Kentwood — After spending nine days creating a news segment on climate change for PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs 2024 Summer Academy, Nuha Hussein is already looking ahead to her next project.
The East Kentwood High School senior is still absorbing the excitement of her piece “Tangier Island residents work to preserve culture threatened by rising sea levels” being picked to air last month on national PBS News.
But she’s already getting started on a documentary telling the immigrant story through the lens of first-generation Americans. She is working with a local production team and plans to submit it to PBS NewsHour as well.
As she sits inside the Falcon News Network broadcasting studio/classroom at East Kentwood, the hallways around her are filled with students she could interview: immigrants and refugees from dozens of countries who are getting their education in Kentwood Public Schools, the most diverse school district in Michigan.
“It’s like home here. This school is amazing. I’m so thankful I came here. I don’t think I would be comfortable at any other school,” said Nuha, whose Palestinian father emigrated from Jordan and whose mother is of Jewish descent. “There are so many different people here.”
With her interest in journalism newly ignited, Nuha is eager to share the stories of her peers and many others.
During the PBS internship, she and a team of two other students created the documentary about the impacts of climate change on tiny Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. They visited the island, located an hour off the coast by boat. They led interviews, pre- and post-production, screenwriting and transcription.
‘My whole perception of journalism changed so much. It made me realize that journalism is something I want to do in the future.’
— senior Nuha Hussein
Through research and interviews, including with Tangier’s vice mayor, Nuha learned of the threat of rising water on the island’s culture and land mass. She also learned a term new to her — climate refugee — and documented the effects the changing climate has on the movement of people.
“I never knew what a climate refugee was,” she said. “It was so strange and new to me… I never knew that climate was political.”
A Growing Passion
Nuha is involved in Falcon News Network, and was already accomplished in video-making. She took first prize last fall in the Mosaic Film Experience Mosaic Mobile competition.
“Seeing her grow has been a super joyful experience. I’ve been lucky enough to be her teacher for the last three years now, and I’ve never encountered a student with as much drive and dedication as her,” said Preston Donakowski, video and production class teacher. “So, so much of her skill set has been a result of a true dedication to her craft.”
Nuha said that when she saw the application form for the summer internship on Donakowski’s desk, she had to apply.
She was one of 24 students from North America chosen. She stayed in the Washington D.C. area, with all expenses covered, working at PBS NewsHour’s headquarters.
“It was life-changing,” she said. “My whole perception of journalism changed so much. It made me realize that journalism is something I want to do in the future.”
Nuha has had a lifelong interest in comedy and music, and a career in journalism fits with those hobbies, she said. She loves documentary-style journalism, where people tell their own story and inform others of what they’ve been through and their experience.
“With journalism you can do everything; you can do music, you can do whatever you want by telling the perspectives of other people.”
Seeing her video on the news program was surreal, she said.
“It was shocking and it made me feel relieved. All my work really paid off.”
Donakowski said he suspects Nuha is just getting started.
“Anyone that ever asks me about just how talented she is, I always tell them the same thing: ‘One day I’m going to be working for her. She’s absolutely going places.’”
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