Three Ohio University students named finalists in national journalism competition

The team from Ohio University, composed of Bharbi Hazarika, Theo Peck-Suzuki, and Delaney Murray, set about to create a new tool for news websites that would allow users to view a timeline of stories published on any specific event or topic. The idea came about when graduate student Bharbi Hazarika was trying to wade through her news notifications and finding it difficult to organize the incoming information. She also recognized that the advanced search feature of many news sites was often unhelpful. So Hazarika developed the idea of a news timeline, a tool users could utilize to pull all related published stories and sort them chronologically. In a piece published by the university, Hazarika explains, "These search functions returned a very weak list of stories related to the specific topic—either the dates would be jumbled or the specific stories that I am looking for would be sandwiched between unrelated articles. This frustration, which stemmed from the desire to find out everything about a certain topic with ease, landed me the idea."

Hazarika then brought her idea to her mentor at Ohio University, associate professor Dr. Victoria LaPoe. The two brainstormed and developed a plan. As LaPoe states, "I encouraged her to apply for funding and to keep moving forward on it. It is an example of how an idea-and department teamwork-can turn into something tangible and terrific." Hazarika also sought help from associate professor Dr. Hans Meyer, who is, according to Hazarika, "…absolutely brilliant, especially when it comes to online journalism tools. He helped me narrow down my focus and was an immense help when I was building my pitch. His expertise and advice have been invaluable." The competition requires that students work with a local news organization to implement their innovation. Fortunately, Murray worked previously as a freelance writer for The Athens News so that gave the students the connection they needed and the team was thrilled when The Athens News agreed to partner with them.

Together with Murray and Peck-Suzuki, Hazarika researched and wrote a proposal to pitch to enter the Reynolds Journalism Institute's 2021 Student Innovation Competition. The team's proposal has now been selected as a finalist for the competition, which promises a $10,000 prize for the winning concept. Now that they have been selected as finalists, the team will begin working with The Athens News to implement the timeline project and present their accomplishments at the Innovation Challenge conference on Feb. 26, 2021. The trio is eager to present their work. As Murray puts it, "I just hope our project gets good feedback, and also that we are able to give The Athens News a helpful, functional tool that they can possibly use in the future as well. Each of us have worked to contribute our own strength, connections, and creativity to make this project what it is, and I couldn't be more proud of the results." Peck-Suzuki added, "I'd love to see this tool become integrated into how The Athens News shares stories even after the competition ends. I think it has that potential."