Get to know the Engagement Journalism Program at the Newmark-J School
Join us for a half-day of events on 4/9 on engagement journalism as it continues to evolve
Engagement Journalism Event
Join us on Friday, April 9, for an afternoon to celebrate the Engagement Journalism work we do at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, as well as provide a provocative look at the current status and future of engagement journalism as it continues to evolve to become more and more ambitious in its transformation of news that is participatory and centers the needs of historically marginalized or oppressed groups.
Register here 👇
Speakers and events
12:00–1:00 pm
How journalists are engaging with diverse communities in Philadelphia
Moderator Sofiya Ballin: Sofiya Ballin is an award-winning and independent journalist and writer. Ballin is also the creator, producer and director behind the award-winning Black History Untold project.
Panelist Tauhid Chappell: Tauhid is a project manager for Free Press’ News Voices project, focusing on the program’s Philadelphia initiative to reimagine how the city’s local newsrooms approach their coverage of crime, violence and the criminal justice and carceral systems. An eight-year veteran of the media industry, he most recently worked as a social-media editor at The Washington Post before joining The Philadelphia Inquirer as an engagement editor.
Panelist Jesenia DeMoya Correa: Jesenia De Moya Correa is a Dominican American award-winning journalist, specializing in multimedia reports and productions for Latinx communities. Today, she is a Communities Reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she’s led the newspaper’s coverage for the Latinx communities and founded a Spanish-language news product called El Inquirer, to deliver service journalism and online reports for Hispanic and Latinx populations in Greater Philadelphia region. She is a graduate of the Spanish-Language Journalism program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Panelist Aaron Eaton: Aaron Eaton is currently the Digital Coordinator, Video Producer, Sports & Business Editor at the Philadelphia Tribune. He is an Emmy-Award winning producer with a passion for crafting stories that reflect the Black experience. Aaron is currently a Nieman Visiting fellow at Harvard University, a fellow at The Lenfest Institute of Journalism as well as a fellow at The Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Panelist Kristine Villanueva: Kristine Villanueva leads Resolve Philly’s initiative Equally Informed, which provides news and information to Philadelphians affected by the digital divide. Before Resolve, she was the audience engagement editor at the Center for Public Integrity, where she led crowdsourced investigations, social media and digital strategy. She’s a proud CUNY Graduate School of Journalism alumna and adjunct.
1:00–2:00 pm
So what does an audience engagement job look like?
Panelist Beatrix Lockwood: Beatrix Lockwood is the Community Engagement Editor at Reuters, where she helps the global news agency build and engage with online audiences. Previously, she used engagement reporting, social media, and newsletters to tell stories at The Marshall Project and The Trace. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Marie Claire, and Vice, and elsewhere. She is a 2019 graduate of the Engagement Journalism program at Newmark.
Panelist Mekdela Maskal: Mekdela Maskal is passionate about visibilizing journalism work and supporting community participation in the reporting. Prior to joining Covering Climate Now as their engagement editor, she helped launch THE CITY’s ongoing Open Newsroom project, an initiative that brought communities and journalists together in public libraries to build trust and make reporting a more collaborative process. She’s earned a B.S in Media, Communications and Culture from NYU and an M.A. in Engaged Journalism from CUNY.
Panelist Alyxaundria Sanford: Alyxaundria Sanford is the Audience Engagement Producer at The Intercept. She’s worked across all facets of journalism including broadcast news. She is a 2017 graduate of the Social Journalism program at Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
Panelist Isadora Varejão: Isadora Varejão is an engagement producer at Retro Report. She is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she developed the Women Against Violence Experiment (W.A.V.E.), a multidisciplinary platform that brings information about domestic violence to immigrants through an interactive play and a chatbot. She began her career as a general assignment reporter at local radio stations in her hometown of Rio de Janeiro.
2:00–3:00 pm
Movement Journalism — What does it mean to engage communities in service of liberation?
Moderator Allen Arthur: Allen is the Online Engagement Manager for the Solutions Journalism Network. He is also a freelance journalist, building everything from stories to live events with people who have been incarcerated. Allen graduated from Newmark’s newly-renamed Engagement Journalism program in 2016.
Panelist Ko Bragg: Ko is a New-Orleans based editor for Southerly and reporter for The 19th. Her work, which mainly focuses on the criminal-legal system’s impact on kids, has also appeared in Scalawag, The Appeal, and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. She served as a mentor for Press On’s inaugural Freedomways Reporting Fellowship for movement journalists in the South.
Panelist Cierra Brown Hinton: Cierra Hinton is the Executive Director-Publisher at Scalawag, a journalism and storytelling organization building solidarity, consciousness, and community by awakening the popular imagination to new possibilities that spark social change. In addition to her work at Scalawag, Cierra is a member of the Blue Engine Collaborative, a network of independent coaches, consultants, and advisors to media organizations around the world; she’s thrilled to be a coach for the Facebook Accelerator and UNC-Knight Table Stakes programs. Cierra previously served as the Director of Network Building and Operations at Press On, a Southern media collective for movement journalism.
Panelist DaLyah Jones: DaLyah is the director of community engagement and former staff writer for Texas Observer. Her work covers BIPOC communities in rural Texas and Contemporary Black Southern Arts and Culture. She’s a former general assignment reporter and All Things Considered producer for Austin’s NPR Station, KUT 90.5, where she focused on rural and suburban stories outside of the Capital’s urban core. She was born and raised in Deep East Texas and currently lives in Austin.
3:00–3:30 pm
Speed Networking
Join us for a round of speed networking. The link will be provided to registered attendees.
For more information about the Engagement Journalism program, visit our website.
