Previous Hosokawa Lectures and Award Winners

2025 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture

The 2025 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture took place on Tuesday, April 22 at 7 p.m. in the Reid Campus Center Young Ballroom. Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Versha Sharma presented on “The 21st Century Newsroom: What Even is News When Everything is Online?" and engaged in conversation with the Whitman Wire's Editor-in-Chief Nazaaha Pennick.

At Teen Vogue, Sharma leads a team of editors, reporters, social media managers, video producers and more in covering all things fashion, politics, culture and identity for young audiences. Since joining in May 2021, she has won several leadership awards and a National Magazine Readers' Choice Award for Best News & Politics Cover.

While previously working as the managing editor and senior correspondent at NowThis, she interviewed high-profile figures such as Barack Obama, Hillary  Clinton and Joe Biden and covered global issues with a digital- and social-first mindset. She and her team received an Edward R. Murrow Award for their  documentary work on Hurricane Maria’s effects on Puerto Rico, with Sharma leading audience growth across the outlet’s social platforms.

Sharma currently serves on the boards of the Online News Association and International Women’s Media Foundation and has been interviewed by MSNBC, The New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review and more. She has continually rallied for diversified voices across the media landscape and in newsroom leadership positions and pushes the conversation forward on any and every issue affecting young people today.

2025 Hosokawa Journalism Awards

The 2025 Hosokawa Journalism Awards went to:

• Arham Khan ’25 - “I Am Arham Prime" (Humor)
• Kaitlyn Salazar ’25 - “Big Tech Coming to Wallula Gap” (Feature)
• Chloe Collins ’25 - “Theatergoes Revel in the Reprehensible at ‘God of Carnage’” (Photography)
• Garrett Schreiber ’26 - “What Happened to Our Understanding of Protest” (Opinion)
• Uma Bratt ’26 - "Loose Lips Sink Ships" (Illustration)
• Chloé Williams ’26 - “‘All the Rare Birds’ Honors Kyle Martz, Late Whitman Staff Member” (News)

2024 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture

The 2024 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture took place on Tuesday, April 16 at 7 p.m. in the Reid Campus Center Young Ballroom. Journalist Vann Newkirk II delivered a talk titled “Storytelling Against the Crisis.”

Newkirk is senior editor at The Atlantic and host and co-creator of podcasts “Floodlines” and “Holy Week.” For years, Newkirk has covered voting rights, democracy, and environmental justice, with a focus on how race and class shape the country's and the world's fundamental structures, across media. Newkirk is a 2022 Andrew Carnegie fellow, and was a 2020 James Beard Award Finalist, a 2020 11th Hour Fellow at New America, and a 2018 recipient of the American Society of Magazine Editors's ASME Next Award. In 2021, Newkirk received the Peabody Award for Floodlines. His journalism inspired the 2022 documentary film Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, for which he also served as a consulting producer.

2024 Hosokawa Journalism Awards

The 2024 Hosokawa Journalism Awards went to:

• Natalie Comerford ’25 and Coden Stark ’24 - “Long Road Ahead Following Downtown Gas Leak" (News)
• Alexa Grechishkin ’25 - “On a Roll: Roller Slay Club Reclaims the Skate Park” (Feature)
• Sailor Harris ’26 - “27th Annual Wheelin’ Walla Walla Weekend Races Through Downtown” (Photography)
• Bex Heimbrock ’25 - “America’s Problematic Favorite: Football” (Opinion/Editorial)
• Paloma Link ’24 - "Double Jeopardy: Jaahnavi Kandula’s Murder" (Illustration)
• Audrey Marthin ’26 - “Whit City Packs the Stands” (Sports)

2023 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture

The 2023 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture took place on Tuesday, April 18 at 7 p.m. in the Reid Campus Center Young Ballroom. Journalist Alexander Heffner delivered a talk titled “Civil Discourse in an Uncivil Age.”

Heffner is the host of “The Open Mind” on PBS and co-author of the bestselling book, “A Documentary History of the United States.” He is the recipient of Johns Hopkins University’s Agora Institute Fellowship, University of Denver’s Anvil of Freedom Award, Franklin Pierce University’s Fitzwater Medallion for Leadership in Public Communication, and Yale University’s Poynter Fellowship in Journalism. He has covered American culture, politics and civic life since the 2008 presidential campaign, and his writing appears in USA Today, Wired, Time, The Wall Street Journal, and beyond.

