NATCHITOCHES - Northwestern State alumnus Josh Green will be the first speaker of the academic year in the Department of Journalism’s Newsmakers and Shakers open forum Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 3:30 p.m. in the Ora G. Williams Studio (Room 142) in Kyser Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.

           

     Green, a winner of the Edward R. Murrow Award for integrity and excellence in reporting, is a reporter for WNCN-TV News, the NBC affiliate in Raleigh/Durham, N.C., one of the top 30 markets in the country. He will speak on “New Frontiers: Merging the Media.”   

           

     Green began his career at KALB-TV in his hometown of Alexandria where he worked as a general assignment reporter for two years. He then moved to WJHL-TV in Tri-Cities, Tenn./Va., where he worked for three years.  Green moved to Raleigh/Durham in 2008.

           

     As a reporter, he is known for bringing the human element to the stories he covers about news events. Green considers his most important award to be the Edward R. Murrow Award for a documentary he did in 2006 about World War II veterans.  For that work, Green was also honored by the Military Reporters and Editors correspondents in Washington. 

           

     Green says the most memorable story he ever covered was one he called “Remembering Robbie.” It was about a soldier who was serving in Iraq who was scheduled to come home for the birth of his daughter.  He was killed just a few days before leaving Iraq.  Green said the daughter never got to meet her father.  She was five days old on the day of the funeral.  Green covered the story and the family’s remembrances of the little girl’s dad. 

           

     A broadcast journalism major at NSU, Green was active in all areas of student media.  He served as editor of the Potpourri for two years (2002 and 2003).  He also worked as a reporter for the Current Sauce. However, he was best known as a reporter and anchor for NSU 22 News. He graduated with a degree in journalism in 2003, with a concentration in broadcast journalism.

     Today he’s a “backpack journalist.” Green wants students preparing for careers in journalism to realize that the traditional barriers between electronic, print, and new media have been removed. During this last year in Raleigh he has helped train other journalists in his media group how to shoot, write and edit for broadcast news and web. The station he works for has a strong web presence, and Green shoots and edits video for the web, writes a blog and reports for the daily newscasts. 

     He credits his success as a TV and web reporter to the skills he learned from the hands-on, skill-based program at NSU’s Department of Journalism.