JMC student, alumna place second in Hearst Explanatory Competition

LAWRENCE – Rylie Oswald and Elizabeth Walters spent much of the spring 2024 semester in the Kansas State Capitol as students in JMC 635, Statehouse Reporting. They didn’t realize it at the time, but their experience in this University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications class laid the foundation for an award-winning story.

“All the reporting in the statehouse class that I did before the actual story helped a lot with learning bill jargon, understanding how the statehouse works, and it gave me a feel for what issues were going on,” Oswald said of the class taught by Lacy Haynes Professor Patricia Weems Gaston.  “That was how we got started and realized that (rural motherhood and the dangers and risks that come with pregnancy) is an issue that people don’t talk about.”

One year later, the story that Oswald and Walters produced for their final project in the class, “Health risks for rural pregnancies grow as options for care disappear,” placed second in the Hearst Explanatory Competition.

“I was really surprised and excited,” Oswald said about placing second in the competition. “After all the work we put in, Elizabeth and I worked so hard on that story, it was really great to see that we were recognized for it.”

Oswald will graduate from KU this spring and Walters, a 2024 JMC graduate, also collaborated on a story with two University of Missouri students. That story was published Aug. 25 in the Columbia Missourian and looked at maternity care issues in Kansas and Missouri.

As part of Oswald and Walters’ second-place finish, they will split a monetary award, and Oswald will compete in the National Writing Championship June 1-7 in San Francisco.

Reporting the story over several months came with challenges. The team interviewed national experts and birthing centers but struggled to find a mother willing to speak on the record. They eventually connected with Danielle Redenbaugh, who gave birth on the side of the road on her way to the hospital. The hospital, just 10 minutes from her home, does not offer maternity services.

“It was several weeks to a month before we finally got someone to talk to us,” Oswald said. “That was the anecdotal lede to the story. Being able to put a face to the story instead of only using data, that was the hardest part.”

In addition to the hours spent in the Kansas Statehouse, Oswald credits the skills she learned in Professor Nick Jungman’s Advanced Multimedia Reporting course (JMC 551) with preparing her to work on such an in-depth piece.

She also benefited from experience in the field throughout her time as a student.

A multimedia journalism and creative writing double major, Oswald always intended to pursue creative writing as an undergraduate student. After a visit to the JMC School, she decided to also pursue reporting. She began as a copy editor for the University Daily Kansan in 2022 and has since worked as a beat reporter and associate news editor for the publication.

“I learned how to make things more concise,” Oswald said. “I learned what questions people are going to have and to think about it like, ‘if I were a reader, what would I want to know?’”

Her time as an undergraduate may be winding down, but Oswald’s desire to learn and grow as a writer remains strong. She’s ready to embrace the opportunity to learn from her peers when she travels to San Francisco to compete in the National Writing Championship in June.

“I’m excited to be around a bunch of other writers and learn from them,” Oswald said. “I’ve been reading past champions’ winning articles and studying them. I’m looking forward to being able to tell a story about an area I’m not familiar with and learning how to find ways to tell that story.”