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KOMU-TV's Stacey Woelfel named director of new documentary journalism center

Janet Saidi
/
KBIA

  KOMU-TV News Director Stacey Woelfel has been named as the first director of the new Jonathan Murray Documentary Journalism Center at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Dean Mills, dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, announced Tuesday that Woelfel will begin his new position at the Murray Center in September.

Woelfel said he sees his responsibility as injecting the hands-on Missouri Method into the new documentary program.

“We’re going to develop a curriculum that gives people a hands-on approach to, starting from scratch, figuring out what it is that they want to do with the documentary and then taking that through to the end and have a finished product,” he said.

Woelfel said he will focus first on creating the documentary journalism program, including its curriculum and lab, and then move into teaching and lab operations.

He said that he is excited about the new position, and that although he won’t be in the role for 6 months, he has already started work and planning for it.

I’m up and running in all directions here to get this going, I’m excited to spend the rest of the spring and the summer putting things together even before I officially take on this title in September,” he said.

By the time he leaves to lead the documentary program, Woelfel will have been at KOMU-TV for more than 28 years.

He said he will miss the daily news approach and working with students as they develop. But, he said, he is looking forward to getting off the daily schedule and having days, weeks or months to work with students on a single documentary.

Woelfel said it has not yet been decided who will take over his position at KOMU, but they hope to leave overlap time between him and the new person to make the transition as smooth as possible.

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