vol. 8, no. 1 FALL 2013 1

education, offering an executive degree program, and creating a summer intensive program for international students and others.

Tell us your ideas about recruiting faculty and staff.All too often we recruit in a hurry, in response to someone moving to a different job or leaving the school. I want to be much more proactive by devel-oping a talent scout approach. I’d like to invite ev-eryone to send me names of people we can reach out to in advance so that when we have a specific need, we already have a diverse pool of talent we can tap.

Talk about your role as a fundraiser. I am pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy fundraising. It was a genuine reaction to meet-ing with foundations and individual donors as we were raising money for the Community and Ethnic Media Center. There’s something very appealing about spending a couple of hours talking to some-one about the work we’re doing, watching them get excited, and listening to them offer ways to help. I love nothing more than opening an envelope and finding a check inside.

Describe your management style.I try to be very open and transparent about my thinking, to explain goals clearly, and to give people room to do their jobs. I also try to hold them accountable for meeting those goals. I try to be very inclusive and invite diverse opinions. I want to build an esprit de corps so people feel invested in a common purpose.

What words of encouragement can you give to our students as they prepare to enter a changing profession?I continue to feel that it’s one of the most exciting times to be in journalism. The number of outlets publishing stories and the ways to tell quality stories

are growing. The battle the profession is having with the U.S. government now is a wonderful example of how important journalism is to a functioning democracy.

It’s a difficult business to be in. If you want to make a lot of money, you wouldn’t choose journalism. But that was true when I was starting out. If you’re talented and work hard, if you’re a strong reporter and a producer of innovative stories, you will be successful. Plenty of our alums are out there proving that.

Reveal something about yourself that nobody knows.I know how to mix a mean batch of concrete. I can build foundations and lay bricks. I renovated for seven years of my life. I dug all the ditches for our first house in lower Manhattan. n

On Sept. 30, the CUNY Board of Trustees, acting on the enthusiastic recommendation of Interim Chancellor William P. Kelly, named Sarah Bartlett the next dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. She will succeed Founding Dean Stephen B. Shepard on Jan. 1, 2014.

Bartlett, who heads the Urban Reporting Program, is a charter member of the faculty and has been involved with almost every facet of the J-School’s operations since we opened in 2006. In addition to creating and staffing the urban and business/economics subject concentrations, she sat on the admissions and curriculum committees, launched the Center for Community and Ethnic Media, raised nearly $2 million, and was the principal writer of the five-year strategic plan.

She has extensive journalism experience across media platforms, and has written two books. [See Dean’s Corner, page 3.]

On Oct. 10, Bartlett sat down for a Q&A session with InsideStory Editor Amy Dunkin.

WWW.JOURNALISM.CUNY.EDUINSIDESTORY FALL 2013 Vol. 8, No. 1

IN THIS ISSUE: 2 New Business Journalism Center • Egyptian Journalist in Residence • 3 On the Job with Almudena Toral • Dean’s Corner

4 Donor List • Remembering Harold W. McGraw, Jr. 5 Interns Around the World 6 Raising a “Beatle Baby” Book • Alumni News

Sarah Bartlett

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Dean-to-be Sarah Bartlett Discusses Her Vision for the CUNY J-School

What made you want to be a journalist?My interest stems from working with a documentary filmmaker as his research assistant fresh out of grad-uate school. I got to travel all over the world with a film crew and when I would return from a trip, I would feel compelled to write up my experiences. It made me realize I wanted to be a journalist.

When did you know you wanted to be the next dean, and why did you take on the challenge?A couple of years ago, when Steve [Shepard] began discussing the possibility of retiring, it dawned on me there would be a new job opening up. At that time, I had started working on creating the Center for Community and Ethnic Media. I was doing fundraising and discovered how much I liked get-ting people on the outside interested in our work.

My interest in becoming dean was a combination of being at the J-School from the beginning, building two subject concentrations, participating in curriculum development, creating a new center, and helping to write the strategic plan. I had a lot of ideas about the role our school plays in our urban environment and the development of the journalism profession. So I decided to throw my hat in the ring.

What are your priorities for the J-School?I feel that the school is already in a very strong place. We’re one of the top jour-nalism graduate schools in the country, and I would love to make us No. 1. We need to build on all our strengths – our commitment to being innovative, our strong faculty, our diversity – and find ways to turn up the dial.

I’m eager to see the ideas in the strategic plan get implemented. We need to build into the curriculum more career development skills that focus on freelancing and entrepre-neurship. We also need to pursue key opportunities for growth – by expanding online

“We’re one of the top journalism graduate schools in the country, and I would love to make us No. 1.”

