Reporting and Writing
When it comes to reporting and writing, I pride myself on my versatility. There's no story I won't attempt, no matter if it's a profile or playoff predictions. Although there are connections between reporting and writing, I've chosen to address them separately to differentiate my reporting process from my written product. Click on the buttons below to go to the appropriate sub-page or scroll below for a testimonial and my sources of inspiration.
NSPA 2024: Story of the Year, Sports Story, First Place: Wyatt Meyer
SIPA 2025: Best Writing: Online Storytelling Portfolio: First Place: Wyatt Meyer
SIPA 2025: Best Writing: Newsmagazine Portfolio: First Place: Wyatt Meyer
SIPA 2025: Best Writing: Newsmagazine Investigative Story: First Place: Wyatt Meyer
GSPA 2024: All-Georgia Newsmagazine: News Story, “Time after time”: Wyatt Meyer
GSPA 2024: All-Georgia Newsmagazine: Sports feature story, “Old-school, new school”: Wyatt Meyer
GSPA 2023: All-Georgia Newspaper/Newsmagazine/News Website: Sports Column, “Tell Me, Wy”: Wyatt Meyer
GSPA 2023: All-Georgia Newspaper/Newsmagazine/News Website: Sports Game Coverage, “Game Coverage: CCHS vs CSHS”: Wyatt Meyer
Select Reporting and Writing Awards
Professional Testimonial:
Michael Prochaska, The Oconee Enterprise Editor-in-Chief
While I've had the opportunity to explore all the domains with the ODYSSEY Media Group, my experience with The Oconee Enterprise, a local paper I interned for, was largely limited to reporting and writing. At the paper, I worked remotely over the summer break to publish several articles, communicating directly with the paper's Editor-in-Chief, Michael Prochaska -- the author of this letter.
My Reporting and Writing Inpsiration
These books have been formative to me in my understanding of what it means to be a reporter and writer. In their own ways, each has taught me a small facet of journalistic and authorial excellence.
I picked this book up from a secondhand rack at New York City's The Strand bookstore, and it's never left my bag since. The Q&A's with nonfiction writers have given me tangible reporting strategies, but more than that, the enterprising journalism has inspired me to pursue important stories in our community.
When I read this book for my AP Literature class in my junior year, I was fascinated by the familiar, evocative world that the author, Zora Neale Hurston built. What I didn't know then was that Hurston was an anthropology major at Columbia and her work, though fictional, encapsulated the true experience of African Americans in the deep South. Her diction, vernacular dialogue, and unapologetic depiction of characters have influenced my writing.
I was introduced to Ted Conover in The New New Journalism, and his responses captivated me more than anyone's. As such, on long drives to my soccer games, I listened to an audiobook of "Newjack", wherein Conover signed up as a prison guard at Sing Sing to report on mass incarceration and the prison experience. His depth of reporting and unflinching depiction were inspirational.
