New job: VPR Digital Reporter

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be joining the news team at Vermont Public Radio as their digital reporter.

As news consumers move online for their content, many organizations, including VPR, have made a great effort to create robust and user-friendly web outlets. At VPR, they decided the next step was to hire a reporter to focus on digital-first news stories. That means the majority of my work will be published online, either in collaboration with VPR’s experienced radio reporters or based on my own original reporting in the Chittenden County area.

I have long admired VPR’s dedication to excellence in journalism and commitment to the exciting developments in digital journalism, and I’m thrilled to be joining them in their efforts in early September.

“Filling the News Gap” Panel Discussion

I participated in a panel discussion last month about the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, sponsored by Cambridge Community Television. Below is a video of the discussion, via CCTV:

Filling the News Gap in Cambridge and Beyond: Covering Chaos from Cambridge Community Television on Vimeo.

A semester as news editor of The Huntington News

I spent the spring semester as the news editor of Northeastern University’s student newspaper, The Huntington News, where I coordinated coverage of all on-campus (or near campus) news, including student government, administration and other student issues.

It was a totally new experience, and learning to manage a staff and coordinate photography and reporting for multiple stories at once was definitely a challenge, but I am very glad I had the chance to do it. Some of the stories I’m especially proud of from the semester, in no particular order and not necessarily written by me:

Coverage of the Barstool Sports Blackout Tour, which sparked controversy from women’s rights activists at Northeastern:

Barstool Sports party sparks controversy (By Angel Feliciano and Bill Shaner)
Knockout group protests Barstool party (By Taylor Dobbs)

Coverage of a proposed Chick-fil-A location in Northeastern’s Curry Student Center, which caused outrage in the LGBT community:

Curry, Marino renovation plans unveiled (Nick Jacques)
Critics organize against CSC Chick-fil-A location (Nick Jacques)
SGA votes against Chick-fil-A on campus (Nick Jacques)
Chick-fil-A not coming to NU (Nick Jacques)

Northeastern’s cafeteria workers spoke out against their managers, who they say mistreated them:

NU cafeteria workers claim mistreatment (Kristen McCleary)
Chartwells workers speak out against managers (Taylor Dobbs)
Chartwells workers vote to unionize (Taylor Dobbs)
Chartwells workers join Local 26 union (Taylor Dobbs)

I’ll be spending another summer with VTDigger.org starting tomorrow. I’ll be covering the campaign season here in Vermont, as well as other political happenings.

Boston.com Co-op Internship

I’m honored to have been chosen as a co-op at boston.com, where I’ll be working in the features section doing everything from tweaking HTML to writing travel stories. I’ll be starting in August and working with them full-time through December.

It’s an exciting time to be in the newsroom, as boston.com will be dividing into two sites: free content will continue to be available at boston.com, but content from The Boston Globe will go behind a paywall at bostonglobe.com. I’m excited to see how these changes are reflected in the newsroom and how the paywall works out for The Boston Globe.

Summer Internship: VTDigger.org

I’ve got a summer internship working for VTDigger.org, an independent news site for Vermont news and politics. I’ll be writing, recording video, taking some photos and helping with some administrative projects over the next eight weeks or so.

Keep track of my byline here.

Keep checking in for story posts and updates!