{"id":3443,"date":"2019-11-21T10:05:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T15:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/?p=3443"},"modified":"2020-04-22T14:13:36","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T18:13:36","slug":"professor-profile-award-winning-journalist-brings-investigative-reporting-back-to-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/2019\/11\/21\/professor-profile-award-winning-journalist-brings-investigative-reporting-back-to-hunter\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Profile: Award-Winning Journalist Brings Investigative Reporting Back to Hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Emmanuel<\/a>
Buzzfeed reporter Emmanuel Felton, who is joining the Hunter College journalism faculty this spring to teach investigative reporting. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Emmanuel Felton, Hunter\u2019s new investigative reporting professor, wants to talk to you. After all, that\u2019s what he enjoys most about reporting \u2014 finding people, talking with them and amplifying their stories for the good of the public. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, Felton, an investigative reporter at BuzzFeed News<\/a>, has done just that. He\u2019s worked at various nonprofits, news organizations, and now at the independent digital media company, whose high-rise Union Square headquarters, with its myriad glass doors, endless snacks and brightly colored hallways covered in hashtags and quippy sayings does leave him with what he confesses is a bit of \u201cimposter syndrome.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Felton doesn\u2019t need a flashy backdrop to do good work. Since the beginning of what he describes as his career\u2019s \u201cweird path,\u201d he\u2019s been determined to uncover important stories. That began with his job at the advocacy organization, the  Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, right after graduating from Emory University in 2010.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought I would be a banker, so I majored in finance,\u201d he laughs. Instead, the time he spent working for SPLC was in part what inspired him to pursue investigative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘My favorite part  [was] collecting stories, understanding where the issues were, from the perspective of real people.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy favorite part of that job,\u201d he said, \u201cwas going door to door around New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama looking for plaintiffs for new cases, collecting stories, understanding where the issues were, from the perspective of real people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aronson award leads to teaching gig
<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By 2012, Felton turned to journalism in earnest, applying to Columbia University\u2019s Graduate School of Journalism and beginning to write for publications like The Atlantic<\/a> and The Hechinger Report<\/a>, where he covered the intersection of race and education. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felton found that what he enjoyed about gathering plaintiff information wasn\u2019t so far off from collecting investigative stories. \u201cI like talking to people, I realize,\u201d he said. \u201cI find people placing the issues in their own context, in their own words, really important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what brought Felton to Hunter College? He met Sissel McCarthy, director of the school\u2019s journalism program, at the 2018 James Aronson Awards for Social Justice Journalism, where he was accepting a prize for his groundbreaking story about school segregation<\/a> in Alabama. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarthy recalled: \u201cI immediately thought he would be a great instructor for our investigative reporting class. Since that night, I\u2019ve been semi-stalking him. And lucky for us, he is able to teach this spring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing passion for change to classroom<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As a first-time teacher, Felton hopes to bring this passion for change to the classroom. \u201cI have a few ideas \u2014bad landlords, shady nursing home operators, or lying cops \u2014 but I’m going to open it up to the class to see what they want to spend the semester digging into.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wants students in his investigative reporting class (MEDPL 372) to tirelessly pursue an issue as a team and learn by doing: \u201cI think that makes the most sense, because so often stuff doesn\u2019t work out. Having a goal that everyone can work together on is probably a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘I\u2019m excited to learn how to do this by working with students.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But Felton also hopes that students will inform his teaching. \u201cI\u2019m excited to learn how to do this by working with students. \u2026 Hopefully, not as much lecturing and more talking.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, at Buzzfeed, Felton has continued reporting on public policy and race. \u201cThat is my thing. That\u2019s my beat here,\u201d he explained. \u201cI\u2019m doing some environmental justice work, some voting rights stuff, just all over the map.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felton added that by providing public information on why these massive socioeconomic disparities still exist today, he believes that investigative reporting work can create public pressure for change.  
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are making active decisions, on a day-by-day manner, to maintain that segregation and devaluing of black and brown communities,\u201d Felton said. \u201cI think that is what my reporting is about so much of the time.\u201d 
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buzzfeed’s Emmanuel Felton, the journalism program’s new investigative reporting instructor, has traveled a self-described “weird path” en route to his current work. But there have been key themes along the way. Find out what they are and learn about this new faculty member, in our latest Professor Profile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1,18,253],"tags":[166,167,159],"class_list":["post-3443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-news","category-homepage_news","category-journalism-program-news","category-prof-profiles","tag-adjuncts","tag-buzzfeed","tag-investigative-reporting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3443"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3657,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3443\/revisions\/3657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}