Curious About the Engagement Journalism Program at the Newmark JSchool at CUNY?

Here Are Some Resources

Not all of these pieces are brand new, but they do accurately represent the program and what it’s students/alumni do.

• New name, renewed purpose As this event in April of 2021, we invited alumni and some leaders in the field to a virtual event to discuss how putting the community’s needs first means addressing injustice and the failings of objectivity in journalism. Speakers talked about how journalists are engaging with diverse communities in Philadelphia; alumni talked about what engagement jobs really look like; and finally, we introduced the concept of “movement journalism” — what does it mean to engage communities in service of liberation?
• Rethinking local news in New York City by collaborating with residents and libraries This piece on our work with The City’s Open Newsroom project showcases the kinds of opportunities our students often get to do hands-on, meaningful engagement work in a real newsroom.
• Engagement Journalism This comprehensive piece describes what the program is all about and features some nice quotes from some of our alumni.
• Lessons and hopes six years post-launch of the first MA in engagement journalism Director Carrie Brown looks back.
• This roundup of the class of 2019’s final presentations and posts summarizing their work with communities over the course of the program really gives you a sense of what students can achieve in the program. I love to share this particular set of presentations not because the others aren’t good, but because I can say without exaggeration that there were few dry eyes in the house that night.

A few specific examples of student final projects:

• Beatrix Lockwood focused on people and their families who are directly impacted by incarceration. When Queens elected its first district attorney in more than three decades, Bee wanted to make sure that the people who would be among most affected by the outcome — people with criminal justice touchpoints — had the information they needed to participate. So she created an interactive voter guide; the candidate questionnaire was sourced from interviews with formerly incarcerated people and organizations that work closely with them. For her Prison Food Diaries project, Bee crowdsourced information about meals from dozens of people in prisons across the country; this became an Instagram story series. Bee also worked with Nicole Lewis, then a staff writer at The Marshall Project, on a series of crowdsourced articles about the experiences of family members of the incarcerated, such as the high cost of phone calls. The stories were published in partnership with the New York Times, including a five-day pop-up with the Race/Related newsletter. Read more; watch.
• Mekdela Maskal focused on communities impacted by food apartheid in Brooklyn. For her final project, called In Service Of, she planned and co-led a workshop with a community leader about food justice and food access for impacted communities. She crowdsourced ideas for community leaders to photograph, and celebrated them through wheat-pasted portraits in the neighborhoods they work and live in. She also worked with community-based organizations and individual sources to document food access points in an online map. She also worked in nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods as a fellow at THE CITY, planning and launching their Open Newsrooms initiative with Brooklyn Public Library. Read more; Watch
• Lena Camilletti focused on the community impacted by opioid use disorders. As an intern with the Burlington, Vermont-based newsweekly Seven Days, Lena helped develop what is now All Our Hearts, a crowdsourced project that helps people honor lost loved ones in their own words. Buzzfeed wrote about the project in October 2019. She also organized events that helped participants come together to memorialize their loved ones. Read more; Watch.

There are truly so many more I could include!! These are just three.

Alumni videos. Our alumna Viki Muench and the video team created some alumni videos that talk about what the program is and what they learned. Even the “long” versions are not super long.

• Engagement Journalism = Community + Conversation + Collaboration 2:47 minute video featuring our alumni talking about the program.
• Meet Daniel Laplaza ’19 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Short Danny is community manager at Epicenter NYC
• Meet Daniel LaPlaza ’19 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Long
• Meet Allen Arthur ’16 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Short. Allen Arthur is the online engagement manager at Solutions Journalism Network and a freelance journalist who works primarily with currently and formerly incarcerated people, their families, and those who serve them.
• Meet Allen Arthur ’16 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Long
• Meet Kristine Villanueva ’17 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Short Kristine is an adjunct faculty member with a new job to be announced soon. Previously, she held engagement roles at Resolve Philly, Center for Public Integrity and Politico. She wrote a piece for Nieman Reports, 5 Things I Learned as an AAPI Engagement Editor Covering Anti-Asian Hate.
• Meet Kristine Villanueva ’17 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Long
• Meet Luis Echegaray ’15 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Short Luis is a host, writer, digital analyst, and social commentator for ESPN. He also teaches social media tools in the engagement journalism program.
• Meet Luis Echegaray ’15 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Long
• Meet Diara Townes ’19 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Short Diara is a research consultant for the Disinfo Defense League. She also teaches an advanced research course at the Newmark J-School at CUNY and previously worked for the Aspen Institute and First Drafft.
• Meet Diara Townes ’19 from J-School’s Engagement Journalism Program — Long
• Allison Dikanovic, ’20, won the The Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for Social Justice Reporting. Awards ceremony video is here.

General:

• Our resource page has links and videos related to teaching and practicing engagement journalism, and includes a link to the community engagement syllabus.
• Main program website with the curriculum, faculty etc. listed.