Daniel Moore spent several months investigating the challenges faced by veterans returning from
Afghanistan and Iraq, and his work has found a national audience.
Moore, a senior journalism major, is JMC’s first News21 fellow, and one of only 24 student journalists in the country selected for this prestigious paid fellowship. News21 gives journalism students the opportunity to cover a significant national issue and have their works published in national news outlets. The 2013 fellows focused on the re-entry into civilian life of post 9/11 veterans.
Moore’s first story, written with two other News21 fellows, focused on the growing backlog of veterans’ disability claims, even as government disability processors received millions of dollars in performance bonuses. The story was published in and picked up by in late August.
For Moore, the News21 experience has been indispensable to his professional training. “News21 was the most intense project I've ever been a part of,” Moore said. “Spending seven months researching one widely-reported topic, I was able to put more energy into the final project than other journalists.”
“As with any investigation, there were ups and downs, good days and bad days and leads that led nowhere,” Moore said. “In that last month, my team was able to pull the story together and prove the Veteran Administration’s standards for employees who process veterans' disability claims really don't make much sense. This is something way bigger than the individual claims processor or the individual veteran, and we were able to prove how each is affected by such a vast bureaucracy that was never intended to be that big.”
As editor of the Daily Kent Stater, Moore was encouraged to apply for the program by his professors, advisors andThor Wasbotten, JMC director.
The News 21 Fellowship was created in 2005, a combined effort of The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and is headquartered at Arizona State University at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.