JENNIFER ANNE MITCHELL

Accomplishments in my portfolio include a feature story that led the Nat Geo Family newsletter, an analysis piece that is part of IJNet's Journalism and Mental Health Toolkit, and coverage of a new museum that was included in Artnet's daily digest of major art developments around the world.

National Geographic •

Missing Family During the Pandemic? Celebrate Your Ancestry With Recipes

FEATURE | Homemade cardamom bread sprinkled with pearl sugar is an annual treat in the DeRosa home in Cranston, Rhode Island. The family’s two young boys, 11 and 14, tell stories about their Granduncle Olof as it bakes: his family farm in New England, his cows, his truck, his big hands, and his recipe for bread, which he learned from his mother, who immigrated from Sweden. The DeRosa family found that making ancestral recipes like cardamon bread lifted the boys’ spirits when they started growing tired of homeschooling…
Washington City Paper •

The Phillips’ Exhibition Community in Focus is Cathartic After 2020

REVIEW | Devastation and rebuilding. Mistrust and faith. Isolation and unity. These are just some of the contradictions that make the Phillips Collection’s year-end exhibition Community in Focus a discordant experience that is both heart-wrenching and heartening—and true to life. Summarizing 2020 isn’t easy, but this project attempts to do just that through a powerful display of hundreds of images from the indescribable last year. The digital exhibition is up on the museum’s website until Feb. 7…
International Journalists' Network •

Reporting on Crises? Yoga Can Help Cope With the Stress

ANALYSIS | A masked assailant points a gun towards a group of journalists who are blindfolded, hands tied behind their backs, as part of a Hostile Environment and First Aid Training (HEFAT) administered by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). The training is designed to prepare participants for situations that they could potentially deal with on the job. “It was just terrifying,” said reporter Amaris Castillo, one of the IWMF fellows at the time, in a video about the training. To relieve participants…
Washington City Paper •

Local Arts Groups Rely on Community Funding in the Absence of Government Support

NEWS ARTICLE | One of the foundations of improv comedy is the concept of “Yes, and.” First, the performers must agree to the situation that has been set up. Then, they must add to it. DC Improv owner and comedy school principal Allyson Jaffe ties that concept to the coronavirus crisis. “We’re in the longest improv scene of our lives right now with COVID-19,” she says. “We just have to basically say this is a situation that’s happening and we have to ‘Yes, and’ it.” To comply with the D.C. government’s rapidly changing public health…
The DC Line •

Street Artists Beautify NoMa During International Mural Festival

NEWS ARTICLE | Now underway in NoMa, the fourth annual POW! WOW! DC International Mural Festival strives to bridge cultures, beautify the neighborhood, teach the community about public art and highlight the role that murals play in the city’s artistic landscape. The local chapter of POW! WOW!, a global nonprofit that enriches communities with murals and art, produces the event, which began last Thursday and continues through Sunday. The NoMa Business Improvement District works with POW! WOW! DC to help bring…
International Journalists' Network •

10 Ways Journalists Can Incorporate the Everyday Into Their Reporting

HOW-TO GUIDE | In March 2012, journalists Austin Merrill and Peter DiCampo traveled to Ivory Coast on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. They realized that by reporting only sensational, breaking news stories, they weren’t presenting a full picture of what they were seeing. They were simply perpetuating stereotypes. Merrill and DiCampo’s desire to share what everyday life was like in Ivory Coast inspired them to create Everyday Africa, a photojournalism project…
Washington City Paper •

D.C. Will House a First-Of-Its-Kind Museum Dedicated to Diplomacy

FEATURE | Ambassador Clyde D. Taylor faced threats during his 34-year career as a foreign service officer for the U.S. Department of State. He served in Iran from 1975 to 1979. “The entire time I was in Iran, my name was on a repeatedly freshened list, a kill list, which would be shoved under our door where we lived,” Taylor says. Taylor’s work took him to more than 65 countries, and he was assigned to live overseas on tours in Panama, Australia, El Salvador, Iran, and Paraguay, where he was the U.S. ambassador…