Julia Reihs

I believe that every moment holds its value, even if at the time it seems unimportant. There are stories everywhere, and I

I chose to pursue journalism because I am interested in practically everything: music, art, marine biology, film, dance, environmental science. Storytelling encompasses every one of these subjects, leaving journalism as the only logical career path for me.

My most recent journalism endeavors include my travels to Cordova, Alaska this past summer, where I had the opportunity to work on the UO Climate Change Reporting Project, honing my photography and videography and pushing my creativity and storytelling skills in the context of evironmental science reporting.

I attribute my steep learning curve to a series of projects completed the previous year. I spent the summer of 2013 in Mexico, where I created an informative promotional video for the Oaxaca Philosophy for Children organization, showing the benefits of bringing a discussion-based cirriculum into a test-based learning environment in one of the poorest region of Mexico. I then traveled to Uruguay, where I had my first taste of environmental science reporting. I worked with a small group of eight journalism students to create a multimedia project about whale migration and sustainable tourism as part of a pilot study abroad program through the University of Oregon.

The following year, my participation in technical skills workshops and multimedia project like Into the Evergreen deepened my understanding of multimedia journalism and of my deep interest in conceptualizing stories, finding common threads, and placing them within a broader story arc. Now a senior at UO, I work as the Managing Editor of Multimedia for FLUX Magazine.

Multimedia journalism has the power to humanize and present information that is widely accessable and effective on many levels. Conceptualization, creativity and the careful incorporation of multiple mediums into one project creates infinite pathways. As a journalist, I want to pursue these pathways and use multimedia journalism to create personalized, experiential, in-depth stories about places where social and environmental issues intersect. My focus now lies in pushing myself as a visual storyteller and a visionary.