The Pulitzer Center has selected Hunter College senior Kalli Sringas for its 2021 Student Reporting Fellowship.

Sringas plans to use the $3,000 grant to travel to Greece to report on an ancient seagrass that may be able to solve modern day environmental problems. 

The underwater grass, called Posidonia Oceanica, can live for more than 100,000 years and is one of the oldest living organisms on Earth. Recent studies show that it can filter polluting chemicals, oxygenate the sea water and even remove plastics materials floating in the ocean. Sringas will be interviewing scientists who are working on replanting and replenishing Posidonia in the Mediterranean Sea, where it is rapidly disappearing due to higher water temperatures and pollution. 

More than 50 students turned out to hear journalist Ali Velshi talk about his long and storied reporting career with CNN and MSNBC, in a riveting discussion moderated by former CNN correspondent Mary Snow followed by a Q&A moderated by Professor Sissel McCarthy. 

Velshi’s reporting from Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s murder last May, where he and his news crew were attacked at shot at with rubber bullets by Minneapolis police merely for doing their jobs, resonated with students the most. “Seeing the police fire on the media was surprising to me,” one student wrote of the clip Velshi showed of his team in Minneapolis. “I guess it was the first time I noticed the distrust and disdain for the media held by some Americans.” Others were impressed that President Donald Trump knew of Velshi enough to slander him publicly at a rally. “Yes, there may be some issues with media and journalism, but it should never be a reason to discredit them in such a manner,” one wrote. 

Professor Samantha Sunne’s Data Journalism class (MEDPL 297) met with the star of a journalism epic. 

Matt Carroll, a reporter portrayed in the award-winning movie “Spotlight,” spoke to students about his experience using data for reporting.

In the early 2000s, Carroll was a member of the Spotlight team, a group of investigative journalists at the Boston Globe. His reporting, which would now be referred to as “data journalism,” found connections that helped show the Catholic Church was covering up abuse on a massive scale. The team’s story sparked worldwide policy change and was the basis of the movie “Spotlight,” which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2016