Here are notable interviews done by our journalists.
Editor & Publisher
Josh Sweigart, senior editor of investigations and solutions journalism at Cox First Media Ohio, was interviewed by Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine for the newspaper industry.
Credit: Knack Video + Photo
Credit: Knack Video + Photo
Josh shared his insights about the newspaper’s role in addressing misinformation and false claims about Haitian immigrants.
“This is not a new issue for Springfield. There have been legitimate concerns about a large influx of a community that needs a lot of resources,” Sweigart said. “What’s new is the misinformation. We started seeing a spike in traffic on our website, with people searching for any story related to Haiti and Springfield.”
That full interview appears on YouTube and the Editor & Publisher website.
National Public Radio
Jessica Orozco, a reporter for the Springfield News-Sun, has been a major part of our coverage and written dozens of stories on Haitian immigration issues.
She appeared on the Sept. 17 podcast “Up First from NPR.”
NPR’s Up First podcast covers the three biggest stories of the day. During the show, Jessica was interviewed by host Steve Inskeep about what life is like in Springfield. She talked about the many threats causing school and other building evacuations and how Haitian families are feeling unsafe.
Jessica also detailed the need for extra resources including for translation and interpretation services and driver education.
You can hear that interview, which starts at about the 5:35 mark, below.
Columbia Journalism Review
Jeremy Kelley, editor of the Springfield News-Sun, was featured in a piece done by the Columbia Journalism Review.
The Columbia Journalism Review states their mission as being in part, “the intellectual leader in the rapidly changing world of journalism.”
Interviewed by Jake Lahut, Jeremy talked about the frenzy swirling around the newspaper and the community.
“The biggest challenge of covering the story has been trying to stay on top of near-constant developments for over a week,” he said. “When you’re 20 seconds into a news meeting over Teams, and you find out City Hall’s being evacuated because of the very first bomb threat, you drop the news meeting and run down the street to interview the city manager. That doesn’t help with your planning process.”
As things settle down, Kelley added, he hopes to shift the paper’s focus to deeper coverage of “the larger underlying issues of how Haitian immigration affects Springfield”—and how the community will recover once the media circus leaves town.
You can find the full interview here.