CUNY TV's coverage of the coronavirus pandemic recently featured several Hunter Journalism and other students. Journalism students Emilia Nygren, Kalli Siringas and Shanel Thompson all appeared on the educational TV station's "Crisis in Motion" tv specials this past April and May, sharing their experience with distance learning and post-grad job hunting amidst a recession. Check out the videos.
Working as a freelancer during the COVID-19 pandemic can pay off — if you know the focus of your story. That was the advice for beginning freelancers in a Zoom webinar May 13 sponsored by the Hunter Journalism program and featuring Professor Susie Armitage and other professional journalists. Get their best tips and tricks, plus a guide to pitching.
Hunter Journalism alum Angely Mercado is paying it forward by writing about her experience freelancing, getting work published in the New York Times — and how it didn’t change her life. Learn how she views the freelancing lifestyle.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear, data and numbers can tell powerful stories as a key part of the news. But crafting numbers into useful information or a coherent narrative is no easy task. So to help, Hunter’s journalism program next fall is offering a course to ensure that students are well-equipped with the necessary mastery over data-driven storytelling. Find out more or register.
Neighborhood News students recently learned how to be safe online in their roles as journalists, thanks to a recent virtual class visit from representatives from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Find out the one thing one visitor wished she had done from the beginning of her journalism career.
Hunter Journalism is sponsoring a free webinar this Wednesday, May 13, from 1-2:30 p.m., to help students prepare to freelance. The presentation covers freelancing basics, how to make a living, knowing your rights and more. RSVP FOR THE ZOOM LINK.
A short film that Media Studies major Colleen Digney saw as a sophomore inspired her winning grant proposal to report on land mines and land use in Vietnam. Find out more about the $3,000 Pulitzer Center fellowship and her reporting plans.
Hunter College’s Journalism Program Director Sissel McCarthy celebrated World Press Freedom Day on May 3 by calling on the public to recognize the value of a free press and support local journalism. But she had a warning about the state of news.
Veteran news producer Phil Rosenbaum, who produces stories for more than 200 network affiliates of CBS News, met virtually with Studio News Production students, and shared editing tips, industry insight and internship advice. Find out more about his recent visit.
Fall journalism course registration is now open. Be sure to check out the wide range of nearly a dozen electives, including a new Media Ethics course and other electives like news video, podcasting, data journalism and magazine writing. And remember that some elective courses, such as Neighborhood News, may be taken more than once. Get the schedule and resources for fall registration.
Tune in for our upcoming Contagion Coverage live report, a joint project of the non-profit news organization City Limits and the students of the Hunter College Journalism Program. The news event begins Tuesday, May 5, at 2 p.m. EDT, with our team of a dozen reporters and editors providing up-to-the-minute snapshots of the COVID-19 outbreak and its impacts from all five boroughs.
Alex Hoyt, articles editor at GQ magazine, joined David Alm's Magazine Writing class via Zoom on April 23 to share some insights and offer advice to aspiring magazine journalists. Student Natalie Rash recounts his visit and runs through his tips.
Hunter News Now students, short on visuals because they can't report outside their homes, got a crash course in copyright law from Student Press Law Center Staff Attorney Sommer Ingram Dean. She paid a virtual visit to Professor Sissel McCarthy's MEDPL 388 Studio News Production class to teach students the basics. Find out the key to avoiding copyright trouble and what images you can use for free.
Even with social distancing, journalists can readily use social media and trending search reports to not only safely find sources during the coronavirus outbreak, but also to foster relationships in hard-to-reach communities. That was the advice from digital journalist Amara Aguilar, in an April 22 webinar, "Covering the Crisis: Street Reporting Without the Street.” Get more tips and a link to the full webinar.
The Journalism Program is accepting applications through May 31 for two intern positions starting either this summer or in the fall term. Find out more about the position, which allows for reporting, writing and publishing on the program's WordPress site and social media accounts. And apply here now.
