#MediaMonday – Shauna Stuart

Happy #MediaMonday! Shauna Stuart, an Alabama reporter who has written for The Birmingham Times, AL.com and more recently spoke with our Public Relations Global Network partner, Peritus Public Relations,  based in Alabama.

Check out the full Meet the Media feature on Shauna Stuart here!

Why does media matter to you?

This answer isn’t profound, but media (and access to media) can directly influence opinions about the world.

What’s one thing you wish more people understood about the work you’ve done as a journalist? What about the work you’ve done as a PR pro? 

This sounds trivial, but I would like more people to know that the journalist who writes the story doesn’t always have input on the final headline. The final choice about the headline is often up to the final discretion of an editor who may have different opinions and goals for the story.

What story are you most proud of?

I published a story on Sarah Collins Rudolph, the sister of Addie Mae Collins in 2018. Addie Mae was one of the four little girls killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. Sarah, her little sister, was severely injured in the bombing.

I grew up in Georgia. Barbara Cross, the daughter of the Rev. John Cross, who was the pastor of 16th Street Baptist Church when it was bombed in 1963, was a substitute teacher for my second-grade class in elementary school. Ms. Cross is a revered speaker and educator, and at the time, teachers at my school gathered several classes into a room for Ms. Cross to tell her story about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. During her reflection, she talked about her friend Sarah, who was seriously injured in the bombing when glass flew into her eye.

While I attended that school, we also took a field trip to a number of cities pivotal to Black history, including Savannah and Birmingham, where we visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and 16th Street Baptist Church.  Fast forward to more than 20 years later, I moved to Alabama in late 2016. I ended up making contact with Sarah Collins Rudolph and her husband, George Rudolph. In 2018, I wrote a story about Sarah Collins Rudolph titled “God had to do a work in me’: Sarah Collins Rudolph on reclaiming her story.” The story ran on the front page of The Birmingham News at the time, leading up to the annual remembrance of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing