McGill Fellows named for 2022

Twelve students have been named 2022 McGill Fellows by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The class, selected by a faculty committee for their strengths in academics, practical experience and leadership, includes 11 journalism majors and one graduate student.

The 2022 McGill Fellows are:

• Matthew Brown, journalism, Guyton, Georgia
• Sydney Fordice, journalism, Franklin, Tennessee
• Ashley Galanti, journalism, Duluth, Georgia
• Reeves Jackson, journalism,  Milton, Georgia
• Kyra Posey, graduate student,  Duluth, Georgia
• Kathryn Skeean, journalism, Dacula, Georgia
• Brieanna Smith, journalism, Colbert, Georgia
• Delaney Tarr, journalism, Coral Springs, Florida
• Palmer Thombs, journalism, Nashville, Tennessee
• DonA Traylor-Askew, journalism, Barnesville, Georgia
• Julia Walkup, journalism, Trinity, Florida
• Janelle Ward, journalism, Milledgeville, Georgia

The McGill Fellows were responsible for researching nominees and selecting the recipient of the 2021 McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage, Omar Jimenez, who was announced last month.

The McGill Fellows will participate in the McGill Symposium on February 16, 2022, which brings together students, faculty and leading journalists to consider what journalistic courage means and how it is exemplified by reporters and editors. Jimenez will deliver the McGill Lecture and will accept the McGill Medal following the McGill Symposium.

This is the fifteenth class of McGill Fellows. The first class was selected in 2007.

The Grady College faculty selection committee consisted of Dodie Cantrell, Keith Herndon, Janice Hume, Mark Johnson, Vicki Michaelis and Diane Murray, who directs the McGill program for Journalistic Courage.

The McGill program for journalistic courage grew out of the McGill Lecture which for more than 40 years has brought significant figures in journalism to the University of Georgia to help honor Ralph McGill’s courage as an editor.

McGill, while editor and publisher of The Atlanta Constitution, was regarded as the “conscience of the south,” using the newspaper’s editorial pages to challenge segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. McGill was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1958 for “long, courageous and effective leadership.”

The McGill Program is funded in part by the McGill Lecture Endowment.