Former CNN reporter Mary Snow, during a recent virtual visit, taught Hunter News Now Students an important lesson about a journalist’s job during an emergency. Find out what it was and learn more about her virtual class visit.
More than a month into Hunter College’s move to remote learning, the school’s journalism courses have dramatically shifted the way they now operate. Get more details on the changes and hear viewpoints of students and faculty.
As students settle into their online learning, where they are doing their work varies widely. Members of a Reporting and Writing I class shared these dispatches from their current study environments.
Laila Gad came to Hunter College to prepare for a career in medicine. But after she took a course titled Peopling NY through the Macaulay Honors College, Gad became fascinated with climate change and its effects on public health. She decided to add a second major in journalism, to explore this interest and to find ways to write about it for a wide audience.
Gad, whose family is Egyptian, was also motivated by the persecution journalists in her home country experience. She notes that journalists in Egypt face censorship and imprisonment for their reporting. For her, she said, journalism offers a way “to talk about stories that I know are always being suppressed.”
The Macaulay Honors College junior received this year’s Pulitzer Center Student Reporting Fellowship, and will use it to report on heat and aging in Singapore over the summer. She sees this as a developing field of research and she wants to be on the “pioneering front” of covering it.
Read more on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
Professor Alyxaundria Sanford remembers traveling to New York for the first time to intern for the “Today Show.” While there, she became interested in national news and the variety of topics covered in a morning broadcast. After getting a taste of being a journalist in the city, she knew she would be back.
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Sanford studied journalism at Ohio University, where she focused on broadcasting. After graduating in 2008, she became a news producer in Dayton, but she had grander ambitions. In 2009, she returned to New York to attend graduate school at CUNY.
“I’ve always been that headstrong and go straight to what I want,” said Sanford.
Read more on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
Award-winning documentary filmmakers Andrew Robinson and Dominic Smith visited Hunter College and the Roosevelt House on Tuesday, April 18th to talk about their film The Vanishing, Invisible Forest: Telling Climate Stories. Funded, in part, by the Pulitzer Center, the project focuses on vanishing kelp forests, a natural aquatic habitat, and how their disappearance—due to rising Earth temperatures—affects aquatic life. Smith and Robinson touched on how they used underwater videography to research and capture the damage being done.
Friends and collaborators since college, the pair founded Smith Robinson Multimedia in 2019 to produce science and outdoor documentaries. Their recent work focuses on the climate crisis.
“When you go outside now, every story becomes a climate change story,” Robinson said during the presentation on Tuesday. He and Smith aim to tell these stories with a new angle.
Read more on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
Hunter College’s journalism program has grown significantly in recent years, with more students enrolling, working journalists coming in to teach and new courses being added to the curriculum.
Professor Sissel McCarthy, distinguished lecturer and director of the journalism program, said that when she joined the department in 2015, the curriculum was heavily print- and text-based. She updated the program to include courses on reporting across platforms such as radio, TV, podcasts and social media. Today, there are 133 journalism majors and minors compared to just 45 in 2017. “We’ve almost tripled,” said McCarthy.
Nine courses have been added to the program over the past eight years, including Data Journalism, where students learn to access, comb through and visualize data for their stories. According to Prof. McCarthy, Hunter is one of the first CUNY schools to offer it as part of the curriculum. Core classes like Reporting and Writing I & II have been modernized to teach students how to develop their online presence by creating their own websites where they can publish their work. News Literacy in the Digital Age has also seen major changes, namely opening up to all majors and being approved as an alternative to English 220 for general distribution requirements.
Speciality courses for upperclassmen have been made available as well. Courses such as Social Justice Journalism, taught by Professor David Alm for the first time this spring, trains journalists on how to best identify and report on issues affecting underserved and marginalized communities. Another new course, From College to Career: Get Hired In Journalism, will be offered in the Fall 2023 semester. Taught by Professor Jeanie Ahn, the course aims to help students chart their paths after Hunter and prepare for their first internships or jobs in the field.
