Sign up by Sept. 18!

Hit the road! Test your journalism skills this fall with an expenses-paid overnight reporting trip that combines the intensity of a hackathon or 48-hour film festival with the serendipity of a spontaneous road trip. Teams of four student journalists will travel to small towns about 50-150 miles away from Pullman to see what you find and learn.

Open to all students, but space is limited!

Sign Up Now

Registration is open until Sept. 18.

The Rural Reporting Plunge started as an experiment in 2018 and 2019, made a comeback in 2022, and is now a Murrow College tradition and rite of passage.

Teams of four students will travel to small towns around the region to explore, inquire and see what's happening. Teams in the past have covered high school sports events, toured historic buildings, attended community festivals, and dined with small-town mayors.

The twist: You don’t know exactly where you’re going until right when you leave, so you have to rely on the people you meet along the way.

On Friday, Oct. 4, you show up and get:

  • A car
  • A team
  • A destination
  • A source for story ideas
  • A deadline

Can't make it overnight? There's an option for a Saturday-only day trip, too.

Reporting on this trip may qualify for assignments in courses such as ComJour 333, 390, 425 or 486. Make sure to check with your instructor ahead of time.

Participation Requirements:

  • A sense of adventure and enthusiasm for new experiences!
  • Available to travel from noon Oct. 4 to 6 p.m. Oct. 5 (forms available for Friday class absences)
  • Some confidence in your basic reporting skills: asking people questions, identifying what's interesting or important, taking notes and photos
  • No prerequisite classes

If you are not a Murrow College major, you are welcome to sign up. You may be asked to show previous reporting or multimedia work for team placement.

Other Rural Reporting Opportunities:

If you can't participate in the Rural Reporting Plunge, you're not out of luck. Fill out the same form to get on our list for updates about other no-cost day trips and overnight visits throughout the year. (There's an option on the form for that.)

Questions? Please contact Prof. Lisa Waananen Jones at lisalynn@wsu.edu.

About This Project

The Journalism and Media Production Department at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication launched the Rural Reporting Project in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting. The project involves experimentation with community-guided rural reporting and the potential to improve rural news coverage and immersive student learning.

Murrow College rural reporting events are supported by the Roundhouse Foundation. The Rural Reporting Plunge has been supported in previous years by the Student Media Challenge grant from the Solutions Journalism Network and the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Teaching and Learning Endowment at Washington State University. During the 2018-19 academic year, this project was administered by the Online News Association with support from Excellence and Ethics in Journalism Foundation, the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund, Rita Allen Foundation and the Scripps Howard Foundation.

Send project inquiries to Prof. Lisa Waananen Jones at lisalynn@wsu.edu.