Much more local news is circulating in the state this semester due to a new project in the Journalism Program at UH called The Mānoa Mirror.
The Mirror includes both a website and an Instagram channel that publishes stories, photos, videos, podcasts and other types of journalistic content created by Journalism students at the state’s flagship campus.
The Journalism Program Director, Brett Oppegaard, collaborated with faculty and students throughout the Fall term to create the look, style and vision of these news channels. Students recommended and voted on the name of the online publication, and the natural landscape of the campus area generated various ideas about its aesthetics.
For example, Oppegaard said, seeing the impressive Kōnāhuanui peaks above Nuʻuanu Pali, Oʻahu, every day — when going to and from campus — inspired him to ask the logo designers to envision the M-based logo as those highest mountainous points. About 30 versions of the logo later, the project had its iconic centerpiece illustration.
“We want to show our connection to this place,” Oppegaard said. “We are people who live here, care about this state and want to make it better by more openly, transparently and truthfully sharing important public information.”
The mirroring of the M in the logo creates a subtle reinforcement of the name, he said, but it also serves as a metaphor for Journalism holding a mirror up to our community and showing us what can be seen, good, bad, and the complicated in-between points.
“The Mānoa Mirror has provided a space for more journalistic freedom than I’ve experienced from any other publication,” said Mackenzie Olivo, a Journalism major who has published multiple pieces in it already, ranging from accounts of the trials and tribulations of the Lahaina fires to an interview with Brandy Nālani McDougall, Hawaii’s poet laureate. “We share stories we have genuine interest in, and care for. … (The Mānoa Mirror) provided a space with more freedom and that I felt gave me more control over my own stories. It was a freedom that came with deep responsibility and effort, one that I am both thankful to have, and to learn from.”
The School of Communication and Information’s chair, Hye-ryeon Lee, also brought in college design staff members to create press passes for the students, and members of the program’s Journalism Student Leadership Council, including Grant Nakasone, pushed for the idea to expand the Mirror into Instagram. Nakasone led a team of students who created and populated the channel with pilot stories in the Fall, and Preston Ancheta and Blaze Calizo added a new Spring design to the posts when they took over management of the channel for this term.
Dozens of multimedia stories have been published on the channels already this semester, including many pieces that would not have had a publishing home elsewhere.
“As a student journalist, it was so exciting to see my work published,” said Laurel Galvin, a Journalism major. “I’m very grateful to have a platform where I can get a variety of work published. I’m sure it’s going to be helpful when I’m applying for internships.”