The Sunflower has produced journalists all around the Wichita area. Publications like The Wichita Eagle, The Wichita Business Journal and KMUW, Wichita’s local NPR affiliate, have newsrooms that are full of Sunflower alumni.
“Everyone comes in with a good sense for what Wichita business is all about,” editor of the business journal Kirk Seminoff said. “I’ve hired three in my seven years … all have come in with good experience because they get good experience at The Sunflower.”
Local news outlets in Wichita often look to college newspapers for employees and interns. There are currently four journalists on staff at the business journal who had worked for The Sunflower and six at The Wichita Eagle, the city’s legacy newspaper.
“I know that I learned much more from my work at my college newspaper, frankly, more than I ever did in a classroom,” KMUW’s news director Suzanne Perez said. “So, I really respect and value experience from college newspapers.”
Perez said having The Sunflower on a resume is often an advantage because, in her experience, it shows that candidates can meet deadlines and have at least basic reporting or editing skills.
“Journalism is a profession, but it’s also a trade, and I feel that just being in an environment where you are producing a product just teaches you how the news business works,” Perez said. “That’s practice that is really hard to replicate in a class. It’s just so important to just do the work and to do it consistently.”
Seminoff, a former Sunflower employee, said when he was at WSU in the 1980s, The Sunflower “was not as well run a newspaper” and “did not conduct itself as professionally as it does now.” One of the reasons he cited was the current faculty advisor, Amy DeVault.
“Amy brings that newspaper experience. She’s been through it. She knows how it works,” Seminoff said. “I think that’s really valuable. That’s something The Sunflower has had for decades, good people in the advising and teaching roles.”
Executive editor of The Wichita Eagle, Michael Roehrman, also said one of the major benefits of working for The Sunflower is the faculty advisors because “they are heavily invested in the success of the students.”
“Wichita State was excellent for preparing them for this career,” Roehrman said. “They come in knowing what questions to ask and how to identify what is or what isn’t a story. Those instincts get honed when they’re at Wichita State.”
Editor’s note: To celebrate 130 years of The Sunflower, our team delved into the lives of former staff and others close to the organization to understand the impact it had on their lives. While conflict-of-interest was unavoidable, The Sunflower remains committed to adhering to journalistic integrity, accuracy and meeting the needs of the Wichita State community.
