Disclosure Note: For the just-concluded academic year, VanSistine was editor-in-chief of The Spectator, where Dirks was a staff photographer.
By McKenna Dirks, community reporter
Ta’Leah Van Sistine, UW-Eau Claire’s 24th Ann Devroy Fellowship winner, has expressed high hopes for the opportunity it offers her.
One highlight of the fellowship takes place in Washington D.C., which isn’t unfamiliar ground for Van Sistine. In a recent interview, she said she traveled there in 2016 for the inauguration of former President Donald Trump, on a school trip from Bay Port High School in Green Bay.
Van Sistine will spend three weeks next January in residence in The Washington Post’s newsroom, as a key part of the Devroy Fellowship experience. Other aspects of it include a scholarship and a summer internship at a Wisconsin news outlet.
Program memorializes UW-EC alum
The fellowship was set up in 1997 in memory of Devroy, a 1970 UW-EC graduate – also from Green Bay – who went on to be regarded as one of the toughest but fairest reporters ever to cover the White House. She had that assignment first for the Gannett newspaper chain and USA Today and then for The Post from 1989 until her death from cancer at 49, in 1997.
Van Sistine said she’s excited to make it back to Washington in person. She said The Washington Post is planning for its newsroom to resume normal operations by next fall after some 18 months of people working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Van Sistine said working with The Post for three weeks will be a great learning experience in seeing how reporters work with strict deadlines on a daily basis.
“I’m most excited for my first day— just so excited to meet everyone who I’m going to be working with for those three weeks,” she said.
Van Sistine said one of her goals for this fellowship is to shadow reporters who cover environmental or outdoor beats at The Post, as she recently added an earth resources certificate to her degree.
Van Sistine noted that she worked virtually at Channel 15 (NBC) news in Madison last year, as part of her Henry Lippold Fellowship. She said this gave her a close look at broadcast journalism and she anticipates the Devroy Fellowship will be similar from a print journalism perspective.
Van Sistine said this is her first print journalism fellowship. However, the last two summers she worked as a marketing and communications intern in Green Bay. She also said she will be working for a daily newspaper in Michigan ahead of starting her senior year next fall.
Journalism path started in high school
Van Sistine began her journalism path in her first year of high school as part of the newspaper and yearbook staff. She said she was president of the newspaper organization for a year and also had the opportunity to interview students for the yearbook.
Her decision to attend UW-EC was based on the journalism program as a whole. She said the program seemed strong and intriguing, and it brought her to join Blugold Radio Sunday and The Spectator on campus.
VanSistine said that, as the news director for Blugold Radio Sunday, she produces a 10-minute news podcast every week, interviewing two local reporters.
The Spectator is also something Van Sistine has been involved with since her first semester on campus. She said she started as a staff writer, then became chief copy editor, news editor, then editor-in-chief.
News came unexpectedly
Van Sistine said she didn’t expect to hear the news about receiving the fellowship in a phone conversation with Prof. Jan Larson, chair of UW-EC’s Communication and Journalism department.
She said she called Larson to discuss the Wisconsin Newspaper Association awards The Spectator had won and received the news during that call.
“I was like ‘Oh my gosh,’ I just wasn’t expecting that,” Van Sistine said. “She kind of just talked and told me how things were going to go and I just listened and said thank you, and that was our conversation.”
Van Sistine said Larson informed her that she will be meeting with her in the fall semester to provide a better understanding of how the fellowship works. As of now, she said she’s not sure who she will be working with at The Washington Post.
Van Sistine said her vision for after college includes reporting on an environmental beat for a newspaper or public radio station.
“I would be happy for any kind of reporting job at a newspaper or public radio station,” Van Sistine said. “Hopefully to maybe have my own podcast someday – if I’m either producing or hosting it.”
She said she’s especially thankful for Larson for being there to talk about internship opportunities and things to improve on in her journalism career.
“I’m just so thankful for all of the faculty members in the CJ department here at UW-Eau Claire,” Van Sistine said. “I’m thankful for so many people who helped me get to this point.”
NOTE: this is Dirks’ final article as the CVPost’s community reporter. She has accepted an internship in La Crosse that begins later this month and lasts until December, and will not have either the time or the proximity to continue on our staff. We thank her for the reporting she has done and wish her only the best as she moves on.