2 www.journalism.cuny.edu

When did you find out there were legal issues complicating your work with ICFJ?The first time was in September 2011, two weeks after I joined ICFJ. I thought it was just a routine thing. There was a lawyer taking care of the legal problems with the foreign affairs office and I said okay.

You were accused of accepting illegal foreign funding. What sort of evidence did the prosecution produce?I was accused of taking $3 million. They didn’t produce any evidence. It’s a sheer lie. I had to come up with the proof that I didn’t take anything. I remember there were problems in transferring money for the office, even before they hired me. So I came up with a solution: Okay, I’ll pay it from my own account until these things are sorted out. Until I was referred to criminal court, ICFJ owed me three months of rent, and that’s what I said to the court.

Do you think your previous work angered someone in the government and left them with a vendetta against you?It seems that someone is very upset with me. I am the only defendant who

proved with documents beyond any doubt that at the time when they started the investigation, I hadn’t had the chance to start working.

Assume, yes, I was about to commit a crime by training journalists. Assume this was a crime and a bad thing. But I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t even had the chance. You know what the judge did? He laughed. He said it’s a good point. Yet he gave me a sentence of two years with hard labor. This is the kind of justice we have back home.

In total, 43 NGO workers, Egyptian and foreign, were charged with receiving illegal funding. Why do you think this happened to ICFJ and the other NGOs?I believe that one of the main reasons is that there was a vendetta some-where, that somebody in the govern-ment felt betrayed. The remaining pil-lars of the former regime felt betrayed by the U.S.A. first and foremost. I heard that many of them thought the U.S.A. betrayed and sold out [former President Hosni] Mubarak and his regime.

What was it like going through the trial?You can’t imagine the kind of mean, dirty, low, character-defamation cam-paign waged against us. I’m well known to everyone as a regular guest on TV shows, and I wrote for the last 25 years, so I got the real brunt of the campaign.

My contact information and address were leaked to the media, and I would end up with people asking for revenge against the “U.S. agent.” The whole atmosphere was so poisoned. It was torture.

How has the trial affected your family?I told my kids, “Don’t discuss or defend me, don’t answer if anyone says any-thing.” My eldest son, it was too much for him, he tried to defend his father – not physically, but his classmates responded physically. They tied him up and they broke both of his arms.

When did you first hear about the verdict? On June 3, I was in D.C., and I was heading back home to Egypt to cel-ebrate the acquittal I expected. Before I traveled, ICFJ said they were having a board meeting and asked me to give a speech. I had planned to leave D.C. on June 12, but then it hit me: I am a convict. I’m stuck until the appeal, and the hearing still has to be set.

How has the trial affected you?It’s a very tough test. I thought that I had seen the worst, in prisons, Afghani-stan, Taliban, Congo, and frankly, this is my worst.

I feel like I’m hanging in the air between heaven and earth. There’s no ground. I have a feeling that I will end up in one of those cells, but what else can I do? I’m paying something that I don’t owe. n

A s part of the fallout from a decade’s worth of changes in the media, many news organizations no longer have the resources to tackle long, com-

plex business and economics stories. To help reverse the slide in coverage of these issues, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism will establish the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Center for Business Journalism to support veteran reporters and train students entering the field.

The new Center will be financed by a $3 mil-lion gift from the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Family Foundation, started in 2010 by Suzanne, Terry, and Bob McGraw. They are the children of the former chairman and CEO of McGraw-Hill, a publishing and financial services company that owned BusinessWeek magazine for 80 years. The Center will also receive support from the City University of New York and the CUNY Gradu-ate School of Journalism.

“My father loved business, journalism, and education,” said Harold “Terry” McGraw III, chairman and CEO of McGraw Hill Financial. “We are thrilled to create the Center in his name to preserve his special legacy and to benefit the vital work of business reporters.” Harold McGraw, Jr. died in 2010 at age 92. [See profile, page 4.]

A primary goal of the Center is to commission serious business and economics stories from accomplished journalists. It will pay McGraw Fellows a stipend of around $7,500 a month for three to six months of work, resulting in a distinguished piece of long-form business journal-ism to be published on the Center’s website or in collaboration with media partners.

To promote the development of future business journalists, the Center will also fund scholarships for students who choose the CUNY J-School’s business/economics report-ing concentration and provide stipends for those who undertake a summer internship in business news.

Finally, as part of its mission to serve the greater professional community, the Center will hold an annual conference on a subject important to business writers and editors. It will also offer continuing education workshops on a variety of topics, such as the use of social media in business reporting or how to mine databases to find story ideas.

