Successful OU Alumna Offers Advice to Current Journalism Students

Jessica Deyo

Photo provided by Meg Vogel

When Meg Vogel first began as a student at Ohio University, she wasn't even sure what photojournalism was. Today, Vogel serves as a staff photographer at The Cincinnati Enquirer, where she assisted in producing “Seven Days of Heroin,” a documentary highlighting Cincinnati’s opioid epidemic. The piece was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting in 2018. As a visual storyteller whose assignments range from hard-pressing topics to light-hearted features, Vogel credits much of her success to her alma mater.

How do you believe OU prepared you for your career as a visual storyteller?

I wouldn't be where I am today without OU, and I am a big, big fan. My experience — I can't talk more highly about it. I run into someone who went there or is thinking about going or their kids are thinking about going and I'm like, “I just want to stop and tell you everything.” It was such a transformative experience. The connections I was able to make and what I was able to learn for real life experiences set me up to be a great intern, and that set me up to have job opportunities, and I got most of my internships … because of who I know or I knew from OU. 

 What was your role in the Pulitzer-winning “Seven Days of Heroin” documentary? 

I was an associate producer on the documentary, which meant that I did a lot of the planning … The week of the actual project, I was out every day. I mean, 10-12 hours a day working on different stories — some things worked, some things didn't work. A lot of the work I did wasn't going to end up in the actual projects. I think like three of the days that I was out there producing it was never published because we just had so much we had to cut down … They requested hundreds of 911 calls, surveillance footage, body camera footage. We gathered all the footage from our staff and had this mountain to go through and then had to make it into a cohesive piece.

 Did you ever picture yourself assisting in that story, let alone the story that won a Pulitzer?

No, not at all. I didn't know what I was going to do after I graduated. I knew that I wanted to be a photojournalist [and] I knew that I liked the idea of working for a newspaper. I have some kind of romantic idea about it, newspapers are leaving and they're going down and I’m still so attached to them because I think there's something so amazing about a newspaper and the way that we connect with the community quickly, and I just love it. I'm really honored to work in my hometown. I never saw my hometown paper, producing something like this, but you got the right people in the room at the right time, and there was a lot of efficiency and enthusiasm. I knew the project was important. None of us need an award to say that because of the response from our community. The great thing about the award and the recognition was that it was impacting so many more people around the world... Our little town can help inform and make this kind of impact. That's pretty cool.

If you could give advice to students today, what would it be?

 The first thing I would say is, I think when you're graduating and you're starting to look at your career and look at what you want to be, it's very easy to want to emulate other people who have inspired you. And it's like, you want this checklist of, “Okay, well, she did this and I will do this,” like [you’re] trying to mirror the success of others. And it’s something that I think is really easy to get caught in. But what your career is going to look like and what you end up doing is going to be unique. Everyone's path is so different and if you're not checking the boxes of other people, it's okay … And the second piece, which is going to be lame, but I promise, it's very true: It's just being a good person. I have found that, especially in the journalism industry, it's a small community who you interact with professionally. They're going to come back later in life down the road, it could be tomorrow, it could be in a few years. You're always going to be interacting with a lot of the same people. I think it's really important just to be a good person and also understand your role in the community.