The NonDoc Intern Class of 2022 is back like we never left.
Well, Bennett really never left. But I did!
My name is Andrea Hancock, and I am, as of Monday, NonDoc’s news editor. Bennett Brinkman and I formed a two-person team of reporting interns in the summer of 2022, and now, we’re forming a new editing team. Bennett is moving over from his role as education reporter to serve as NonDoc’s new production editor.
Journalists have to do more than just write stories these days — they also have to take photos, write social media posts and make sure the stories are optimized to appear on search engines. That’s where Bennett comes in. He’ll help handle those aspects of our coverage and introduce new multimedia elements to our stories, bringing our production standards to new heights.
As news editor, I’ll be focused on some of the more traditional responsibilities you might associate with editing, such as fact checking, copyediting and helping our reporters develop and source their stories. You’ll occasionally see bylines from me and Bennett, too.
Bennett will leave his education coverage responsibilities in the capable hands of Sasha Ndisabiye — yet another former NonDoc intern! Sasha graduated from Langston University in May, where she served as editor-in-chief of The Langston Gazette from 2022 to 2024. In college, she completed an internship with the USA Today Investigative Team and represented Langston at the 2023 HBCU x White House Press Briefing.
After graduating, Sasha spent the summer in NonDoc’s newsroom as part of the 2024 intern class. She cut her teeth with coverage of a primary election featuring two candidates with previous legal trouble and followed with stories on topics such as contentious contract negotiations at a troubled prison and infrastructure issues at her alma mater.
Bennett relinquishes his role as education reporter to Sasha under similar circumstances as to how he got the gig in the first place. As I packed up and went back to school at the end of our 2022 stint as interns, Bennett stayed on and began covering education full-time for NonDoc.
There’s never a dull day for an education reporter in the State of Oklahoma. Over the past two years, Bennett has covered everything from new teaching methods that could boost childhood literacy to legislators who flipped their stances on school choice tax credits, and gave a principal publicly maligned by State Superintendent Ryan Walters for his drag performances the chance to speak publicly with his side of the story.
As for me, since my last stint with NonDoc, I graduated from Northwestern University with degrees in journalism and political science and have spent the last year as a general assignment reporter for The Norman Transcript, where I took on anything that came across the editor’s desk, be it four-hour city council meetings or Barry Switzer’s favorite Bedlam memories.
They say youth is wasted on the young, but while we may be a brigade of 20-somethings, the three of us are determined to get to work tackling civic issues and enabling well-informed public discourse. We hope you continue to follow along.
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