Social Journalism News, April 2019 Edition!
Alumni, student and faculty updates and other happenings in our MA program in engaged journalism at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
**If you have any news that I’ve missed, please let me know!**
Allen Arthur, ’16 won the Stephen B. Shepard Prize for Investigative Reporting, the first social journalism alum to win the award. He was also a finalist for the Scripps Howard Community Journalism Award.
Erica Anderson, ‘19, had her final project from the multimedia course last semester chosen for the CUNY Film Festival.
Allen Arthur, ’16, landed a job as the online engagement manager for the Solutions Journalism Network.
Rubina Fillion, director of audience engagement at The Intercept, spoke to our metrics and outcomes course.
Ariam Alula Frezghi and Alexa Beyer, ’19, served as facilitators at a Wall Street Journal event that brought people from a variety of political perspectives together to discuss their views. The event was part of the Journal’s Voices from a Divided America project.
On March 6, guest Karen Wickre did a workshop for students from social and entrepreneurial journalism on networking. Karen is the author of the book “Taking the Work Out of Networking: An Introvert’s Guide to Making Connections That Count” and previously worked for Google and Twitter.
Tiziana Rinaldi, ’19, published a case study on the Gather website that was also featured in their newsletter: “How WNYC Created a Neighborhood Listening Station.”
Simon Galperin, ’16, will be on a a panel “Public Funding for the Media in the 21st Century” at the International Journalism Festival in Italy in April.
Tiziana Rinaldi, ’19 had a piece published in City Limits, “Brain Waste: Many Immigrants Come With Dreams — and Advanced Training — but Can’t Find Jobs.”
Tori Hoffman, ’19, had a piece, “How The Seattle Globalist Elevated Diverse Voices Through Community Media Workshops” published by Gather and featured in its newsletter.
Alyxaudria Sanford, ’17, published “Black History Now: How Topeka K. Sam Is Carrying On Harriet Tubman’s Legacy” in Essence.
Social journalism professor Terry Parris Jr. has a new job as the engagement director at The City. He co-teaches our metrics and outcomes and reporting courses. Students in the metrics and outcomes course will be conducting information needs assessments this semester in NYC neighborhoods that will help inform The City’s coverage and engagement strategies.
Kelsey Arendt, a senior market strategist for Parsel.y, a news analytics company, has joined social journalism for the first time this semester. She is co-teaching our metrics and outcomes course.
Malik Singleton also joined social journalism for the first time as our data skills professor. He is a reporter City Limits’ Brooklyn bureau and also teaches other courses here at Newmark.
Lena Camilletti, ’19, landed a part-time internship with the NBC Social Newsgathering team.
Charlie Turner, ’17, landed a job as a product manager for Patch Media, managing online forums and audience engagement.
Program Director Carrie Brown served as a judge for the National Magazine Awards again this year.
Alyxaundria Sanford, ’17 was named interim Global Engagement Strategist at Time Out New York.
Viktoria Muench, ’17, landed a job as a video producer for Money.
Rachel Glickhouse, ’15, was interviewed by the New York Times about the Documenting Hate project she manages at ProPublica.
A poster featuring a “Social Scavenger Hunt” developed by Jeremy Caplan, Director of Education, Tow-Knight Center Entrepreneurial Journalism and social journalism director Carrie Brown was accepted for presentation the CUNY Games Conference at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.
Nieman Lab Predictions for Journalism 2019 featured entries by Simon Galperin, ’16, director Carrie Brown, and Rachel Glickhouse, ‘15.
A story by Beatrix Lockwood, ’19, was published in Gotham Gazette: More Formerly Incarcerated New Yorkers Were Able to Vote This Year, But Barriers Remain
A story by Alexa Beyer, ’19, was published in the LIC Post: CUNY Board Stifles Student Protests Over Amazon During Hearing
A story by Tiziana Rinaldi, ’19, was published in the Mott Haven Herald: High Schoolers Skype with Outer Space
Simon Galperin, ’16, was featured in the Gather Newsletter.
Allen Arthur, ’16, organizes an event series, The Art of Return, a one-of-a-kind space for formerly incarcerated people to share their creativity. It was built in collaboration with the community.
Social journalism director Carrie Brown spoke to students at San Diego State University about social journalism and future trends on December 6.
Social journalism director Carrie Brown co-presented an update on the engaged journalism community of practice, Gather, at the People Powered Publishing Conference in Chicago in mid-November. No fewer than six social journalism alumni attended the conference.
Fall guest speakers in the community engagement course included Andrew Losowsky and Sydette Harry of the Coral Project, Gabriel Sands and Anna Kim of Reddit, Simon Galperin, class of ’16, of Groundsource and a Reynolds Journalism Institute fellow, and Kristine Villanueva and Alyxaundria Sanford, class of ’17, who spoke about their work with Spaceship Media, which bridges political divides through journalism.
Kristine Villanueva, ’17, is an audience engagement fellow with Politico in Washington, D.C.
