Engagement Journalism News 05–05–23
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 🤩
- Joe Amditis, ’16 teaches a multimedia production for strategic communication class at Montclair State University. For the last day of class this semester, he created a role-playing adventure game for students. He wrote a whole thread breaking it down and shared the whole plan.
- Speaking of teaching, did you know that Alyxaudria Sanford, ’17, an adjunct faculty member in the engagement journalism program, also teaches a journalism class at Hunter College?
- Professor Jeff Jarvis has a new book coming out on June 29, The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet. Read Jeff fleshing out in detail a subject some of us have heard him talk about many times, with important implications: “Could it be that we are returning to a time before mass media, to a society built on conversation, and that we are relearning how to hold that conversation with ourselves?”
Good engagement journalism reads 📚
- I was sad to read that Southerly is saying goodbye, for now. Southerly, an independent news organization that focused on environmental, justice, and culture stories in and out of the South, was built with engagement principles at its core: “it has always focused on the people who need and deserve consistent, accurate information the most, yet face the biggest barriers to accessing it.” Best of luck to Lyndsey Gilpin and I hope to see Southerly revived in some form one day.
- Black Twitter is Dead, But Its Spirit Will Live On by Jabari Evans. “Black Twitter is like the Black dorm at a predominantly white institution — It has its own experiences, practices and discourse that support Black unity, but it operates and is sanctioned by a larger institution that is not necessarily structured to the best interests of Black people.”
- A great example of including engagement elements in an important story. In addition to reporting on how NYC Schools Handcuff and Haul Away Kids in Emotional Crisis, The City developed a tool that allows parents to dig into the mental health resources and responses at every public school. They are also hosting a public conversation, and parents can ask questions via text message.
- Micropayments. Elon Musk thinks he’s got a “major win-win” for news publishers with…micropayments. By Joshua Benton. This isn’t an engagement journalism story really, but I can’t count how many times people, including many non-journalist friends, have asked me about why micropayments aren’t a thing. This piece explains some of the history and context on why nobody has found a viable model.
Just Good Reads! 📑
- Behind the Expulsions of Two State Representatives in Tennessee by Sue Halpern. “A friend messaged me to say that Tennessee is going off the rails. No, I say a select number of white people in Tennessee are going off the rails loudly and publicly. Millions of others are waking up. Just watch.” As someone who lived in TN for six years, I have been following this story closely and appreciated this for its sense of hope for democracy for all in the state.
- The Case of the Fake Sherlock: Richard Walter was hailed as a genius criminal profiler. How did he get away with his fraud for so long? By David Gauvey Herbert (April). This story is NUTS. Another indictment of our criminal justice system, but also a tale of journalistic malpractice by 20/20.
Bhaha 😂
Random, but lol who dumped a crapton of pasta in the woods in NJ? As Kristine Villanueva, ’17, noted on Twitter, this has Stega Nona written all over it.
Quote:
“sorry but if you’re a working writer i think you have an obligation to model some hope for the ppl coming up below you! i know shit is dire but the amount of young writers i’ve talked to who have been told to pack it up before even starting by Senior Industry People makes me really mad.” — Emma Specter, culture writer at Vogue.
Agree with this. As she points out later in the thread, unionization is growing and hope is spreading in many quarters. Don’t give up.
Fred