Veteran business journalist Jane Sasseen will serve as executive director, starting Jan. 1, 2014. In addition to selecting reporting projects to be funded by the Center, she will work on her own stories. Sasseen was a senior editor and national correspondent at BusinessWeek, editor-in-chief of the politics and opinion channel at Yahoo! News, and is currently a visiting professor in the Global Business Journalism Program at Ts-inghua University in Beijing. She majored in economics at the University of California, Berkeley, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism is the natural home for a business journalism center. It already offers a business/economics reporting concentration for students who want a career in business journalism or simply seek to gain expertise in economics, financial markets, and how companies work. In addition, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) holds its annual fall conference at the J-School.

“The Center will enhance our programs and allow both current and future business journalists to devote themselves fully to the art and science of business reporting,” said Dean Stephen B. Shepard, who spent 20 years as editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.

The Center for Business Journalism, which was approved by the CUNY Board of Trustees at a meeting on Sept. 30, will become the third specialty center housed at the CUNY J-School. The others are the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism and the Center for Community and Ethnic Media. n

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The Agony of an Egyptian Journalist

Publishing Family Endows New Business Journalism Center

Executive Director Jane Sasseen

On June 4, Egyptian newspaper editor and TV commentator Yehia Ghanem was sentenced to two years in prison with hard labor after a series of raids against foreign non-governmental organizations in Egypt. Ghanem’s crime: working for just two months with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), training journalists in post-revolution Egypt.

The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and the Committee to Protect Journalists have given Ghanem an academic refuge in the form of a year-long fellowship, which began in August. Ghanem faces prison should he return to Egypt, where his wife and three children remain.

2011 graduate Carmel Delshad spoke with Ghanem for the J-School’s online publication, 219 Magazine. Here are excerpts from their conversation.

A primary goal of the Center is to commissionserious business and economic stories from accomplished journalists.

Yehia Ghanem

VOL. 8, NO. 1 FALL 2013 3

Amy DunkinEditor

Marisa OsorioReporter

John SmockPhotographer

Nancy NovickDesigner

William P. KellyInterim Chancellor, The CityUniversity of New York

Stephen B. ShepardFounding Dean

Judith WatsonAssociate Dean

INSIDESTORY

Passing the Torchhe expected her to pay back. So Sarah decided to go to

school in England, where the public universities charged

very modest tuition and where she could gain her

degree in three years instead of four. Off she went to the

University of Sussex, where she earned a B.A. in political

science and a Master’s degree in development studies.

And, yes, she repaid her father’s loan.

Aft er graduation, she worked as a researcher for a

Dutch fi lmmaker who was making TV documentaries

on development in third world countries. For the next

2½ years, Sarah travelled the world – to Jamaica, the

Philippines, the Bahamas, Chile, and other hot spots.

She provided background research for six documenta-

ries and began freelancing pieces on economic develop-

ment issues. “I loved the writing,” she recalls.

Back in the U.S. aft er eight years abroad, she signed

on as a researcher at Fortune magazine, then joined

BusinessWeek in 1983, writing stories about fi nance

and Wall Street. Five years later she moved to Th e New York Times, where, among other things, she covered the

leveraged buyout craze of the early 1990s, later writing

a book called “Th e Money Machine,” which penetrated

the world of Henry Kravis and his KKR fi rm. I persuad-

ed her to return to BusinessWeek in 1992 as an assistant

managing editor aft er the birth of her fi rst child, Emilia,

now a senior at Vassar. Her son, Ian, is a sophomore at

the University of Michigan. At BW, she presided over

many of our best investigative stories during the Wall

Street scandals of the 1990s.

Sarah left BW in 1998 to become editor-in-chief of

Oxygen Media, an early startup targeted to women that

sought to combine television programming with the

content being developed for Oxygen’s website. In 2002,

she was appointed to the Bloomberg chair in business

journalism at Baruch College, part of the CUNY system.

Sarah draft ed the syllabi for both the urban and busi-

ness/economics reporting programs, then transferred to

the Journalism School faculty when we opened in 2006.

“I was fascinated by what journalism education could be

in this new era,” she says.Th e CUNY J-School is in very

good hands. Welcome to the deanship, Sarah.

Stephen B. ShepardDean, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism

As we ring in 2014, I shall step down as founding

dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

It has been nearly nine years since I walked

into CUNY headquarters to begin planning

a new graduate school of journalism, the fi rst

publicly supported program of its kind in the Northeast,

a school that would open opportunities for a talented,

diverse group of students. Starting from scratch at a mo-

ment of critical disruption for the journalism profession,

we wanted to create a new school for a new era. Th at meant

combining the eternal verities of traditional journalism

– in-depth reporting, fi ne writing, critical think-

ing, and ethical values – with all the digital skills

of the interactive, multimedia world.

