Engagement Journalism News 04–28–23

Updates on the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY’s engagement journalism MA program and its students, faculty, and alumni, plus good reads, research and other news from the field. Bonus content (!) includes (what else?) Fred pics and a roundup of other tidbits of interest from program director Carrie Brown (views my own). Got some engagement journalism news or good reads? Let me know !

#EngagedJ at CUNY 🤩

• Sebastián Auyanet, ’17, will be the lead coach for the Google News Initiative/Sembramedia Media Boot Camp, the first one in Latin America!
• Laura Calçada Barres, ’17, contributed stories to this book for adolescents and young adults in Catalonia, Spain.
• Hafeezat Bishi, ’22, joined the team at St. Louis Public Radio for the spring/summer to help generate content for their digital presence.
• Director Carrie Brown (me, ha), led a workshop on community engagement for the International Center for Journalists and their News Corp Media Fellows for Digital Innovation.
• Congratulations to all of the Newmark J School at CUNY alumni award winners! Although she wasn’t in the engagement journalism program, Charlene Wiatta Freeman, ’22, took our community engagement course, where she shared valuable perspectives, including her work with Haitian immigrants. She will receive the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for Social Justice Reporting.

Chatting with Simon Galperin, ’16, about expanding Bloomfield Info, the community news service in NJ he founded.

Good engagement journalism reads/resources 📚

• Collaborative journalism project policy checklist, by Joe Amditis and Heather Bryant. Acomprehensive guide to the critical considerations and potential challenges that may arise when working in collaboration with other newsrooms and journalists.
• Objectivity for What? Famed editor Marty Baron’s recent defense of the canons of journalistic impartiality overlooks a damning historical track record, by Christoph Mergerson (March). “The most obvious response is, “protecting democracy” for whom?
• Trust Kits from Trusting News are such valuable resources. How often have you heard something like “your columnist is so biased!” or similar? They have specific advice on how to communicate more clearly with your audience on this and many other things.

Sue’s new book is out! I got my copy and can’t wait to start reading.

Other Good Reads 📑

• The Gravest Threats to Campus Speech Come From States, Not Students by Christina Paxson. Banning “divisive concepts” is in itself an attempt “to indoctrinate students into seeing the world through one lens. This is exactly the opposite of what colleges and universities should do.”
• Raising a trans kid in Missouri has become a ‘dystopian nightmare’ for families, by Jo Yurcaba. Okay not a “good” read, but an important and infuriating one. “I never thought we’d have to be refugees in the United States, but now we’re being forced out,” Kyle Freels said.

FRED 📸

No Fred, this Freddo is not for you.