Left to right: Shayla Klein, data visualization anchor; Carly Vaniver, social square anchor;Christine Robinson, main anchor; Claudia Sessa, main anchor; Brooke Hawthorne, social square anchor; Chris Marzullo, ESPN sports reporter.
The spring 2019 anchors for the award-winning “WVU News” television newscast have been chosen. The main anchors are Claudia Sessa of Abington, Pennsylvania and Christine Robinson of Weirton, West Virginia.
Social square anchors are Brooke Hawthorne of Weirton, West Virginia and Carly Vaniver of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The ESPNU sports reporter is Chris Marzullo of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, and the data visualization anchor is Shayla Klein of Wheeling, West Virginia.
The producer for the show is Ian Miller, the director is John Lowe and the technical director is Mitchell Blahut.
Reporters include: Carly Vaniver, consumer/education beat; John Lowe, government/economicdevelopment beat; Christine Robinson, heath/medical beat; Brooke Hawthorne, nonprofit/senior citizens beat; Claudia Sessa, police/fire/crimes beat; and Mitchell Blahut, WVU campus beat.
“WVU News” is a national Emmy award-winning newscast that airs statewide on West Virginia Public Broadcasting as part of “Campus Connection,” on Time Warner Cable in North Central West Virginia, on Network West Virginia via Suddenlink Cable and the WVU Campus Channel.
The television newscasts are produced by journalism students at theWVUReed College of Media. “WVU News” reporters cover events on the University campus and in the Morgantown community. Students report, write, shoot and edit television news stories for the program. They also serve as on-air anchors, producers, directors and technical crew during newscast tapings atWVU’s professional television studio.
The program provides students with hands-on experience and access to professional, state-of-the-art digital equipment. Students who enroll in the “WVU News” course are well prepared for careers in television journalism after they graduate.
Since 2013, “WVU News” has received 81 national, international and regional juried awards. The Broadcast Education Association recognized “WVU News” as a national finalist for Best College Newscastat the 2018Festival of Media Arts competition for the newscast “100 Days in Trump Country.” In 2017, "WVU News" wasawardedfirst place in the Television Newscast categoryfor the newscast “Special Edition Heroin and Opioids: When Addiction Hits Home.”This is the second time “WVU News” has received the top award under the leadership of Teaching Associate Professor Gina Martino Dahlia.
In 2016, the AVADigital Awards presented “WVU News” with a platinum award for the “Go Green” episode, and a gold award for the episode “The Many Dimensions of Diversity.” In spring 2015, “WVU News” won the national Emmy Award for “Best College Newscast” in the country.
Past episodes of “WVU News” can be viewed on their YouTube channel and website.