Category Archives: Class Assignments
Final project: Husband-and-wife team bring ski journalism online
It’s a ski bum’s dream: Any given week in the wintertime, Heather and Greg Burke could be on top of a mountain anywhere in the country or world. In late March, they spent a few days at Big Sky Resort in Montana. In mid-April, they flew out to Austria to explore European ski resorts. Both …
Nieman fellow Wu Nan on Chinese journalism
For class last Thursday (March 29), we sat in on a talk with Wu Nan, a Chinese journalist who’s worked for both Chinese media outlets and the Wall Street Journal’s Chinese edition. She’s currently a Nieman fellow at Harvard University, no doubt to honor her contributions to investigative journalism in China. Wu said the censorship …
The mind-bloggling word of online ski communities
Besides the use of puns in headlines, I’ve learned a lot while maintaining this ski blog. If there’s one thing that stands out, it’s that information comes from all sorts of places for the blogger/aggregator of niche news. My absolute favorite, especially because of its local angle, is Boston.com’s the Ski Guru blog. It’s part …
Final project outline
I’ve looked into two different story ideas for my final project. The first is a profile on ski blogger Heather Burke, who is the main writer of Boston.com’s Ski Guru blog. She’s a member of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association, the North American Travel Journalists Association, and the Eastern Ski Writers Association. She’s the …
Exploring the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library
A stroll through the Back Bay takes a tourist past the architectural and historical marvel of the Christian Science Center. Next to the church sits the Mary Baker Eddy Library, so named for the woman whose writings formed the basis of Christian Science. The library houses the Christian Science Publishing Society, most famous for The …
Digital mapping: Is it journalism?
Today in class we discussed online mapping as a journalism tool, with a specific look at SeeClickFix.com. The site allows users to report a problem in their community such as a pothole in a road or graffiti on a nearby building. The site then sends a report to the relevant government authority, and problems are …
Video Project: On campus housing and NU growing pains
In class we’ve spent the past few weeks on a video news segment project. Because I had difficulty getting to a ski resort for a story related to my beat, I instead focused on a Northeastern-centric story. Northeastern requires freshmen and sophomores to live on campus now, to appease the surrounding community, but that’s forced …
Former Christian Science Monitor photographer talks video journalism
Former Christian Science Monitor photographer and current Northeastern University staff photographer Mary Knox Merrill visited our Reinventing the News class Thursday, Feb. 16. She spoke about her experience at the Monitor and at Northeastern, in particular focusing on video news segments. Of the clips she showed the class, my favorite was probably the story about …
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s new wing is sleek, modern
I go by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum every day on my way to and from class, but every time I pass by, I love looking at the new wing. Even though it blends well with the environment, it’s still quite a striking sight. After closing for two months for construction, the museum hosted a …
Hit the Slopes 