With the indispensible help of Associate Dean

Judith Watson from Day 1, we have succeeded

beyond my most ambitious musings, fulfi lling

the mandate of then-Chancellor Matthew Gold-

stein: Build one of the best graduate programs in

the world. “I don’t want just another journalism

school,” he told me. We are now competing with

the best schools for students, faculty, and grants.

Our curriculum is on the cutting edge, and we

are the only school I know of that pays students

to undertake summer internships. We have

launched a book imprint and three academic

centers: for entrepreneurial journalism, for eth-

nic media, and for business journalism. Best of

all: More than 90% of our graduates are working

in the profession.

As a graduate of City College, I feel privileged to

have served as founding dean of the CUNY J-School. I

identifi ed with the mission of access and excellence and

relished the chance to build a school that would help a

struggling profession. I will stay on for a time as univer-

sity professor, taking on some special projects and doing

what I can for this wonderful school.

I am delighted that we have an outstanding new dean

in Sarah Bartlett. I have known Sarah for nearly 30 years.

When I was editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek, she was

an assistant managing editor who sat in the offi ce next

to mine. When I came to CUNY, I asked her to help us

develop the curriculum and get the J-School launched.

She has played a major role in our success ever since – as

teacher, mentor, strategist, and fundraiser.

Let me tell you a bit more about Sarah. She was born

in Buff alo, where her father was a successful Buick dealer

in the 1950s and 1960s. Because her parents lived much

of the time in the Bahamas, she and her older brother at-

tended elementary school for several years in Nassau – a

racially and economically stratifi ed place that left a deep

impression on her. She intuitively grasped the importance

of economic development in poorer countries and began

a lifelong interest in indigenous cultures.

When it came time for college, her father sat her

down for a talk. A child of the Depression, he wanted

to instill in her the values he had learned the hard way

– including the importance of earning your way in the

world. Rather than pay her tuition, he said, he would

lend her the money for her college education, which

DEAN’SCORNER

“I relished the chance to build a school that wouldhelp a struggling profession.”

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The founding dean and his successor

Madrid native Almudena

Toral came to CUNY

in 2009 convinced

she’d go on to become a long-

form print journalist. “I bought

a 13-inch laptop, thinking I’d

use it to write,” she said.

But a funny thing happened

on her way through the mas-

ter’s program here: She fell in

love with video. What’s more,

she discovered she was very good at it. Several internships

and paid stints at Th e New York Times and Time magazine

later, she has cobbled together a career of freelance video

work, professional fellowships, and now teaching and

coaching at the CUNY J-School.

Th is semester has been particularly eventful. Along with

fellow ’10 alum Samantha Stark, she co-taught the fi ve-

week New York Times-Style Video module. Th en she took

off for Tanzania on an International Reporting Project fel-

lowship to investigate food scarcity, hunger, and nutrition.

While she was overseas, she learned she was part of a

Times video team that won a 2013 News & Documentary

Emmy Award for a series on a young woman with leuke-

mia. Oh, and this all came six months aft er she received the

2013 Multimedia Photographer of the Year Award of Excel-

lence from Pictures of the Year International.

Toral believes she has benefi ted from the growing

demand for journalists who are creative and even artistic in

their storytelling. And now she’s fi nally ready to trade up to

a more powerful laptop with a larger screen. ■JOH

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For more information about the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, go to our website: www.journalism.cuny.edu

ON THE JOB with Almudena Toral ’10

BOARD OF ADVISERS

Jesse AngeloPublisher of the New York Post

Dean Baquet Managing Editor of The New York Times

Merrill Brown Director, School of Communications and Media Montclair State University

David Carey President of Hearst Magazines

Ken Kurson Editor of The New York Observer

Adam Moss Editor-in-Chief ofNew York Magazine

Michael Oreskes Senior Managing Editor at the Associated Press

John Paton CEO of Digital First Media

Norman Pearlstine Chief Content Offi cer at Time Inc.

Howard RubensteinPresident of RubensteinAssociates

Vivian SchillerChief Digital Offi cerof NBC News

Elizabeth Vargas“20/20” Anchor, ABC News

David Westin CEO of News Licensing Group

Mark Whitaker Former Managing Editor

of CNN Worldwide and

Former Editor of Newsweek

Matthew Winkler Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg News

Mortimer ZuckermanChairman and Publisher ofthe New York Daily News andU.S. News & World Report

$1 Million +

John S. and James L. Knight FoundationThe Tow Foundation

$250,000-$499,999

AnonymousFord Foundation

$100,000-$249,999

Lynn Povich and Stephen B. Shepard

$50,000-$99,999

FJC Foundation of Philanthropic Funds

$25,000-$49,999

Bloomberg LPConnie Chung and Maury PovichEhrenkranz Family FoundationLambert Family FoundationKatherine and David Moore Donor Advised FundMaureen White and Steven RattnerSteven RubensteinTishman SpeyerPaul W. Sturm

