Penn State students provide in-depth coverage of train derailment and its impact

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A six-month-long reporting effort by Penn State journalism students that included three separate site visits, dozens of interviews and hundreds of hours of preparation has produced “East Palestine: One Year Later,” an in-depth, immersive look at the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment in February 2023 and its ongoing impact.

The project, coordinated by The News Lab at Penn State, goes inside the environmental disaster and cleanup measures and other ongoing issues for residents, including chronic health concerns, contaminated water, temporary and permanent displacement, the petrochemical industry, and the presence of Norfolk Southern and the EPA in the region.

The News Lab at Penn State, housed in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and led by Maggie Messitt, the Norman Eberly Professor of Practice in the Department of Journalism, facilitates partnerships between professional news organizations and student journalists — regularly collaborating on long-form and special projects. “East Palestine: One Year Later” has been distributed to media outlets around the country.

Students associated with the lab and students in a depth-reporting class taught by Messitt put together the East Palestine project, which includes an interactive, 20-stop audio tour stretching from an OxyVinyl chemical plant in Texas to communities along the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line.

The students translated their reporting into an immersive experience using the app Gesso, which is typically a platform for self-guided walking tours in cities and for self-guided museum tours, allowing visitors to engage with an exhibit on their own. For these purposes, the Gesso platform allows listeners and readers to find themselves more intimately inside the story, traveling alongside the train, walking inside someone’s home, stepping into Sulphur Run and experiencing the trauma of displacement.

“It’s much more than a story about train safety,” Messitt said. “This team of emerging journalists reported on the narratives surrounding East Palestine for months. Not only did they make themselves knowledgeable in chemicals, health effects, the waterways and other relevant issues, but they’ve also invested in the layers of this story and the people they encountered. What they have created together — truly as a team — brings listeners closer to East Palestine, the train and the chemicals it was transporting, and the ongoing aftermath of the derailment.”

For students, the hands-on experience was challenging and important. The project’s contributing reporters included Reece Coren, William Davis, Yusheng He, Tara Hoenscheid, Julia Mertes, Morgan Motycki, Nick Stonesifer and Samantha Verrelli.

“None of us knew what to expect in East Palestine,” said Mertes, who is completing a double major in journalism and English. “Researching the disaster, the chemicals and the cleanup doesn’t prepare you for being hit with the scent of chemicals. The headaches. The dizziness. The sore throats. It was both surprising and a reminder: This is what locals deal with every day.”

Two photographers, Jackson Ranger and Alysa Rubin, traveled to East Palestine in November to take portraits of community members and document the visible reminders of the derailment as student reporters interviewed community members, advocates, firefighters, politicians and environmentalists.

“Eight months after the derailment, I wouldn’t have expected this to be trauma reporting, but sitting alongside displaced residents and entering now-unoccupied homes reminds you that so many people are still deep inside the trauma every day,” said Verrelli, who is completing a double major in journalism and Spanish. “I knew I was doing important work, and yet you always have to balance the feeling that your presence is invasive.”  

Audio producers Cassidy Baylis, Katie Knol and Cade Miller brought the project to life with their work.

“This is more like a scripted podcast,” said Miller, a journalism major. “Audiences won’t hear the voices of East Palestine residents, rather the voice of a journalist. That said, we hear so intimately what the people in the area are going through and feel for them. Audio puts us right in the setting of the derailment.” 

“East Palestine: One Year Later” was built to be accessed on mobile phones but also is accessible on computers or tablets.

The project was made possible with funding from the Arthur P. Miller Newsroom Fund, the Barbara Yunk Haas Fund for Journalism and the Curt Chandler Grant for Storytelling.