1. HATS OFF TO THE GRITTY, ENTERPRISING ’21 GRADUATES!
They have reason to strut …
With all the pomp and circumstance that could be mustered, safely and appropriately, during a pandemic, Newmark J-School proudly saluted 87 soon-to-be-graduates at the 2021 commencement in December. Students, who had toiled through the global adversity caused by the worst public health crisis in a century, were cheered on by family and friends as well as the school’s faculty and staff in the ceremony in The Times Center. They heard inspiring remarks from school leaders and honored speakers, Danielle Belton (editor-in-chief of the HuffPost), Angela Palumbo (of the graduating class), and alumna Samantha Stark ’10. Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, the City University of New York’s chancellor, brought the crowd to its feet in an ovation for Dean Sarah Bartlett, who was taking part in her final graduation before her June retirement.
… the battered job market is showing good signs for those who recently earned J-School graduate degrees
The numbers change by the day as more of our graduates find their way into the work world. But early indications are that a battered but brightening journalism employment market is providing appealing options for our grads. In the Class of 2021, of the 54 students who responded to a survey, 58% have found full-time or part-time jobs in the business. As for the 2020 cohort, 83% of 72 graduates have reported they are working full time in journalism, while 13% have part-time employment.
Graduates seeking jobs in business and economic journalism have found lucrative opportunities, with average starting salaries of $70,000. Denny Jacob, ’21 recently accepted a job on The Wall Street Journal’s “real time desk,” making this the fourth consecutive year a Newmark J-School alum has gone to the Journal, either directly from school or within a year of graduating. This establishes the same kind of pipeline the school has experienced with Bloomberg for more than a decade. Other recent graduates have been hired by Ad Age, Adweek, Bloomberg, The Bond Buyer, CoinDesk, The Financial Times and MSNBC.
PS: If you’re hiring, dig into our Newmark J-School Talent Directory. Our grads are job ready!
2. J+ — A NEW NAME AND HOME BASE FOR THE SCHOOL’S COMMITMENT TO LIFELONG LEARNING
The Newmark J-School keeps building on its commitment to support the professional growth of its students, alumni, and the journalistic community. With J+, the school empowers journalists and media professionals in all phases of their career with next-level executive, professional, and entrepreneurial training, mentorship, and events. Those interested may check out the array of offerings and learn more about the expanded J+ team (see photo above), including the director, Anita Zielina, who recently wrote this terrific column in NiemanLab.
By the way, applications for the next cohort of J+’s Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership will open in April. If you’re interested, email anita.zielina@journalism.cuny.edu.
And this also from J+: Its Journalism Creators and Creators-in-Residence programs recently launched an illuminating workshop series. Check out these upcoming events and REGISTER HERE:
- Making a media brand for media people
Feb. 2 | 1 p.m.-2 p.m. ET
In 2021, journalist Gabriel Snyder launched the subscription newsletter Off the Record, which reports on the New York City media industry. In his workshop, he will share his thinking behind his publication, his spin on current media reporting, and his path to being a founder. - Launching your brand into the universe
Feb. 15 | Noon to 1 p.m ET
Andrea Hernández, the creator of Snaxshot, runs a popular Substack newsletter and Discord community covering the latest trends in the food and beverage industry. She will share her insights as to how she cultivated a following of self-proclaimed “snaxbois” and “snaxpals.” - Branching your brand beyond newsletters
March 1 | Noon to 1 p.m. ET
Anne-Laure Le Cunff is an entrepreneur, a writer, and a neuroscience Ph.D. candidate who started Ness Labs, a platform with more than 35,000 newsletter subscribers and 2,500 paid community members. Learn how she did it!
3. OUR ACADEMIC LEADERS
The industry clamors for their excellence
Graciela Mochofsky, executive director of the J-School’s Center for Community Media, director of our Latino Media Initiative, and founding director of our bilingual program, has been named a contributing writer for The New Yorker magazine. She also will write a monthly column for newyorker.com. A native of Argentina, she is a winner of the 2018 Maria Moors Cabot prize for outstanding reporting across Latin America and the Caribbean. She is the author of six nonfiction books in Spanish, two of them about the relationship between press and political power in her home country. Her forthcoming book, “The Prophet of the Andes,” about a Peruvian Catholic community that converted to Orthodox Judaism and emigrated to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, will be published Aug. 2 in English by Knopf.
Katherine Eban, an investigative journalist, adjunct teaching Investigative Health at the J-School, and Andrew Carnegie fellow, recently published a trenchant Opinion piece in The New York Times. She examined the global calamity caused by the coronavirus and concluded: “Rather than debate how to end the pandemic, we need to debate how to live with it.”
4. STUDENT NEWS
International recognition for writer-reporter
Natalia Sánchez Loayza, bilingual program ’22, has won the Aura Estrada international literary award, granted to a female writer between the ages of 18 and 35 who lives in Latin America, Canada, or the United States and who writes narrative prose in Spanish. She will receive a stipend of $10,000, residencies at writing colonies around the globe, and Granta in Spanish will publish a story by her. The Aura Estrada Award was established by novelist Francisco Goldman in honor of his late wife, who was a promising writer before her early accidental death. Loayza’s nonfiction work-in-progress was described by one of Mexico’s leading newspapers “as the story of her grandparents and father in a poor neighborhood of Lima, Peru, called Nueva Esperanza, but also as a deeper reflection on how painful spaces and experiences in Latin America build identity.” It was chosen among 305 submissions by authors from 15 nations. Loayza also was the recipient of a $5,000 scholarship from the Association of Foreign Correspondents in the USA.
