CBC and UNC-Chapel Hill hosted the 10th CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship this month. Top student journalists representing universities from across the country came to WRAL to produce two newscasts during Spring Break. The 2024 class included students from the University of Florida, North Carolina A&T State University, Temple University, Shaw University, University of South Carolina, University of Arizona, UNC-Chapel Hill, and University of Puerto Rico Arecibo.
Over five days, WRAL professionals and UNC professors coached the students in workshops and during the newsgathering process. Former WRAL reporter Leyla Santiago is now the Daniels Executive-In-Residence at UNC-Chapel Hill and served as a fellowship mentor. WRAL still feels like home to me. Working with my former colleagues and some of my current students was incredible, Santiago said. It gave me an opportunity to support two things I am passionate about- diversity in newsrooms and the future generation of journalists.
WRAL-TV News Producer Miriam Melvin (left) works with a student journalist during the 10th CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship. Top student journalists representing universities from across the country came to WRAL-TV for a week of learning from March 11-15, 2024.
New this year, WRAL welcomed a director fellow and weather fellow to the program. News production manager James Ford worked with director fellow Aaman Patel of UNC-Chapel Hill in the control room. I was truly impressed with Aaman and his ability to absorb key points from our training sessions in a limited timeframe and apply them to the final newscast, Ford said.
The weather fellow, Derrah Getter of the University of Florida, teamed up with weather executive producer Aimee Wilmoth who was thrilled to mentor a fellow focused on forecasting. It was quite refreshing working with excited, eager, students. I love that we offer this fellowship and sure hope we get more meteorology students in years ahead!
WRAL-TV Weather Executive Producer Aimee Wilmoth (left) works with a student journalist during the 10th CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship. Top student journalists representing universities from across the country came to WRAL-TV for a week of learning from March 11-15, 2024.
While the students had professional mentors, the newscasts reflected their hard work.
Producer Miriam Melvin said of the two newscasts produced and directed by the fellows, I might be biased but they were phenomenal! These journalists are ready for the industry that is in need of more Black and brown representation.
Senior producer Stephanie Beck who has been with the program since the first year added, I feel confident these fellows will make an immediate impact on their first markets, and on every market they touch after that.
The student journalists collaborate in groups and individually throughout the fellowship to craft their stories and newscasts which are posted to wral.com. Once again, the CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship brought the best and brightest to our campus, said Jodi Glusco, digital content director. This year, every reporter met their digital deadline, with some going out of their way to seek extra help with drafts early on.
UNC School of Journalism Asst Professor Shelvia Dancy speaks to student journalists during the 10th CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship. Top student journalists representing universities from across the country came to WRAL-TV for a week of learning from March 11-15, 2024.
Assistant news director, Aysu Basaran, who designed the program, said, We owe a big thanks to CBC and UNC for seeing the value of this program and making the investment. We are coaching the future of our industry, and we need to ensure that diverse voices are heard in newsrooms across the country and right here at WRAL. She points to two former fellows who eventually returned to work in the WRAL Newsroom. Reporter Aaron Thomas went through the program in 2015, and WRAL Sports+ executive producer Louis Fernandez was a 2016 fellow. Both participated in this year's fellowship as mentors.
Jeremy Spearman, WRAL executive producer of streaming, helped to coordinate the fellowship with Basaran this year and explained how the program benefits WRAL employees. The many newsroom staffers involved in this project wrap up the exhausting weekend with a renewed sense of purpose for why we do what we do and have the honor of bringing that back to the rest of the newsroom, Spearman said. It's an honor to play a part in this program's success and an even greater honor to work for a station/company that recognizes the value in the efforts that go into executing this fellowship year after year.
WRAL News anchor Ken Smith echoed much of what Spearman said. Smith enjoyed working with the aspiring journalists, and he thought back to his early days as a reporter. Somebody reached for me when I didn't know heads or tails about crafting a story or on camera presence. This gives me a chance to pay it forward.
Top student journalists representing universities from across the country came to WRAL-TV for the 10th CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship during the week of March 11-15, 2024. The students got to spend a night of fun with several WRAL staffers at the Carolina Hurricanes during the program.
Link to CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship newscasts/stories:
WRAL.com: 2024 CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship
Hear what the fellows had to say about their experience: Daniela Cazares, University of Arizona
I am truly so grateful for this opportunity where I was able to put my skills to work as well as challenge myself in so many ways. I learned SO many things from each one of my amazing colleagues, and mentors. This is an experience I won't forget.
Davia Pugh, University of South Carolina
Thank you so much to the incredible fellowship staff for creating this wonderful program. You all poured y
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
CBC and UNC-Chapel Hill hosted the 10th CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship this month. Top student journalists representing universities from across the country came to WRAL to produce two newscasts during Spring Break. The 2024 class included students from the University of Florida, North Carolina A&T State University, Temple University, Shaw University, University of South Carolina, University of Arizona, UNC-Chapel Hill, and University of Puerto Rico Arecibo.
