JRNL 3610 Introduction

My focus is on covering social issues, particularly stories that are undervalued and underrepresented. “My favorite projects include a story about an individual’s encounter with police brutality, a choir composed of and supporting disenfranchised women, environmental justice communities in Massachusetts and internet accessibility for Indigenous people in Montana.”

In this class, I am hoping to learn more about the different mediums journalism can use. I personally am more interested in multimedia work and exploration than traditional reporting and look forward to exploring more of the options I have career-wise. I am also excited to learn more about how to use social media for journalism, all of my experience thus far has been under the lens of marketing and communications.

Living in Boston has created conflicting emotions in me. On the one hand, living in a city of this size is new to me, and the lights, activities and opportunities still dazzle me after nearly three years here. I love going to concerts, shows and museums, I love the quality of education I get, the jobs I can have and I love the friends and community I have found living in a place that is much more diverse and open-minded than my hometown.

There are many downsides, however, ranging from annoyances like the sounds of traffic and construction or the lack of nature, to institutional, systemic issues such as how history is treated in this city. I find that while there is a rich history in Boston, a statement I doubt would be contested by many, that history is limited and suppressed, often willfully ignoring many of the atrocities that happened along the way. The concept of “history” in the United States tends to be extraordinarily whitewashed and colonial. In Boston, people seem to often focus on the victories of the colonies against the British empire without acknowledging that this land was not theirs and, in the modern-day, tout openness and diversity while gentrifying and over-policing communities of color.