KU News Release

KU graduate student is semifinalist in YouTube contest for aspiring journalists

LAWRENCE — Rhonda LeValdo, a graduate student in journalism at the University of Kansas and a teacher at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, is one of 10 semifinalists in a YouTube competition that encourages aspiring journalists to tell stories that may not be told in traditional media.

YouTube Project: Report is offered in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

When LeValdo, an Acoma Pueblo, learned the first contest assignment would be to profile an individual the world needs to know about, she turned to her maternal grandmother, Rachel Blackwater.

In her video, LeValdo explains that her Red Corn clan of the Acoma Pueblo is a matrilineal society and that she hopes to pass her grandmother’s values to her own daughter. The short video features Blackwater in her New Mexico home on the Laguna reservation, where she has lived since her marriage. Blackwater talks about her childhood and expresses her belief that in today’s world one of her grandchildren could become president of the United States.

To win the grand prize of a $10,000 journalism fellowship with the Pulitzer Center, the semifinalists must complete two more rounds.

For round two, each semifinalist will produce a video focused on a local story that has global impact. YouTube viewers will then select the top five finalists and ultimately the winner. Pulitzer Center staff selected winners of the first round.

The five finalists will produce a story about an underrepresented community. The finalists will receive video cameras to give to members of the group each is covering and ask them to participate in reporting the story. Each reporter must integrate footage shot by group members into a story that will run for five minutes or less.

This spring, LeValdo received a $10,000 National Minority Consortia fellowship to help increase minority coverage. The National Minority Consortia are five national media organizations funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to deliver programming that brings minority voices to public airwaves.

With that fellowship, LeValdo produced three stories for the Web site for the Jim Lerher NewsHour on PBS. Her first story, “Native American Students Concerned over Federal Education Funding,” was posted Aug. 14 and can be viewed on the PBS Web site.

She has completed a second story on Native Americans’ concerns about inadequate funding for Indian health services and treaty promises for health care that have not been met. That story is scheduled to be posted on the Online NewsHour Web site this week.

She also covered Barack Obama’s presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. LeValdo said her report on the Native American delegates at the Democratic convention may be used for a post-election wrap up by the Online NewsHour Web site.

LeValdo teaches TV production at Haskell and produces Native Spirit, a weekly radio show on KKFI 90.1 FM, a community radio station in Kansas City, Mo. Originally from New Mexico, she earned an associate’s degree in media arts at Haskell and a bachelor’s degree in journalism at KU in fall 2007.

She graduated from high school in Phoenix, Ariz., where her mother, Alfie LeValdo, lives. As a youngster, LeValdo lived with her family on the Acoma reservation near Albuquerque, N.M.

LeValdo and Denny Gayton have two young children and live in Lawrence.

The National Minority Consortia members are the Center for Asian American Media in San Francisco; Latino Public Broadcasting in Los Angeles; National Black Programming Consortium in New York; Native American Public Telecommunications in Lincoln, Neb.; and Pacific Islanders in Communications in Honolulu.

For more about YouTube Project: Report, visit www.youtube.com/projectreport.

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