Ariam Alula, ’19, got a contribution credit to a ProPublica story about voters grappling with the frustrations of using old machines on Election Day.
Erica Anderson, ’19, scored her first byline with ProPublica in a story about malfunctioning voting scanners and long waiting lines in New York City.
Rachel Glickhouse, ’15, wrote about her job as a partner manager at ProPublica for Nieman Lab.
Ariam Alula, ’19, and Diara Townes, ’19 won travel scholarships to attend “Missing Voices: Diversifying the News,” a hackathon at West Virginia University in October.
In preparation for the Electionland project, social journalism students and other student volunteers completed trainings on social media search and verification led by current and former Storyful and First Draft staffers, as well as a primer on elections and issues related to voting by ProPublica. They also got training in tools such as Dataminr and Crowdtangle.
Director Carrie Brown spoke to a group of staffers at The 74, a nonprofit news website focusing on education issues in the United States.
On September 25, social journalism reporting professor Jessica Firger arranged a mock press conference with *professional actors* for students to cover.
One change for this year: Social journalism students are now taking the fundamentals of multimedia course alongside students in the other MA programs this fall and learning audio and video skills.
More program guest speakers, among others: community organizer and activist Taylonn Murphy, Hearken engagement consultant Bridget Thoreson, Jesse Hardman, founder of the Listening Post Collective, Kinsee Morlan, Engagement Editor at Voice of San Diego, and alum Max Resnik, who is working with the MIT Media Lab on the Listening Box project.
Ghita Benslimane (’17) got a job as a video producer at Brut.
Laura Calcada (’17) got a job as Head of Community at Núvol, a digital culture newspaper based in Barcelona, Spain.
Emily De Cicco (’15) got a job as the audience development manager at Sports Illustrated.
Simon Galperin (’16) got a fellowship at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. He is piloting community information districts — local cooperatives that use public money to fund journalism. On August 28, RJI published a feature on his work, spotlighting the pilot program.
Documentary Professor Sabrina Schmidt Gordon (’16) became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on June 25. Additionally, she has received a $100,000 grant to expand showings of her film Quest. She is also the National Community Engagement and Impact Producer for Crime + Punishment, and investigative documentary about whistleblower cops within the NYPD, which is streaming on Hulu and showing in select cities.
Director Carrie Brown served on two panels at the AEJMC conference in DC: “Bringing Entrepreneurship into the Classroom: Challenges and Best Practices,” and “10 Ways to Teach Students How to Engage and Impact an Audience.”
Sabrina Gordon (’16) was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her film Quest, which premiered on PBS’s POV in June.
Melissa DiPento, (’17) landed a one-year teaching/advising gig at Brooklyn College. She also taught four classes this summer at the School of the New York Times on entrepreneurship, technology, design, sustainability and AI.
Sebastian Auyanet (’17) landed a job as an associate producer at NowThis, in charge of video storytelling, insights and partnerships.
Director Carrie Brown attended the “Science of Story: Building Trust” meeting at University of Florida, bringing together academics from multiple disciplines to share research that can help journalists engage audiences; spoke to a new Report for America cohort at the Poynter Institute; attended the Election Coverage Workshop at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, in preparation for the revived Electionland project for the midterms; spoke to a group of Thai journalists visiting from the International Visitor Leadership Program; spoke to a group of US/German journalists from Cultural Vistas; and served as the lead judge for the editorial/opinion category for the Ippies.
We talk a lot about impact in the social journalism program. Reporting by alum Allen Arthur, ’16, helped produce tangible results: a 16-year-old Memphis girl who spent more than 40 days in an adult prison despite not being convicted of a crime was released from custody. Allen began reporting this story while he was a CUNY-J student.
Director Carrie Brown spoke at the PhDigital Bootcamp at Texas State University on May 19. This program is designed to help future and junior faculty across the country to design innovative courses and curriculum.
Rachel Glickhouse, ’15 was a Livingston Award finalist for her work on ProPublica’s Documenting Hate project.
Viktoria Muench, ’17 and Kristine Villanueva, ’17, joined Director Carrie Brown in talking to a visiting group of Danish journalists on April 30.
Alyxaundria Sanford, ’17, wrote a piece about her work with Spaceship Media.
Melissa DiPento, ’17, taught an online entrepreneurial journalism course at Arizona State University.
Angelo Paura (’17) Published a piece in MediaShift, The Ethical Challenges of Immersive Journalism.
Joe Amditis (’16) is the podcast producer for WTF Just Happened Today, a popular news site and daily newsletter that curates top stories in national politics. The Lenfest Institute’s Solution Set newsletter featured a piece about how Joe and founder Matt Kiser work and their approach to membership. Joe is also the associate director at the Center for Cooperative Media.
Director Carrie Brown presented a paper “Changing ‘habits of thought’: An examination of eight years of digital evolution at the Christian Science Monitor,” co-authored with Jonathan Groves at Drury University, at the International Symposium on Online Journalism in Austin.
If you missed previous newsletter updates on socialj, here’s a roundup.
