More than 50 students turned out to hear journalist Ali Velshi talk about his long and storied reporting career with CNN and MSNBC, in a riveting discussion moderated by former CNN correspondent Mary Snow followed by a Q&A moderated by Professor Sissel McCarthy. 

Velshi’s reporting from Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s murder last May, where he and his news crew were attacked at shot at with rubber bullets by Minneapolis police merely for doing their jobs, resonated with students the most. “Seeing the police fire on the media was surprising to me,” one student wrote of the clip Velshi showed of his team in Minneapolis. “I guess it was the first time I noticed the distrust and disdain for the media held by some Americans.” Others were impressed that President Donald Trump knew of Velshi enough to slander him publicly at a rally. “Yes, there may be some issues with media and journalism, but it should never be a reason to discredit them in such a manner,” one wrote. 

Professor Samantha Sunne’s Data Journalism class (MEDPL 297) met with the star of a journalism epic. 

Matt Carroll, a reporter portrayed in the award-winning movie “Spotlight,” spoke to students about his experience using data for reporting.

In the early 2000s, Carroll was a member of the Spotlight team, a group of investigative journalists at the Boston Globe. His reporting, which would now be referred to as “data journalism,” found connections that helped show the Catholic Church was covering up abuse on a massive scale. The team’s story sparked worldwide policy change and was the basis of the movie “Spotlight,” which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2016

MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE

Mar. 25th | 6PM Online | RSVP

MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE tells the story of the student led struggle to win Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY in the late 1960’s. The documentary is a mosaic of voices, film footage and photographs taken by student activists. This important story highlights the powerful alliance Puerto Rican, African American and other progressive students and faculty forged that changed the face of higher education with the founding of one of the first Puerto Rican Studies departments in the nation.