Jacqueline Petchel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and ASU graduate, will be coming to the Walter Cronkite School next month as the new Executive Editor for the Carnegie-Knight News21 reporting program.
Petchel currently works as the Investigations and Enterprise Editor at the Houston Chronicle. Petchel will come to the ASU Downtown campus to fulfill her new position as Executive Editor for News21, filling the position left by Bill Marimow last spring. Petchel said she hopes to transfer the skills from her work with the Chronicle to this new position.
“I’ll serve as the executive editor, pretty much as I do right now, except that the reporters and multimedia specialists and the data analysts will be different,” she said. “I’ll be running to make sure the stories are on track, making sure the story themes are working, checking the integrity of the stories and the reporting and trying to produce a top-notch project.”
News21 is a multimedia-reporting program started in 2005 by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. The program accepts students from all across the U.S. to produce multimedia reporting projects centered on a specific theme each summer. The work is then released on the News21 website and the websites of the program’s partners, including NBC News, the Washington Post and Cronkite News Service.
Petchel has a long history with ASU, where she studied journalism and Latin American studies. A reporter and editor for the State Press, she was later inducted into the Cronkite School’s Alumni Hall of Fame. She said part of her decision to apply for the executive editor position was due to the connection she felt to the school.
“When I first heard of the job, I had this almost immediate instinct that it seemed like it was the perfect job for me in the perfect place,” she said.
Other members of the News21 team are also eager for her arrival. Kristin Gilger, associate dean for the Cronkite School and administrator for News21, said Petchel will bring a spirit of enthusiasm to the program.
“She loves the school and understands the school, and has an affinity for it,” Gilger said. “She’s very enthusiastic about News21 and the Cronkite School, has great ideas and lots of energy.”
Petchel met with some past members of the program last semester, showing, as Gilger said, a strong connection to the students.
“She really relates well with students, and we think that makes her a good fit as well,” Gilger said. “We think she’ll do very well in an educational environment.”
Graduate student and photojournalist Peter Haden is one of the students looking forward to meeting Petchel.
“I’m ecstatic about (her coming to News21),” Haden said. “It’s a very exciting opportunity to try and branch out the award-winning News21 project into some new ways, into some new platforms of storytelling.”
Petchel’s career extends throughout the entire nation. She started working at the Indianapolis News in 1980, returned to Phoenix to join the Arizona Republic, then joined the Miami Herald in 1987. Petchel was also involved in television journalism as Senior Producer for Investigations at the Minneapolis station WCCO-TV, as well as Executive Producer of Investigations at the Miami station WFOR-TV.
Petchel’s time at the Miami Herald included achievements such as a Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service in 1993 for her role in a team covering property damage caused by Hurricane Andrew and also a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting as part of a team covering the federal removal of Elián Gonzáles from Miami back to Cuba.
Other Cronkite staff, including former executive editor of the Washington Post Len Downie, Miami Herald reporter Steve Doig, and former vice president for content for BET Interactive Retha Hill, will join Petchel as faculty of the News21 program this year.
Fourteen universities are involved in the 2013 program, accommodating 18 out-of-state students. The News21 team met for the first time last Thursday, with members from out-of-state schools joining through video messaging. Only about half of the 15 Cronkite students currently in the program’s spring seminar will continue on to the summer session of reporting, Gilger said.
Last year’s News21 theme focused on voting rights across the country. This summer, reporting will concern returning post-9/11 veterans. Haden said a topic like this could really highlight Petchel’s experience in multimedia and television work.
“Having Jacquee Petchel as the editor, working side-by-side with Len Downie, will add a whole other dimension to what in previous years has been a very print-and-online-driven project,” Haden said, citing Petchel’s broadcast experience.
Gilger said her multimedia experience was just one of the reasons she was selected for the position.
“We all liked the fact that she had worked in more than one medium, because News21 is very multimedia,” Gilger said. “We want to do a lot of visual storytelling as well as text storytelling.”
Petchel will be visiting the Cronkite school this Friday for the Knight News Challenge, a day-long event where news ventures compete for funding. She will begin her News21 position on Feb. 1. Until that date, she awaits her arrival to her native city.
“I have a strong connection to the community, and it’s as much professional as it is personal,” Petchel said.
Contact the reporter at motarola@asu.edu
