“Who lives? Who dies? Who decides?” Such were the questions posed by a five-part, student-produced podcast series examining the role race plays in the administration of Georgia’s death penalty. Spearheaded by digital storytelling major Grace Snell (22C), Georgia v. Foster has earned top three recognition in five national/regional awards programs. Completed in partial fulfillment of Snell’s honors thesis and published on Viking Fusion in early 2023, the podcast focused on the case of Rome’s Timothy Tyrone Foster, a Black man sentenced to death for murder by an all-white jury in 1987, only to have that conviction and sentence thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court, leading to a plea deal of life without parole in 2022.
“The podcast is among the most important work we’ve ever published at Viking Fusion,” said Dr. Brian Carroll, professor of communication and Snell’s honors thesis director. “Grace tackled an enormously complex topic and treated it with all the care, sensitivity and diligence that we hope for in the very best of our digital storytellers.”
Also credited for work on the series were Anna Rich (23C), Viking Fusion Advisor Steven Hames and Senior Lecturer Kevin Kleine.
