USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

Congratulations to Will Fitzgibbon and Peter Goodman for winning the 2026 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. Their series, “The Poisonous Lead Trade,” a collaboration between The Examination and The New York Times, takes readers from the polluting factories in a Nigerian town to major car companies to show how the actions in automotive boardrooms sickened children and workers an ocean away. Their work had immediate impact, leading a major battery maker to tighten its supplier rules and Nigerian officials to launch a testing program.

The Examination and The New York Times win 2026 Selden Ring Award for ‘The Poisonous Lead Trade’ “ The Poisonous Lead Trade ” series exposes one of the dirtiest secrets of the automobile industry: Recycling lead for car batteries is poisoning people in Africa. Here, laborers work in a sort of bucket brigade to load batteries for delivery to the factories. Photo by Finbarr O'Reilly for The N...

In memoriam: Wallis Annenberg, 86, trailblazing philanthropist and USC Life Trustee The longtime leader of the Annenberg Foundation invested $1.5 billion in nearly 3,000 nonprofits and projects.

Congratulations, Class of 2025 graduates! We can’t wait to see all you will accomplish — Fight On, and welcome to the Trojan alumni family!

BREAKING NEWS: Academy Award-winning actor, producer, author and activist Jane Fonda will be our 2025 USC Annenberg commencement speaker!

Using the power of communication as a tool for deeper human connection, Ms. Fonda has starred in more than 50 films while making significant contributions to advancing causes such as women’s rights, Native Americans’ rights and climate action. https://annenberg.usc.edu/news/spotlight/jane-fonda-headlines-usc-annenbergs-2025-commencement-ceremony

Thanks to the generous support of a $5-million grant from USC Life Trustee Wallis Annenberg and The Annenberg Foundation, we are bringing a state-of-the-art multimedia production studio to our USC Capital Campus. Located in the heart of Dupont Circle, the new Wallis Annenberg Studio will be open to all USC students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, positioning us at the epicenter of media, communications and public discourse in the nation’s capital. Read the full announcement here: https://annenberg.usc.edu/news/spotlight/new-usc-capital-campus-studio-puts-students-center-global-communications-and-public

Congratulations to Katey Rusch and Casey Smith for winning the 2025 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. Their series, "Right to Remain Secret," a collaboration with Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program and the San Francisco Chronicle, exposed how law enforcement agencies across California used confidential settlements to bury the misconduct of their officers.

Katey Rusch and Casey Smith, in collaboration with Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program and San Francisco Chronicle, win 2025 Selden Ring Award for ‘Right to Remain Secret’ In 2019, Katey Rusch was a student in the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She was researching police departments that had hired officers who had past records of misconduct and appeared to have been terminated from previous ...

Help Trojan Students and Employees Impacted by L.A. Wildfires I am fundraising at USC and invite you to support this great project I am passionate about:

Another incredible semester at ! From the very first day of classes in the brand new ASC auditorium to the final day of exams, our USC Annenberg community continued to inquire, innovate and lead at the global crossroads of media, technology and culture. This fall, our students, faculty and staff engaged in important conversations about the future of the sports industry, covered elections across the country in real time, explored the future of audio streaming and contributed to groundbreaking research and scholarship across their areas of study and expertise. We learned about the evolution of K-pop, campaign trail reporting, artificial intelligence, diversity and inclusion in entertainment, mental health communication and more. Grateful for our incredible community and their contributions to the future of communication, journalism and public relations.

Celebrating outstanding students Daniel Palmore and Hayes Flanagan, the 2024 recipients of the Chick Hearn Memorial Scholarship! 🎙️
 
Palmore and Flanagan were honored during halftime at the game on Saturday, Nov. 23. Between their academic accomplishments and internships at some of the biggest media organizations in today’s sports ecosystem, this year’s awardees have already built a strong foundation in broadcasting, media and storytelling across the sports landscape. ✨
 
Congratulations, we can’t wait to see where your career aspirations, paired with support from the scholarship, will take you next! 💜💛