$10,000-$24,999

Jody and John ArnholdAMC NetworksBBDOCon Edison Inc.The Correspondents FundDow Jones & Company, Inc.Hearst MagazinesJurate Kazickas and Roger AltmanSeryl & Charles Kushner Family FoundationThe McGraw-Hill CompaniesThe New York TimesThe News Corporation FoundationNBC News Digital GroupJane Hartley and Ralph Schlosstein

him, you’d hear the same words over and over again: Values. Integrity. Principled. Hon-orable. Educator. Concerned. Courteous. Courtly. Approachable. Humble. Self-effacing.

Harold was very proud of BusinessWeek and always respected its independence. He’d sometimes write me a note when he especially liked a story. But he never once interfered. If one of his many friends in business or government complained to him about a story, I never heard about it. He simply and deeply believed that professional edi-tors should be free to render their judgments independent of any political, personal, or commercial interference. Editors were free, he once told me, to make their own honest mistakes – as long as they owned up to them and did what they could to correct them.

In October 2004, when BusinessWeek was celebrating its 75th anniversary, Harold’s son Terry, then CEO, presented me with a framed cover of that week’s issue. Also in the frame was a very special and touching gift: a green fountain pen that was Harold’s personal pen. The gift hangs in my New York apartment, and I shall always cherish it.

A few months later, when I was about to retire from BusinessWeek, I told Harold that I had been offered a wonderful new opportunity to become the founding dean of a brand new graduate school of journalism at the City University of New York. I’m not sure how much he understood because his health was already failing, but I went on. I told him that this would be the first publicly supported graduate journalism school in the Northeast, opening oppor-tunities for minorities, immigrants, and others who didn’t have a lot of money for graduate study. At that point, he smiled, and I knew that his educator’s heart understood.

We’re grateful to Harold’s children, Sue, Terry, and Bob McGraw, for establishing this Center in their father’s name. We are very honored. n

—Stephen B. Shepard

4 www.journalism.cuny.edu

Our new Center for Business Journalism [page 2] is named for one of the great gentleman pub-lishers of the 20th century: Harold W. McGraw,

Jr., the former CEO and chairman of McGraw-Hill, who died in 2010 at age 92. I was privileged to know Harold during the 20 years I served as editor-in-chief of Busi-nessWeek, then owned by McGraw-Hill.

It’s easy to list Harold’s accomplishments: How the company’s revenues doubled on his watch as CEO. How earnings per share tripled. How he took a principled

stand in fending off the unconscionable takeover attempt by American Express in 1979. How he rallied the business

community to take up the cause of literacy. How he helped create the Copyright Clearance Center to

protect the intellectual property of publishers. How the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Edu-

cation has brought honor and visibility to the best teachers and their innovative ideas. How his philanthropy has helped so many libraries and schools.

If you were to ask anyone who knew Har-old professionally what came to mind about

Harold W. McGraw, Jr.: Publisher, Educator, Man of Values and Integrity

GIFTS & PLEDGES CUNY J-SCHOOL DONOR ROLL2012-2013 Gifts made between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013

Harold W. McGraw, Jr.

The past eight years have been a wonderful period of growing and learn-ing together. Thanks to the generosity of many good friends, we have awarded scholarships to 405 talented and deserving students. And

unique among graduate journalism programs, we have supported our stu-dents in their paid summer internships at media companies across the U.S. and abroad – all because of the investment so many of you have made in our School.

Thank you, again, to all who have given so generously to ensure the success of our students and to support the future of journalism.

—Dean Shepard

For more information about the Future Journalists Fund and ways to support the CUNY J-School, please contact Diana Robertson, director of development, at 646-758-7814 or visit our website: www.journalism.cuny.edu/donate/.

Dean Stephen B. Shepard

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$5,000-$9,999

The Associated PressJennie and Richard K. De SchererSusan FrakerDavid R. FriedmanLocal 32BJ SEIUAllan MayerAnn L. McDanielThe New York Community TrustMichael OreskesNorman PearlstineJohnathan A. RodgersMelanie ShorinRichard M. SmithThe Washington Post CompanyDavid WestinMortimer Zuckerman

Marion ListerLawrence S. MartzLucille B. MathewsNew York - Presbyterian HospitalNew York City Partnership FoundationRetail Wholesale & Department Store UnionJack Resnick & Sons, Inc.The Charles H. Revson FoundationPaul E. SteigerJeremy ThompsonTides FoundationTime Warner FoundationThe Tow FoundationVanguard Charitable Endowment Program