2023 Hosokawa Journalism Awards

The 2023 Hosokawa Journalism Awards went to:

• Sebastian Squire ’25 - “Update on Walla Walla book banning efforts" (News)
• Charlotte Elliott ’23 - “Students vs alumni: The ultimate frisbee showdown” (Sports)
• Samantha Fitts ’23 - “What It’s Like to Transition at Whitman” (Features/Arts and Entertainment)
• Bex Heimbrock ’25 - “BePanopticon” (Opinion/Editorial)
• Jake Lee ’25 - “Into the Box” (Photography)

2023 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture

The 2022 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture took place on Thursday, April 21 at 7 p.m. in the Reid Campus Center Young Ballroom. Journalist Corrine Chin delivered a talk titled “Lead From Where You Are: Visual Storytelling for Inclusion and Innovation.”

As Director of News Talent for Recruitment at the Associated Press (AP), she works to bring new, diverse journalists to the AP. She is a former senior video journalist at The Seattle Times, where she founded and led that newsroom's Diversity & Inclusion Task Force.  She has also worked at CNN as a senior video producer.

As a storyteller, Chin amplifies underrepresented voices through innovative online video projects like “Beyond the Border,” a series of visual stories exploring immigration and deportation, and “Under Our Skin,” an interactive documentary exploring the words we use—and misuse—to talk about race in America. Her work has been recognized by the National Emmy Awards, Online News Association, Radio Television Digital News Association (national Edward R. Murrow Awards), NPPA Best of Photojournalism, Pictures of the Year International and more.

2022 Hosokawa Journalism Awards

The 2022 Hosokawa Journalism Awards went to:

• Rosa Woolsey ’23 - “Whitman’s Asian-American community reflects on Atlanta shooting, discrimination and identity” (News)
• Hailey Livingston ’22 - “Whitman didn’t count you in the security report? Me too.” (Opinion)
• Jaime Fields ’23 - “Women’s basketball team 5–0 for the season thus far” (Sports)
• Zoe Schacter-Brodie ’23 - “Uncareful self-care” (Feature)
• Bridget Kennedy ’23 - “DISCO offers space for disabled students to connect and confront ableism” (Photography)

2021 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture

The 2021 Hosokawa Journalism Lecture took place virtually on Monday, April 26 at 6 p.m. Emmy Award-winning journalist Mireya Villarreal delivered a talk titled “Breaking: Covering the Country’s Biggest Stories in the Midst of a Pandemic.”

Villarreal joined CBS News in 2015 and has covered a wide range of breaking news stories including COVID-19, family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border, the school shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon and the Environmental Protection Agency’s contaminated water leak into the Colorado River in Durango, Colorado. She has also reported on the devastating wildfires in California that burned 36,000 acres in 2016, as well as the methane gas leak in Porter Ranch, California, that caused thousands to evacuate their homes.

In 2019, Villarreal moved back to Texas, her home state, to help cover the Southern Region for CBS News; a total of 16 states from Florida to New Mexico.

In the last two years she’s covered a wide range of stories including immigration issues and sexual assault in the military. She was the first national correspondent to shed light on the disappearance of Vanessa Guillen and the subsequent changes made by the Army. Her continued coverage of the recent migrant surge along the southern border has also given people all over the world a unique understanding of why these people are coming to the United States, who is bearing the brunt of the surge, and how the administration is responding.

A veteran investigative reporter, she is the recipient of two Texas Associated Press Awards for stories on immigration and child safety.

2021 Hosokawa Journalism Awards

The 2021 Hosokawa Journalism Awards went to:

• Lena Friedman ’21 - “19 Million Down in Revenue, Whitman Halts Mandatory Furloughs in Favor of Tiered Cuts” (News)
• Renny Acheson ’22 - “‘Fire Stories’ Explores Ecology and History” (Feature)
• Sile Surman ’24 - “Why Name Pronunciation Matters” (Opinion)
• Lennae Starr ’21 - “Intramural Sports Cater to Niche Communities” (Sports)
• Dana Kendrick ’21` - “Chastity Belt and Reptaliens in Review” (Photography)