Learn New Community Engagement Strategies from the Engagement Journalism Class of 2021
Join us to get inspired about how this group of journalists is reinventing journalism with listening and service to communities.
Engagement Journalism students at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY will present and discuss how they are reaching and serving communities in new, innovative and impactful ways.
This group of students has had to roll with the punches like no other, coming up with creative approaches to engagement journalism in the middle of a pandemic that constrained their ability to gather with the people they serve.
The class of 2021 will deliver their final presentations on Tuesday, Dec. 14 at 5:30 p.m. ET. Register here:
Students will give a 8-minute presentation about the work they’ve done during the program.
Each student has chosen a community to work with throughout the duration of the program. Students have done deep listening to understand the needs of their communities, and have created journalism in a variety of formats to reach these communities with news, information and support. Join us!
Here’s a glimpse at communities the class of 2021 has chosen to serve:
Maxwell Adler: Drug users and the treatment of substance abuse disorders.
“Addiction is a disease of disconnection and I’m intent on producing work that helps reconnect those impacted by substance abuse disorders to society.”
Carla Canning: People who are incarcerated and their loved ones.
“I have a chance to really serve people with incarcerated loved ones and hopefully through them, incarcerated people themselves.”
Neimra Coulibaly: Teen Black girls and women from the Schenectady region of New York.
“My video series [aims to] deconstruct the ways desirability and class impact the lives of Black girls and women in the 518.”
Madeline Faber: People who talk about sex work on Instagram and have had their content censored.
“My project is an Instagram page to centralize knowledge about the platform’s content moderation censors and its harms.”
Natalia Gutiérrez: The feminist community, and women fighting for their rights in Mexico and New York City.
“My project is a digital memorial for victims of femicide. My goal is to build a website to name, honor and remember women we have lost due to this systemic problem.”
Abē Levine: Latinx parents in Queens, specifically District 28, which extends from Forest Hills to Jamaica.
“I’m choosing to work with this community because, while many parts of the district have significant Latinx populations, there are barriers to parent involvement and advocacy in schools.”
Mariel Lozada: The Venezuelan community in New York City.
“The main goal of my project is to make immigration information easy to access for them by making a website that summarizes it.”
Emily Löwinger: Healthcare changemakers — the people who are working to improve/change healthcare, either on a systematic scale or a more micro scale.
“I’ve also been working quite closely with a group called Healthcare for the People. It’s been so great using what I’ve learned in order to help this group share their story and engage with their audience, fellow practitioners, and patients.”
Catherine Montesi: “Emerging Cyclists:” urban bike riders who are either new to cycling in the city, new to cycling generally, and/or folks who might otherwise ride their bike in the city but choose not to because it doesn’t feel safe.
“ …Doing the work to support emerging riders will also allow every other cyclist, pedestrian and driver to enjoy cleaner air, calmer commutes, safer streets and increased happiness.”
Jacqueline Neber: Working with New York’s Intellectual/Developmental Disability (I/DD) community to make reporting abuse and neglect more accessible.
“[I’m working on] centering disabled voices and avoiding common journalistic mistakes [in my work].”
Alejandra Pedraza Buenahora: Trans sex workers based in New York City, many who are undocumented people of color.
“By using my skills as a journalist, I’m hoping to create a service that aids community organizers and grassroots organizations with their communication needs — by offering them services such as photography, editing, website development, social media strategies, translation, data collection etc.”
Kynala Phillips: Milwaukee’s predominantly Black northwest side, namely, the Metcalfe Park and Sherman Park neighborhoods.
“There aren’t as many gaps in the reporting as there are in the communication between neighborhoods and resources, and…that is the gap I intend to focus on.”
Robert Pluma: Communities decimated by severe or intergenerational trauma — particularly those impacted by addiction, mass incarceration, and colonialism.
“Connecting with cohesive sub-communities will be key, though the fullest impact can be made through the identification of connections, parallels, and overlap between different communities acutely affected by trauma, understanding why cycles of harm are perpetuated, and seeking remedies to that harm.”
Liz Richards: Public school teachers in Western New York, specifically four micropolitan and rural counties that connect Buffalo and Rochester.
“There’s a lot of potential to teach in new ways, to incorporate new cultural norms, technologies, and ideologies into the classroom in a way that benefits public education and turns out kids who are more empathetic, more prepared, and more self-aware.”
Kayce Stevens: Social Workers in Texas.
“I’d like to create a website or platform in which all of the services or resources school social workers provide can live on.My hope is this resource can answer ‘Where did I put that sheet?” and possibly questions from the public about “What does the school social worker do?’”
Houreidja Tall: West African hair braiders in Harlem.
“I would like to ease the effort it takes for braiders to navigate social services, such as applying for welfare, and keep up with news that affects their livelihoods.”
For more information about the Engagement Journalism program, click here. To see student presentations from previous years, visit our Youtube playlist.
Register to watch the Engagement Journalism presentations live on Dec. 14, 2021. 👇👇👇