$500-$999

Allegro FoundationAnthony DurniakRalph B. EdwardsGary M. HoenigLinda and Morton JanklowFrank LalliDavid SaundersKenneth M. Vittor

$1,000-$4,999

Fred AbatemarcoDenise ArbesuJody and John ArnholdSoma and William A. BehrDon BrownMerrill BrownJulie CopelandMichele Willens and David CorvoRisa FinkelEdward L. GardnerPeter L. GoldmanGottsegen Family FoundationStephen D. GreenbergCristine Russell and Benjamin W. HeinemanThe Sidney Hillman FoundationWarren HogeHunter CollegeJewish Communal FundEdward KosnerKramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLPDebby and Rocco LandesmanErica L. LansnerThe Lauder Foundation - Leonard & Evelyn Lauder Fund

$100-$499

Steven AbrahamsRoxanna Asgarian, Class of ‘11Ronald ChernowDonna B. ClarkSandra GaryPeter F. HauckTimothy D. HarperStewart KampelAbigail K. KimballAlan M. KisnerJay L. KriegelMary S. KuntzKarl N. LevittPolly and Bruce McCallBruce RabbDiana J. RobertsonJack RosenthalLeonard J. RothmanShirley and Howard RubinfeldMort SheinmanTheodore SlateDinitia SmithGeorge M. SolomonKaren E. SpringenElizabeth SurcoufTerri ThompsonDavid WallaceElizabeth R. WeinerSteven WeissJudith M. Zabar

$1-$99

Aisha Al-Muslim, Class of ‘09Eliot L. Caroom, Class of ‘08Althea Chang, Class of ‘12Alva French, Class of ‘11Kathleen M. Honan, Class of ‘10Zachary Kussin, Class of ‘11Sherrina Navani, Class of ‘11Laura Shin, Class of ‘11Ashley Welch, Class of ‘11

vol. 8, no. 1 FALL 2013 5

“My supervisor, Corey Flintoff, is a great mentor. On my first day in the office, he asked me to cover an opposition protest against the government of President Vladimir Putin. Still jet-lagged, I collected sound from the protest, conducted interviews, came back, and selected cuts of tape to use. Corey wrote a script, called it in to NPR’s newscast producer, and got me on the air that very day.”

— Susan Armitage, NPR, Moscow

“While I admit to having a donut (or two) in the of-fice, it’s only to fuel my journalistic engine for all the assignments I’ve received . . . I’ve had the chance to cover a professional sports beat for the first time in my life . . . What’s great is also the feedback I’ve received from not just one or two, but at least three different editors, whether it’s for the web or print. And I didn’t even ask for it!”

— Chris Dell, Daily News, New York

“My days at CNNMoney.com are full and always exciting. The reporters I work with are smart, dedicated, and concerned with making the news accessible to readers. I am always encouraged and pushed to explore my ideas and not simply let them die.”

— Angela Johnson, CNNMoney.com, New York

“The best experience was working on a 1,200-word fea-ture article about sustainable weddings, which I pitched. It turned out to be a hit and was a great lesson in using reporting skills to find ‘real people’ and then network-ing to get the interviews I needed.”

— Laura Lorenzetti, Crain’s New York Business, New York

“If you’re looking for credits or airtime, or if you want to do hard news, this internship is not for you. If you want to see how international media houses operate and make contacts in this part of the world, then this is a good option. You have to be patient and realize that in many ways you are light years ahead of the crew (post-production meetings consist of ‘the map shows the wrong Congo’ or ‘such-and-such is spelled wrong.’) If you have initiative and you’re resource-ful, you can do other projects on the weekends. For example, my capstone is a multimedia travel blog project, so that’s what I focused on during weekends, and during my abundance of free time in which I was required to sit in a chair and stare at a computer dur-ing the week.”

— Karen Petree, A24 Media/Africa Journal, Nairobi

“I’m learning what it takes to produce, shoot and edit stories as an independent video journalist with a flex-ible connection to an arts website. I’m also learning that you really have to be passionate and committed to telling your subject’s story. It’s more than pointing the camera at them and writing some copy. It’s finding the parts of their story that other people can connect with – people who may or may not be familiar with dance.”

— Lisa Rinehart, Culturebot.com, New York

“I’ve delighted in holding on to the same beat I had during Craft class this year… I feel I’m developing a better understanding of how to cover a neighborhood by cultivating relationships with officials and longtime residents. Most CUNY students don’t stay for the sum-

mer in their community districts, so people in Bushwick can tell that I remain interested in what’s happening in the community.”