“It’s going to really give students the edge that they need to get a job in this competitive job market,” said Prof. McCarthy.
Read more on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
Although ChatGPT had been making headlines for months, I somehow managed to avoid it entirely. I am what you would call “old-school.” I drive an old car, I write my thoughts in an old journal, and I still get magazines and newspapers delivered to my house. Artificial intelligence was far removed from my reality.
So, when I began to explore the world of AI, specifically ChatGPT, I was both intrigued and overwhelmed. The idea of delving into this cutting-edge technology was certainly enticing, but also daunting.
ChatGPT, which launched in November 2022, is now listed as the fastest-growing consumer application in history, with over 100 million monthly active users since January. Developed by OpenAI, the software’s website displays an extremely simple interface while ChatGPT continues its “free research preview” phase. After I created an account, the website (ironically) asked me to verify my humanity by checking a box. Then it was just me and an empty search bar.
I’d heard about the software helping students to write essays, job seekers to polish their resumes and even journalists to generate interview questions. I thought I would give the latter a shot, seeing as I am a journalism student myself. I asked it to generate questions concerning the future of ChatGPT and journalism. Within four seconds, it generated 10 extremely relevant questions for me. It felt wrong. I felt like I’d stumbled onto a dirty secret.
From there, the AI wormhole grew as I tested the limits of the machine. While in public I felt the urge to peer over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching me – I couldn’t bear the shame of being seen using such a controversial program. Then one day, when I tried to use the site on campus, I discovered the school’s WiFi had blocked access to ChatGPT. I couldn’t help but wonder, how else was Hunter College navigating the use of ChatGPT in its classrooms?
Read more on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
Want to have your photo featured on The Arrow’s homepage? We’re hosting a Student Photojournalism Contest! All majors are welcome to submit images that tell an important story in New York City. Submissions must be taken by Hunter students, and portray real people, places, or events as they are — not staged or rehearsed. Email thearrowstudentmagazine@gmail.com with your image and your full name to enter the contest. Submissions are due May 1. The winner of the contest will be announced May 12, and their photo will be featured on the home page of The Arrow. We can’t wait to see what you send us!
Read more on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
Applications for the Deadline Club scholarship are due March 26th. Last year the club disbursed six merit-based scholarships of $2,500 each. The number and size of scholarships available this year is yet to be determined.
The competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in journalism or journalism-oriented communications programs within 50 miles of Columbus Circle in New York City. Recipients will be determined by a panel of journalism and communications professionals and educators. They’re looking for students who have demonstrated, through scholarship and practice, “a potential to contribute to the highest standards and goals of the craft,” according to the scholarship webpage.
Read more on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
In February, Hunter journalism students toured MSNBC, where they saw the inner workings of the television studio, control rooms and newsroom.
The visit was organized by the Roosevelt House’s JFEW program, which offers mentorship and financial support to young women pursuing careers in public policy and public service. Dr. Basil Smikle, director of the public policy program at Roosevelt House, invited students with an interest in media and journalism to join him at MSNBC.
“As someone who has just begun having an interest in journalism and broadcast TV, this visit was helpful in showing me the different roles people have in this area of work,” said Allison Patino, a junior media studies major at Hunter.
Read the full article on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
The Association of Business Students at Hunter College (ABS) is accepting applications for a new content chairperson until March 5 at 11:59 p.m.
The successful candidate will lead biweekly news discussions on the ABS website, ensuring that all news is from reliable and reputable sources. They will then write up the ideas discussed in clear, journalistic blog posts. Working with the website chair, they will make sure all content is accurate and up to date. They will also be responsible for writing articles on any topic related to business. A weekly e-board meeting is mandatory as well.
This position is open to all students, but journalism students looking to advance their writing, demonstrate their leadership skills and bolster their portfolios, especially on the business and finance beat, are particularly encouraged to apply.
Read the full article on Hunter’s journalism website. Link in bio.
