COM Students Help Fill Local News Gap Through Partnership with Boston Neighborhood Network

COM Students Help Fill Local News Gap Through Partnership with Boston Neighborhood Network

Broadcast journalism reporters, led by BU's Tina McDuffie, produce content covering 26 local communities

At a time when local journalism is vanishing across the country-a phenomenon that media experts call "news deserts"-a partnership between students in the Boston University College of Communication and local cable channel Boston Neighborhood Network Media (BNN) is offering an innovative solution.

Through a hands-on collaboration led by veteran journalist Tina McDuffie, a COM associate professor of the practice of journalism, upper-level broadcast students are producing professional-level video stories about the people and programs in 26 Boston communities, many of them low-income and underrepresented, including Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan. In the process, they are building reporting skills and confidence, while helping BNN expand its community coverage.

"We've done some really good work," says McDuffie, who launched the partnership in 2022. "And more importantly, we've filled a void where it needs to be filled in terms of coverage."

Kayla Sharpe (COM'26) produced this piece on how pharmacy closures are impacting healthcare access in the Roxbury community.

Students in McDuffie's TV Feature Reporting (JO502) and Enterprise Reporting (JO431) classes research, pitch, report, edit, and produce their own minute-and-30-second packages, while McDuffie provides guidance and support. BNN editors have final approval before the packages air on the network. The partnership has produced dozens of student-led segments. The topics range from public health and local politics to community events and profiles of neighborhood leaders. (This is in addition to a separate new COM program that has journalism students contributing articles to nonprofit community news outlets.)

One of the first assignments McDuffie gives the students is to research the 26 communities-"Find out what's going on," she tells them, and go shake the hand of a rabbi or the high school football coach, set up a meeting with a police captain or someone involved in the Boston Main Streets Foundation, an organization that works to revitalise Boston's commercial districts.

"I always stress to students that I don't want them to be this talking head who only comes to the community when there's something bad going on," McDuffie says. "Be part of the community before you need to talk to the community. The best reporters are the ones who connect with people and engage. You can't be completely disconnected and expect to have people engage with you when you need to engage with them. It's a mutual relationship."

In class, students pitch their ideas, which must be "compelling and newsworthy," McDuffie says. Once approved, they work in pairs-swapping roles of on-air reporter and videographer-and are expected to produce at least three stories per team each semester, with some teams producing as many as six or seven.

McDuffie says her goal is to instill in students her belief that journalism is a very high form of community service. "You need to make sure that you accurately represent whatever the concerns of the community are in your story, tell the full story, and hold folks accountable," she says. "That's really important, and it's something that when you're a student can be a little intimidating, but this class is your opportunity to do it."

Natalie Candler, BNN news director and anchor, says the students' contributions are invaluable. "They bring a new perspective to the station, and it's flourished into a great collaboration."

Another benefit of the partnership is BU's global reach. Since there are students at the University who speak many languages, including Mandarin, Spanish, Italian, Cantonese, and French, young reporters in past semesters have covered stories and spoken to non-English-speaking residents in neighborhoods like Chinatown, Jamaica Plain, and the North End.

Kathy Bi (COM'25) produced this piece on a farmer's market in Chinatown, which was made possible by Chinatown Main Street.

Students leave with professional-quality reels and many land internships (sometimes with BNN) or jobs thanks to their BNN on-air work. McDuffie says many of her former students now have TV jobs in markets that include Arizona, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and New Hampshire.

One standout story came from Eloise Lushina (COM'25), who reported on heart disease in communities of color, tied to an NAACP event. Her story featured an interview with physician and Emmy Award-winning journalist Malika Marshall and a heart surgery survivor.

"I think the story came out really beautifully," McDuffie says. "And it was something that really was able to give a voice to an issue that many people don't talk about." Today, Lushina is a multimedia journalist and news reporter for WSBT22 News, a CBS/Fox affiliate in South Bend, Ind. She says the BNN experience played a seminal part in her landing subsequent internships and jobs.

"Those skills I learned-how to find the story, pitch it, set up interviews, lug the equipment, interview people, edit, write the script-are everything I do now," she says. "Professor McDuffie held us to a high standard and treated it like an actual newsroom and a real job."

Sophia Falbo (COM'25) made it a point to cover a different community with each pitch, she says, so that every community felt represented. Her segments highlighted Haley House, a Boston nonprofit that includes a soup kitchen, a food pantry, and job training, as well as Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's mobile mammography van.

Sophia Falbo (COM'25) produced this piece on the Haley House, a Boston nonprofit that includes a soup kitchen, a food pantry, and job training, as well as Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's mobile mammography van.

"Numerous news directors and job and internship recruiters were so impressed by this program," Falbo says. "They couldn't believe that BU had a partnership with BNN so students could get their packages on air in Boston. I really believe this program helped me land my current job [as a reporter at WPTZ NBC5 in upstate New York] and a few of my internships."

For Adithya Iyer (CAS'24, COM'24), the class was life-changing. Initially unsure of his future in journalism, he credits the BNN partnership for helping him land a broadcast job as a reporter at ABC affiliate WNEP16 in Scranton, Pa. "BNN wasn't about turning stories quickly; it was about understanding what was needed from a story," Iyer says. "It's a confidence thing, that your work can [exist] outside BU. It's one thing to write a story for your school paper, but it's another to have it seen by the actual community of Boston."

Brian McGrory, a COM professor of the practice and journalism department chair, says McDuffie is doing exactly what journalism professors should do-and that is provide students with real-life, real-world experience. "At the same time, she's contributing to the community by providing them with valuable journalism and insight into the neighborhoods," he says. "It's an ideal situation, where everyone benefits."

McDuffie says watching her students grow is incredibly rewarding. "I've found that through the semester, students have gotten much more confident," she says. "Seeing their work on television really gives them a boost, and they're feeling like, 'Wow, I can actually do this.'"

Want to tune in to watch? Viewers can catch BNN News on Xfinity Channel 9, Astound Channel 15, or FiOS 2161. They can also stream the broadcast live at 5:30 pm on Friday with this link. Be sure to hit the "Play video" triangle to start the broadcast.

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• College of Communication
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