As journalism continues to explore new ways to engage and define its audience, a natural place to look for innovation and insight is the world of visual arts. Anne Thompson, an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Missouri’s Art Department, conducted “news-art” experiments and continued her nationally recognized “I-70 Sign Show” billboard project as an RJI Fellow.

One of her experiments was “Art in the Newspaper.” Readers of the Columbia Daily Tribune received a poster that featured the art of Jeff Gibson in their newspaper on Valentine’s Day. They were invited to come together for at the Reynolds Journalism Institute to have a discussion about the artwork. According to Thompson, “Art, like the news, can inspire deep emotion.”