your feet. She is also leading a research project on how boys who live in Brazilian youth detention centers perceive the role of journalism in their lives.
Ellie Lin is a sophomore at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She is studying cross-platform editing and production, with an emphasis in multimedia, user experience and user interface design. Ellie will tell you that’s just a lot of words to say she likes video and web. She is originally from St. Paul, Minnesota. Ellie likes crosswords and music and she might be just a little bit sunburned because she’s on her school’s ultimate frisbee team. Ellie will be spending her summer in Dallas, Texas, working with The Texas Newsroom and KERA to establish a statewide newsletter.
Regan Mertz is a graduate student at the University of Missouri. Regan has studied multimedia production, including audio, photography and documentary-style filmmaking. She loves being outdoors, baking and hanging out with her cat, Margo. She is especially interested in environmental journalism and conflict journalism. She’s also taking book suggestions, since her 2022 resolution is to read more. She’s lived in seven states and was born in Alabama but considers Missouri home. Regan is an innovation fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Ankita Mukhopadhyay is a graduate student at Northwestern University studying media innovation and content strategy. She’s worked as a reporter and editor for five years but discovered an interest in news product at Medill. She hopes to one day start her own news organization. Ankita loves reading about world politics and gardening. When she has free time, you’ll find her singing, discovering new hiking trails, baking cakes and doing yoga. She’ll be starting a product management internship at a tech company in San Francisco this spring.
Rayna Song is a junior at Northwestern University studying journalism and economics, with a minor in theatre. Rayna enjoys Shakespeare plays such as Hamlet and Macbeth. She acted and directed in high school. Born in Beijing, she speaks three languages in addition to English: Mandarin, French and Spanish. Rayna also plays basketball and is an equestrian. She’ll spend this summer as a reporting intern with USA Today.
And... hello, again. My name is Reese Oxner, and I’m the breaking news reporter at The Texas Tribune and this year’s student newsroom editor. I graduated from The University of Texas at Arlington in 2020 after studying web design. Since the start of my journalism career, I’ve been interested in news product, so I am excited at the opportunity to learn more at the Summit and as this newsroom’s editor. In my free time, I like to hang out with family and friends, spend time outdoors, cook, take photos, watch movies and eat Korean BBQ.
💡 The student newsroom is sponsored by News Catalyst at Temple University, Knight Lab at Northwestern and University of Missouri’s School of Journalism.
Visit the News Product Alliance Summit page for more information about the 2022 NPA Summit.