For any aspiring magazine journalist, national recognition is a huge deal.
For Syracuse University junior magazine journalism majors Julianne Pepitone and Allie Baker, that dream came to fruition on Sept. 15 when the two got a call from Rolling Stone magazine.
Pepitone, a staff writer at The Daily Orange, and Baker, a D.O. contributing writer, collaborated last spring on a project for their NEW 305: News Reporting class.
They co-wrote a profile on Jeff Guerin, a local resident and soldier who was injured in Afghanistan during combat, Pepitone and Baker said. The story gave a different perspective to the fighting being waged in the Middle East, Pepitone said.
The story ran last April in the Student Voice, an SU student-run magazine for which Baker serves as editor-in-chief. It was at that time that an advertisement for a contest in Rolling Stone magazine caught Pepitone's eye.
"I noticed there was a contest the magazine was holding for college journalism students," Pepitone said. "So I printed out the entry form and sent the article in."
The rules of the contest stated that only one article would be chosen to run in the category that Pepitone and Baker entered, Pepitone said. After sending in the story, Pepitone gradually shrugged it aside, thinking there was no chance the story would be picked out of thousands of entries.
Then she and Baker got the call.
"I was stunned when the magazine called telling me that we had won," Pepitone said. "It was very exciting. Ally and I were interviewed and our pictures were in the magazine. I couldn't believe it."
Indeed, their article had been chosen out of the thousands of entries as the winner. For their achievement, Pepitone and Baker will have a spot in an upcoming edition of the magazine, with their pictures and an excerpt of their piece.
"We had completely forgotten about it," Baker said. "Then we got the call last Friday saying that we had won. The guy from Rolling Stone said we had won, and I just started screaming in his ear."
Now 22, Guerin was injured on Oct. 14, 2005 in Afghanistan when his vehicle was ambushed, Pepitone said. A native of Marcellus, Guerin suffered severe injuries when the explosion hit.
"His eyesight is almost completely gone, and he's soon undergoing another surgery on his leg," Baker said. "So we did a profile on him-we talked to him, his mother, his fiancée, his brother and his doctors."
The profile gave a unique perspective on the war and helped people realize how the tragedy of war can hit close to home, Pepitone said. The girls said this different perspective probably set their article apart from others.
Though Pepitone and Baker wrote the piece, it was a consummate team effort within the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications that made the article complete. The article was written for the Student Voice, and last spring the magazine had a special edition that let all sections of the Newhouse School collaborate to write pieces.
"We pair up with the classes that the entire Student Voice is devoted (to)," Pepitone said. "There are articles written by a News 305 class and edited by a News 405 editing class. They were designed by a graphics class in Newhouse, and they were photographed by a photography class, so it was basically a team effort."
If it wasn't for all the hard work done by each of the sections, the article probably wouldn't have won, Baker said.
"It was a huge team effort," Baker said.
Steve Davis, a professor at the Newhouse School, oversaw the Pepitone and Baker project.
"It was an excellent story," Davis said. "I thought they did a fabulous job. They worked incredibly hard on it. I didn't know they had entered it in a contest, so I was very surprised when they told me. Having said that, I am not surprised that it won because it's a great piece of journalism, certainly worthy of winning."
For Pepitone and Baker, the accomplishment is a big step in their pursuit of a career in journalism.
"It was very gratifying to be chosen," Baker said. "It was definitely a long shot, and it's a huge deal for us as writers."
Be the first to comment on this article!