All Rise — the Class is in Session
By Nicole Troy
Journalism student Nico Viñuela,
supported by a group of staff and
students, covered the Kristin Smart
murder trial alongside professional
local and national reporters
for three months.
From July to October 2022, journalism student Nico Viñuela reported on the Kristin Smart murder trial for Cal Poly’s student-run news organization, Mustang News, representing the only college media publication attending and covering the trial. Viñuela was one of only a few student reporters who sat in the Salinas courtroom alongside local and national reporters, often working 12- to 15-hour days.
His days often followed the same pattern: waking up at his parents' house in Monterey County, thinking about the case he was covering, driving to court to take two dozen pages of notes by hand and then returning home to write and record daily drafts of his stories.
“It’s a hard thing to do, but I like telling important stories,” Viñuela said. “And when you're dealing with something as sensitive as a grieving family, I think that takes a lot of diligence and hard work.”
Initially, Viñuela planned to cover the trial over the summer. But as it became clear the trial would last several months, he and Mustang News Editor-in-Chief Catherine Allen adjusted their plans.
“We felt that we were doing good work and it was something that Mustang News could feel proud of,” Viñuela said. “We figured, if it was at all possible, that it would be worth it for me to stick it out until the very end of the trial.”
Toward the beginning of the trial, Viñuela worked with Allen and fellow students Liz Wilson and Amelia Wu, who used his notes to write and edit daily stories for Mustang News. As the trial continued and involved more details, however, Viñuela began writing all the stories himself. The process was grueling but resulted in 36 stories for Mustang News and 43 audio updates for KCPR as well as five stories for KCBX, the local NPR affiliate where he was an intern.
To balance his reporting with his studies, Viñuela wrote a plan for how he could use his hands-on experience to meet the course requirements for his last three Cal Poly classes: a course participating in KCPR, Cal Poly’s student-run radio station; a required media internship; and his senior project. He then emailed Journalism Department Chair Brady Teufel and made his case.
For credit in the one-unit KCPR radio course, Viñuela provided audio summaries of the trial that played at the top of every hour, 24 hours a day. For his internship at KCBX, Viñuela provided weekly audio summaries.
Finally, for his senior project, Teufel and Lecturer Kim Bisheff allowed Viñuela and his senior project partner, Sam Riordan, to adjust their project requirements, accommodating Viñuela's absence for the first five weeks of fall quarter. Riordan took on the bulk of their project’s first half, covering a local investigation, and Viñuela was able to contribute more when he returned to Cal Poly after the Kristin Smart trial’s October verdict.
Though Viñuela was passionate about continuing his work on the trial, the nature of the case took a significant toll on him.
“I believe in the power of hard work and the impacts of a story like this. I know that this story is bigger than me, and I knew that throughout the whole trial. I think at some point that sort of overruled any precaution that I should have taken for my own mental health,” Viñuela said.
Upon returning to San Luis Obispo to finish his last quarter, Viñuela connected with his journalism professors for advice.
“I had a conversation with Brady Teufel, and he shared something similar that he went through when he was a young journalist and it put a lot of it into perspective for me. It was so refreshing, and I felt so supported by it. It put me on the right path,” Viñuela said.
Teufel describes the journalism department’s faculty as the “first line of defense” for supporting student journalists.
“We are a very close-knit department and supporting student success is the main priority. That is why we are here,” Teufel said. “Having that harmony and unity and talking about [struggles] really goes a long way with students — they can feel that. You can bounce from my office and down the hall [to another faculty office] and get that same structure and support and willingness to help students beyond academics.”
Even more than the faculty, Teufel said that the Mustang News students support one another to a considerable degree, “and they really came through for Nico.”
“Every single step of the way,” said Allen, “I was trying to be proactive and look at ‘how can we take just a little bit of time and work off his plate to make it easier and more sustainable for him? I also felt like I had to advocate for him, not only in making sure he didn't burn out but also making sure that he could get paid for his work.”
To manage the intense workload the trial demanded, Viñuela was supported by a team of Mustang News reporters.
“It was so great to have a team working remotely to cover this, even those who weren’t working directly on the stories,” Allen said. “Everyone was so supportive of Nico by promoting his work on social media and sharing everything he was doing, so we felt a really supportive environment around us."
Viñuela also shared, and sometimes sold, his notes to national news organizations, earning him credits as a CBS contributor and NBC freelancer. He developed friendships with fellow media members across the nation, including NBC producer Ann Preisman, CBS Sacramento reporter Madison Keavy, Your Own Backyard podcaster Chris Lambert, and crime reporter Chloe Jones from The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.
“It was an amazing experience to be a part of that group of journalists [covering the trial], because I didn't feel isolated,” Viñuela said. “Even though I was the college journalist, and they were the professional journalists, we were all there going through and seeing the same things.”
In recognition of his work, Viñuela was awarded the $5,000 Lucas Clark and Aja Goare Scholarship in the fall. Journalism faculty members and local reporters Lucas Clark and Aja Goare chose Viñuela for his demonstration of excellence and commitment to journalism while covering the trial.
Viñuela notes that though the experience was challenging, he was supported along the way by various mentors, faculty and his fellow Mustang News reporters. The group that provided him flexibility, advice and an extra pair of hands consisted of students Allen, Lauren Boyer, Riordan, Naomi Vanderlip, Wilson and Wu; faculty members Bisheff, Richard Gearhart, Mary Glick, Patti Piburn and Teufel; and KCBX News Director Benjamin Purper.
“It’s great to, at the end of it, get praise and recognition, but it means nothing to me if it's not also directed toward the people who helped me. There are a lot of people who sacrificed a lot for me to be able to cover the trial. I want to emphasize the fact that I didn't do it alone,” Viñuela said.