From The George-Anne to the Pulitzer

Charles Minshew (‘11) slept with the radio on, as was his habit, when he awoke early to reports of a shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater. He jumped up and raced to the office of the Denver Post, where the newsroom was already busy working on the story.

“That was a really fast-paced, extremely emotional thing to go through because I was listening to scanner traffic and Twitter and Facebook and building a timeline of everything that was happening,” said Minshew. “It was nonstop. I think at one point I remember we did 75 or 76 updates to that original story in a two-day period. We never once had to run a correction.”

The shooting timeline was a detailed look at the horror of that summer night when 12 people were killed and 58 injured. Minshew and a colleague developed the timeline with uploaded images, audio files, social media elements, documents and Denver Post coverage items to build the timeline. 

The traumatic summer of 2012 in Colorado began a few weeks earlier with the Waldo Canyon fire. It started just west of Colorado Springs, forcing evacuation of more than 32,000 residents of Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Woodland Park and the United States Air Force Academy. In its embers, the fire left two people dead and destroyed about 350 homes and more than 18,247 acres.

“We took aerial images of the burned out homes and property map data, and we built this map of all the houses that were destroyed and put that map out there,” said Minshew. “And the city of Colorado Springs was very angry with us. But there was this wall of 400 emails that we got from people who lived in that community, thanking us for just letting them know instead of prolonging the inevitable. That’s when I saw the power of what you could do with information.”

Those two interactive instances of breaking news, the shooting and the Waldo Canyon fire, won the Denver Post a Pulitzer Prize for the former and a finalist berth for the latter — all while Minshew was still an intern from the University of Missouri, where he received his graduate degree.

“They recognized every one of us as part of that team,” said Minshew. “That helped me get my first job at the Orlando Sentinel out of the Missouri School of Journalism, because one of the judges on the breaking news category was the first editor to hire me after college.”

Minshew was on the team at the Orlando Sentinel that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 after the Pulse Nightclub shooting when a gunman shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53.

“That was the time I decided I didn’t want to work in a newsroom for a while anymore, for my own mental health,” said Minshew. “And I’m glad I did, because I spent five years working for the nonprofit Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) as director of data services and doing training. And that ultimately led me back to Georgia to come home to work at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. So it all worked out in the long term, even though there were some really tough moments.”

Minshew is the Digital Storytelling Editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, leading a staff of data analysts and journalists. But he credits Georgia Southern with his start in journalism.

A recruiter at Georgia Southern called his twin brother, Richard, who said he wasn’t interested. She then called Minshew.

“I was very interested,” said Minshew. “She was talking about the Honors Program and scholarship opportunities, and I convinced my twin brother to go for a visit. I wanted to see what this was all about. And then we both ended up getting into the Honors Program.”

Minshew had the highest SAT score in his class at Wilcox County High School, in the south-central town of Rochelle, Georgia. He was invited to an awards dinner and gave a short speech. In the remarks, Minshew announced he was going to Georgia Southern.

“A woman approached me afterwards and said I should go talk to her son, he’s the editor-in-chief of The George-Anne,” said Minshew. “And that’s what I did. I walked into the Reflector on the first day of class and walked out with a story that same day. I practically lived in the Williams Center for four years because I was editor-in-chief of The George-Anne twice and I was editor-in-chief of the website. So I stayed with student media all four years of my time at Georgia Southern.”

Not only was Minshew named the Student Journalist of the Year and The Southern Talon Award winner, but he was also inducted into the John H. Nolan Hall of Leaders — pretty good for a student majoring in political science and minoring in journalism.

Now, Minshew is giving back to the school that gave his career a start.

“I’ve recently started a three-year term on the Friends of the Honors College,” said Minshew. “Dr. Engel asked me to serve on the board and I accepted. He allowed me to write for the Honors magazine and became a mentor to me over time. So I stay in contact with him a lot.”

If you ask what it is about Georgia Southern that helped launch Minshew into a vibrant journalism career, his thoughts get the better of him and he struggles getting the words out.

“I knew that I had people that genuinely cared about me, not just as a student but as a person,” said Minshew. 

“And I know that getting plugged into the community and being involved through the newspaper and being involved through the Honors Program, gave me access to experiences that I never would have had otherwise. I do think my life would be radically different without Georgia Southern and I’m always grateful for that.” –– Liz Walker