— Tobias Salinger, City Limits, Brooklyn

“The type of topics we cover has given me an interesting view of the U.S. as a foreign country. This is particularly important to me as a foreign student focused on inter-national reporting. We’ve covered hydraulic fracking in upstate New York and the grassroots organizations op-posed to the process, the effects some of the decisions the Supreme Court may have on ethnic and LGBTQ commu-nities, violence against women… to name a few.”

— Mikhael Simmonds, GRITtv.org, New York

“When I had my first spot air on the national NPR newscast, that was an exciting moment for me. I really feel I’ve come very far from the time I started jour-nalism school to where I am now. And as cheesy as it sounds, I feel as if my dream of becoming a public radio reporter is coming true. It’s an awesome feeling, and I can see myself doing this for the rest of my life.”

— Elly Yu, WABE, 90.1 FM, NPR member station, Atlanta

Class of 2013 interns, clockwise from top left: Chris Dell does a subway interview for the New York Daily News with former Mets manager and Yankees second baseman Willie Randolph on the way to the All-Star Game at Citi Field; Andrew Welsch reports on the use of 3D imaging technology in auto repairs for The Montreal Gazette; Karen Petree sets up a camera before an interview with members of a community youth organization in Nairobi’s Mathare slum for A24 Media; John Sodaro adjusts a GoPro camera on the goal post at Red Bull Arena in New York for mlssoccer.com; Skyler Reid shoots for the Mail & Guardian in Johannesburg, South Africa; Ann Awad gets ready to do a voiceover for WHYY-FM, 90.9 FM, in Philadelphia; Elly Yu talks to a market security manager for WABE, 90.1 FM, Atlanta’s NPR station.

Interns Get a Taste of Real-World Journalism

VOICES FROM THE FIELD

“We’ve covered hydraulic fracking in upstate New York and the grassroots organizations opposed to the process.”

— Mikhael Simmonds

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Class of ’12: Anika Anand was named director of distribution and engagement for a national education news network that GothamSchools is helping to launch. Martin Burch is a data developer in The Wall Street Journal’s news graphics department. Claudia Bracholdt is a producer/video reporter for SAVIDAS film production in Germany. Elbert Chu and his wife Grace welcomed their first child, Liam Joshua, on Sept. 4. Sean Flynn was married to Melissa Yoffee, a dietitian at New York Presbyterian Hospital, on July 20 in Buffalo. Anna Halkidis is an entertainment reporter for Enstarz.com. Tristan Hallman was promoted to police reporter at The Dallas Morning News. Amital Isaac is an associate producer on the ABC-TV show, “What Would You Do?” Madhura Karnik is a staff writer for Mint, a business newspaper in India. Casey Quinlan is the investing editor at US News and World Report. Rachel Sapin is a reporter at The Aurora Sentinel. Dave Sanchirico is an assistant editor at ESPN. Julie Strickland is web producer at The Real Deal. Taylor Tepper married Alison Billias, a second-grade reading teacher, in August. Lisa Friedman Turner is the public information specialist in Thurston County, Washington.

Class of ’11: Alissa Ambrose is photo editor for CBSnews.com. Lisha Arino, a reporter for the Muskegon Chronicle, won first place with two photog-raphers in the “Innovative Storytelling” category of the Michigan Press Associa-tion’s 2013 Better Newspapers Contest for coverage of the 2012 Miss Michigan pageant. Ian Chant is associate news and features editor at Library Journal. Matt Draper is an an associate editor with ESPN.com. Nathan Frandino is a reporter/producer for Reuters Television. Celia Gorman was promoted to as-sociate multimedia editor at IEEE Spectrum technology magazine. Zachary Kussin is a reporter/web producer for The Real Deal’s new sis-ter publication, Luxury List-ings NYC. Annais Morales was promoted to associate producer at NY1News. Amy Stretten is national affairs correspondent in Miami for Fusion, a new 24-hour cable news channel launched by ABC News and Univision.

Class of ’10: Alexander Abad-Santos is a staff writer at Atlantic Wire.com. Carl Gaines cycled from Boston to New York and raised more than $3,500 for the AIDS charity Housing Works. Colby Hamilton is City Hall reporter for DNAInfo.com. Vishal Persaud is the overnight editor at NBC Universal. Dana Rapoport joined Al Jazeera America as an interview pro-ducer. Azriel Relph is an associate producer at Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Produc-tions. Samantha Stark is a staff video journalist at The New York Times.

Class of ’09: Rachel Geizhals Bachrach became contributing editor of Mishpacha Jewish Family Weekly, moved to Cincinnati, and had a daughter, Alyssa, in November. Valerie Lapinski won a Newswoman’s Club Front Page award for her work at Time for the “One Dream” multimedia project. Kieran K. Meadows works for the TV/radio news program Democracy Now! and as a producer/editor on Forbes’s video team. Michael Reicher is the county government reporter for The Orange County Register. Jessica Simeone was promoted to associate editor at The New York Post. Joseph Walker is the biotechnology and medical devices reporter at The Wall Street Journal.

