Cox Institute Names 2021 SABEW Fellows

Ten journalism students were selected during the Fall semester as Cox-SABEW Fellows, a financial journalism training program offered through the University of Georgia’s Cox Institute for Journalism Innovation, Management and Leadership in partnership with the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW).

The Cox-SABEW Fellows for 2021 are: Michael Banks, Ansleigh Edwards, Thomas Ehlers, Jessica Green, Kate Hester, Carah Jones, Jamie Miller, Emily Petraglia, Spencer Pipkin and Haley Roberson.

The Cox-SABEW Fellowships were created to recognize students who have engaged in financial journalism and business education through class assignments, student media and professional internships, or for those looking to launch their financial journalism journey, said Dr. Keith Herndon, executive director of the Cox Institute.

Herndon, a former business journalist, said the objectives of the program are to explain financial journalism and introduce students to career opportunities in the field.

“Through this program I have learned not only some of the basics of business . . ., but also how to write about business in a way that is easy to understand and shows how it touches our everyday lives,” said Kate Hester, who completed her bachelor’s degree in journalism and is now in her first year of a master’s program.

The 2021 Fellows are participating in the College Connect program, a personal finance writing workshop, which will pay them for producing and publishing personal finance stories for the SABEW website. SABEW operates the College Connect program through a sponsorship from the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE).

Additionally, the Fellows have engaged in virtual discussion sessions with previous students in the program who are now professional financial journalists. The Fellows also attended SABEW’s virtual conference held this year October 12-14.

Hester said the networking events gave her and the other fellows opportunities “to talk with business journalists and learn more about the field.”

This year’s group marks the ninth year of the Cox-SABEW Fellowships. The program started in 2013 and has recognized 53 participants including this year’s fellows.

“SABEW continues to be one of our premier training partners and we are so appreciative of its support along with the financial backing from NEFE,” said Herndon. “The news industry faces many headwinds, but success by any measure requires training our next generation. This important industry-academic partnership is vital to that mission.”