Katie Winbauer
  • Mass Communication
  • Class of 2016
  • Bismarck, ND

Katie Winbauer chosen for Washington D.C. news fellowship program

2016 Feb 24

Katie Winbauer, a Bismarck native and student at Bismarck State College, has been selected to participate in a Washington, D.C. news fellowship program.

The North Dakota Newspaper Association board of directors chose Winbauer from a field of eight applicants for the two-day fellowship that will focus on reporting about the war on terrorism.

The fellowship takes place March 16-17 during the National Newspaper Association's Community Newspaper Leadership Summit.

Winbauer is a graduate of Bismarck High School and is nearly done with an Associate in Arts degree at BSC. Her first taste of newspaper work came at the Bismarck HiHerald, and she serves as editor-in-chief of The Mystician, BSC's student newspaper.

"My career goal is to become an attorney and work helping student journalists," Winbauer said. "As someone who has faced censorship and had rights restricted as a student, it seems fitting that my career be focused on preventing these issues for future journalists."

That also is what motivated her to take an active role in advocating for the passage of the John Wall New Voices Act, which extends free speech rights to high school and college journalists in North Dakota.

Thanks mostly to the work of students like Winbauer, North Dakota legislators adopted the new law last session without a single "no" vote.

This is the third year that NDNA has participated in the news fellowship program. Participation in the program is funded by a grant from the NDNA Education Foundation.