Class of ’08: Claudia Cruz is a reporter at CNET en Español in San Francisco. Allison Esposito is a copywriter at Foursquare. Damian Ghigliotty is a reporter at The Mortgage Observer. Rebecca Harshbarger is transit reporter for The New York Post. Shuka Kalantari is a freelance radio reporter for BBC World News Outlook and other radio and online news services. She also reported on Iranian refugees in Turkey after winning a fellowship from the International Center for Journalists. Rosaleen Ortiz and Daniel Macht became the parents of the first all-J-School baby: Ansel Samuel Macht, born Oct. 19. Mathew Ramirez Warren’s upcoming documentary, “We Like it Like That,” about the history of Latin boogaloo music, received a National Endowment for the Arts Independent Film grant. He married Neshani Jani in San Diego on July 13.

Class of ’07: Jego Armstrong is a news producer for Al Jazeera America. Candice Coots is the digital producer at Pac-12 Networks in San Francisco. Ben Levisohn is writing for the Barron’s Stocks to Watch blog. Daniel Massey won a Gold Medal from the Alliance of Area Business Publications for a profile on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The piece was also a Jesse H. Neal Award finalist. Matt Safford is a regular freelancer for Popular Science, Digital Trends, and Computer Shopper. Emily Stewart is the food and drink reporter at The Poughkeepsie Journal.

The NYCity News Service took home Editor & Publisher’s 2013 EPPY Award for Best College/University Journalism Website. Judges also cited four News Service special reports.

CUNY Graduate School of Journalism219 W. 40th Street, Third FloorNew York, NY 10018

INSIDESTORY

ALUMNINEWSJ-School Raises “Beatle Baby” Book By Jere Hester Director, NYCity News Service

My new (and first) book, “Raising a Beatle Baby: How John, Paul, George and Ringo Helped us Come To-gether as a Family,” tells the story of how my wife and

I bonded over the Fab Four and shared our love of the band with our daughter – a journey filled with modest triumphs and humorous misadventures.

But the magical mystery tour I find myself happily recount-ing just as often these days is how it took a village – or, more specifically, a J-School – to raise a “Beatle Baby” book.

Publishing, like the rest of media, is in a period of digitally driven disruption. The first Kindle e-reader made its debut nearly a year to the day after I joined CUNY in late 2006, fol-lowing a 15-year stint as a reporter and editor at the New York Daily News.

When I decided I wanted to write a book, I quickly found help at the J-School, formally and informally. The seeds of “Beatle Baby” were planted five years ago during summer lunches in the J-School café area with Glenn Lewis, an author who teaches narrative writing to our graduate students and directs the undergraduate journalism program at CUNY’s York College. Glenn generously offered advice and encouragement.

The proposal and manuscript sprouted to life in long-form narrative writing classes that Tim Harper, an author and founding editor of the CUNY Journalism Press, established two years ago for faculty, staff and alumni. I benefited not only from valuable feedback on writ-ing and structure but from guest speakers forging new models in publishing. One of Tim’s guests, Gabe Stuart of Bayberry Books, a specialist in self-publishing, became my produc-tion manager for “Beatle Baby.”

In June, I attended the first CUNY Publishing Institute, run by John Oakes, co-publisher of OR Books, which works with the CUNY J-Press. The weeklong intensive at the J-School handed me the inspiration and the tools to get the book off my hard drive and out into the world. John’s panelists ranged from start-up e-book operators to enduring industry visionar-ies like Larry Kirshbaum, head of Amazon Publishing.

I learned to navigate various emerging e-book platforms, and how to use social media to find an audience, among other valuable skills. Perhaps more important, John’s sessions reinforced the culture of innovation – backed by support – instilled by the CUNY J-School’s Founding Dean Stephen B. Shepard and Associate Dean Judith Watson. Change brings chal-lenges, to be sure, but also opportunity.

With help from Tim Harper, my wife and I formed Books by Brooklyn, which published “Raising a Beatle Baby.” The company name is a nod to the place I’ve lived my entire life. The idea is to help other folks tell their stories, modest like mine, or otherwise.

I’ve sold a few books, in both paperback and e-book editions. I hope to sell a lot more (go to www.BeatleBaby.com).

Whatever happens, I’m glad I took the plunge. I didn’t take it alone. With “Raising a Beatle Baby,” I found that I get by with a lot of help from my journalism school friends. n

Alcione Gonzalez (left) and Amy Stretten, both Class of ‘11, in the Fusion newsroom in Miami

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