{"id":5957,"date":"2022-02-04T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T14:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/?p=5957"},"modified":"2022-03-18T23:25:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T03:25:34","slug":"faculty-spotlight-emma-cillekens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/2022\/02\/04\/faculty-spotlight-emma-cillekens\/","title":{"rendered":"FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: EMMA CILLEKENS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For Professor Emma Cillekens, it\u2019s all about the storytelling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A portrait of Professor Emma Cillekens<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a storyteller, that\u2019s what I am at my core\u2026I just love stories, I don\u2019t know that I chose a speciality, I think it chose me,\u201d says Cillekens who will be teaching MEDPL 284 Radio Reporting and Podcasting this semester.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her 15 year-long career, she\u2019s done nearly every type of journalism and always asks herself, \u201c\u201cHow is this news that [the audience] can use?\u201d And how she can best serve her audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her career started at Queensland University of Technology, where she studied journalism with a specialty in radio. She also earned a degree in business, public relations and international business simultaneously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cillekens then cut her teeth at Fairfax Media in Australia where she wrote 5 to 27 stories per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a journalist in a small community\u2026you get to work on everything. but you\u2019re also under-resourced,\u201d says Cillekens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then she joined Australia Broadcasting Corporation, where she made the transition into audio journalism. That\u2019s when she discovered it is her favorite medium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u201cWhen you put your headphones…you\u2019re taking someone into your space,\u201d says Cillekens. \u201cThere\u2019s that closeness, that intimacy\u2026I can feel them, I can be taken there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Emma Cillekens recording audio news<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Throughout her career, audio has allowed her to  ask questions that help  her sources  shine. She recommends thinking through the interview from the audience\u2019s perspective, to figure out what they want to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cListening is the number one skill of an audio journalist. You have to be mindful of allowing your source to tell the story and not getting in the way,\u201d says Cillekens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While creating audio, there have been many times in her career when she had to balance multiple projects at once, which can be demanding for any journalist. 

\u201cThe biggest challenge is not giving your all to one thing. If you\u2019re working across multiple projects [and] if you focus entirely on one, then the others suffer. So it\u2019s [about] being super organized,\u201d says Cillekens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she got to New York, Cillekens was a project manager and podcast specialist, and later an audio producer and reporter at the Wall Street Journal. At the same time, she remained a radio and video host for ABC, sending stories back to Queensland from New York. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While in graduate school at New York University, she and her team members won a New York Emmy for a short project entitled Finding Sanctuary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Emma Cillekens and her team win an Emmy<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

She recently went back to ABC\u2019s Australia studio for about a month during the pandemic where she, \u201chad such a fun time, although I was a little nervous given I had been off air for five years,\u201d says Cillekens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Emma Cillekens at Australia Broadcasting Corporation’s radio studio<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of her most rewarding experiences as a journalist was working on the Maternal Mortality Project, a series she developed in collaboration with ProPublica that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and won numerous other awards, including a Peabody, a Goldsmith and a Polk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This series gave her the opportunity to make a significant impact on a public health issue, which is what matters most to Cillekens. She finds three things to be most rewarding about journalism: un-complicating complicated information, exposing untruths and giving voice to the voiceless. It\u2019s in investigative journalism that she really shines, because those pieces can contribute to society\u2014they have a longer shelf life, so to speak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, she produces a podcast with MIT Technology Review, which she created, called \u201cIn Machines We Trust,\u201d which is about the complexities and implications of artificial intelligence. Working on that project, she had the satisfaction of synthesizing hundreds of hours of interviews before discovering the connective tissue between those stories. The podcast is now in its fourth season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing she\u2019s most proud of is giving the audience multiple sides of the story. Then it\u2019s up to them to decide what they think about the information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her advice to her students is to keep asking \u201cbut why?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Edited 3\/18\/22: Cillekens’ career is 15 years, not 16; and her advice is to her students, not to herself. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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