Our Vision: The Center for the Untold Story
So many stories go untold in the media today.
Often, we learn about people’s lives – or the places they call home -- only when disaster befalls them or violence erupts. How are we to understand one another so that we may build a livable society if we know only the unusual and bizarre about each other?
The premise for The Center for the Untold Story is that narrative journalism can help bring to life -- make visible and understandable – those people, groups and issues not often (or ever) written about in the media. Their stories are untold. The goal of uncovering these stories, of giving voice to the voiceless, is to begin to paint a rich portrait of our dynamic and diverse world.
The Center would be housed at the School of Journalism and Communication’s Turnbull Portland Center, with programs also run at the SOJC in Eugene. The Center would reach out to and serve three different (but interrelated) groups:
Working journalists who would come to the Center for advanced work in non-traditional research methods, nonfiction storytelling techniques and seminars in social issues;
Members of un- or underrepresented groups who would come to the Center to learn to tell their own stories and meet with journalists to help them understand how better to recognize, research and tell stories related to their groups;
Student journalists who would participate in Eugene-based workshops and seminars to introduce them to the art and craft of the untold story.
Our vision for the Center for the Untold Story includes four programs:
Media fellowships
Public fellowships
Student seminars
Oral History project
Recently, the founder for The Center for the Untold Story, Lauren Kessler, gathered a group of the country's leading narrative nonfiction authors to discuss how they accurately and precisely combine the power of great journalism with the drama of great fiction.Listen Now...