The classroom was quiet as Professor David Protess talked about Anthony Porter, a wrongfully convicted prisoner on death row whom Protess and his students had worked to free.

Then Protess showed a video of Porter running and embracing Protess while laughing with joy. Porter had just been released from prison, about 50 hours before his execution.

“It was amazing to see what reporting could do, like freeing someone from death row,” Gabi Remz of Massachusetts said. “It really showed the extent of the passion in journalism.”

Remz was one of the many cherubs in the journalism program at the National High School Institute who took an optional course, “Investigating the Miscarriages of Justice,” taught by Protess.

“He told three different stories for the three different sessions, and I wish I could have heard all three, because the one I heard was really interesting,” Chrissy Lee of California said.

Protess has taught at the cherub program for about 25 years and frequently teaches with his son, Benjamin, who works as a reporter at ProPublica.

“Professor Protess enjoys teaching young people, especially those who may someday take his class,” said Rebekah Wanger, program assistant of the Medill Innocence Project.

Protess invited cherubs to participate in the project, which investigates possible wrongful convictions. He assigned a prisoner’s application to groups of students. Students then sent a letter to the prisoner, asking him or her to fill out a questionnaire.

Annie Park of South Korea said there seemed to be little evidence against the prisoner assigned to her.

“I don’t know why he’s in there," Park said. "I think the police work for reputation, and they arrest people because they think they need to arrest somebody rather than nobody, even though the person’s innocent.”

Protess provoked a variety of feedback and reflections from cherubs.

“At first I was confused because I thought journalists only wrote and reported,” Lee said. “But this type of journalist created news and made things happen instead of simply reporting what happened already.”

“It makes you realize that sometimes you're someone's last hope to put his or her voice out there,” Allison Prang of Illinois said. “People look up to you.”