Our students win big in collegiate competitions
The Associated Collegiate Press group and the College Media Association honored numerous Newmark J-School students in recent awards.
In the individual category, Mary Steffenhagen won first place in the Broadcast News Story of the Year category for Fired for Speaking Out?, an audio piece for WBAI Radio on how current and former Trader Joe’s employees are going public with accounts of retaliation for speaking up for safer pandemic working conditions. A second place prize for Story of the Year/Podcast went to our 2021 student commencement speaker Angela Palumbo for Knights of Social Change, an audio documentary piece about the Society of Creative Anachronisms. This living history group recreates Medieval cultures and events and is grappling with how to proceed equitably in the present. Other work took honors in categories such as Covid-19 Coverage/Broadcast News or Features.
In the Fall 2021 CP Convention Best of Show category, Next New York, a collaborative effort by students in the Class of 2021, won first place for Multimedia News/Feature Presentation with an examination of what local groups are doing to bridge the digital divide.
5. EVENTS
Don’t miss our five-star panels and workshops as well as the ways we boost underserved communities
Video Across Platforms: Reporting on TikTok, IG, and YouTube
Jan. 26 | 12:30 p.m. ET
Is an online platform, which started as a collection of short dance videos, essential to journalism’s future? Wonbo Woo, an Emmy Award-winning producer, and a virtual panel will take up that important question in a discussion and workshop. The session will feature Dave Jorgenson, the Washington Post’s “TikTok guy”; Raney Aronson-Rath, executive producer, Frontline; John Friia ’17, host-creator, @hereinnyc; and Madeleine Haeringer, senior vice president, editorial, NBC News. After the one-hour panelist chat, Woo will segue into a practical, two-hour workshop on how to best use and manage visual social media platforms for journalism. A former broadcast-journalist-in-residence at the Newmark J-School, Woo has worked for WIRED, NBC’s Nightly News, and Nightline and World News Tonight at ABC. This event and workshop is part of the J-School’s “January Academy” and costs $29 for participants who are not part of the J-School community. REGISTER HERE.
NYC Labor and the New Mayor: Prospects for Workers in a Post-Pandemic City
Jan. 27 | Noon to 1:30 p.m. ET
Leading journalists will offer their analysis of the new administration of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, focusing on how organized labor may cooperate or clash with the leadership in City Hall. Joshua Freeman, professor emeritus at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, will moderate a panel with Nicole Gelinas, columnist, NY Post; Jeffrey C. Mays, Metro reporter, the New York Times; and Richard Steier, editor-in-chief, The Chief Leader. The event is co-sponsored by the J-School. REGISTER HERE.
Black Media: Keepers and Makers of History
Feb. 10 | 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. ET
A town hall will be moderated by Cheryl Thompson-Morton, the Center for Community Media’s Black Media Initiative director. The virtual session will gather Black publishers from across the country, discussing how Black media uniquely tie history into their every day coverage of their communities. The conversation will delve, too, into how Black media have been harmed over history and what reparations might look like for those damages. REGISTER HERE.
Investigative Reporting in Today’s World
Feb. 15 | 6 p.m. ET
In 2020, Margie Mason and Robin McDowell of the Associated Press investigative team produced a three-part series documenting the abusive practices of the international palm oil industry, including forced child labor, violence against women, human trafficking, and slavery. The series, made possible with the financial support of the Newmark J-School’s McGraw Center for Business Journalism, led to congressional oversight and a ban on imports from the worst of the palm oil producers. It was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and won nearly a dozen other major journalism awards.
Join Mason, McDowell, and Ron Nixon, the AP’s global investigations editor, along with McGraw Center Executive Director Jane Sasseen, for the story behind the palm oil stories along with a broader discussion of the challenges of investigative reporting in the current media environment. REGISTER HERE.
A new partnership with Native American Journalists Association
Native American Journalists Association logoThe J-School is proud to announce a newly established, full-tuition scholarship in partnership with the Native American Journalists Association. The scholarship will be awarded to a NAJA member who is admitted to a master’s program at the J-School and who meets the City University of New York’s eligibility requirements as a New York State resident. To learn more about the scholarship and to apply CLICK HERE. Please note March 1 deadline.
Please consider a gift as we near our goal for the Ida B. Wells scholarship campaign
To contribute before our Feb. 28 deadline, CLICK HERE
PLUS!
Capturing the buzz in the city? Journalistic recognition and awards? Sure, they matter. But in a notable video, Claudia Irizarry Aponte ’18 reports from her own experience that journalists may find their deepest satisfaction in knowing that they play a role in improving the lives of others, including downtrodden, overworked, and underpaid food delivery ‘essential’ workers. Read her story in The City.