After graduating from Mountain Vista in 2018, I attended the University of Colorado Boulder. As a student, I participated in the Carnegie Knight News21 investigative reporting fellowship and led the second year of a student newspaper start-up, The Bold, as editor-in-chief. I graduated with honors in 2022 with my bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science. I then moved to Arizona to earn my master’s of mass communication at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. In my final semester, I moved to Washington, D.C. to report on Arizona politics in the nation’s capital. After graduating, I joined the breaking news team at The Hill. I am so thankful for my time in Vista’s journalism program and am grateful it kick-started my career and love for the journalism industry.
I’m working now as an engagement reporter covering mental health at The Seattle Times, where I focus on county mental health systems and care for people in crisis. I also strategize to bring mental health reporting to community members through resource guides, live events and a series of contributed columns. I was previously a member of The Seattle Times’ investigative team, where my reporting exposed shortcomings in the state’s collection of money owed to wage theft victims. After serving as co-editor-in-chief of Mountain Vista’s comprehensive student media program, overseeing a newsmagazine, yearbook, website and broadcast, she went on to study investigative journalism at the University of Missouri. In college, she held leadership positions at The Maneater student newspaper, reported for Politico Europe while studying in Brussels, and co-taught a class on audience-focused journalism.
Student journalism at Mountain Vista sparked my interest in journalism and led me to be interested in journalism education. I hold a Master’s degree in journalism education from Kent State University, completed remotely while working at The Seattle Times.
Some samples of a few articles are listed below:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesley-whitaker-b474abb4/
