Newsroom to Help Showcase Student-Produced Special Report About the Flint Water Crisis, 10 Years Later
As the editor-in-chief of DCReport, I take great pleasure in continuing to make progress towards two key goals that we set when our publication joined the Next Echo Foundation family two years ago:
- Publish more articles about issues that are impacting marginalized communities.
- Do more to foster emerging journalists and storytellers.
Our soon-to-launch project with students and faculty from the School of Journalism at Northeastern University – Flint Unfiltered – is a big step in the right direction. As part of our new mentoring program, it’s an opportunity for our nonprofit and independent publication to fill a void in a journalism landscape that is increasingly lacking opportunity, diversity, and freedom.
Flint Unfiltered will see eight students from the Northeastern School of Journalism report on a number of important topics related to the Flint Water Crisis, including the status of lead pipe replacement and the lasting effects on the community’s real estate market, education system and residents’ bank accounts.
For me, it’s personally been a pleasure and inspiration to see young and aspiring journalists take an interest in this topic, especially as somebody that lives just 20 minutes from Flint. Likewise, it’s refreshing to see a university journalism program embrace such a project and support their students in such a dynamic and invaluable way.
“Our team of reporters went into Flint with the hope of giving voice to the water crisis victims who say they feel largely forgotten 10 years later,” said Carlene Hempel, the project’s professor. “We talked to residents who are resilient but also angry that they are still suffering without compensation. They are also upset that no one has been held accountable for one of the largest public health crises in the nation’s history.”
She noted that the students’ reports on residents’ lack of trust, their struggles with chronic illnesses such as cancer, and an examination of pending legal cases are the backbone of a digital magazine that they will publish online around April 16 – “Flint Unfiltered: Stories from an American Water Crisis.”
As part of their coverage, the “On The Ground” embedded reporting class of students will collaborate with DCReport to amplify these stories by dual publishing, joint social media posting and also collaborating on a panel discussion planned for May.
“This is exactly the kind of project and stories that we envisioned bringing to readers of DCReport more frequently when we took on the responsibility of publishing DCReport,” said Adam Leipzig, Executive Director of the Next Echo Foundation. “As we can clearly see from the current political climate, freedom of the press is under attack, as are the rights of underrepresented communities nationwide. These kinds of efforts allow us to fight back, while also achieving our core mission.”
I’m delighted to say that reporting from the students will include a variety of engaging content, such as articles, podcasts, graphics, audio recordings and more. In turn, DCRerport is working to bring you our own coverage, including Q&As with state and local officials, photo essays, allowing local residents and other stakeholders to provide their views on the situation, in their own words, as well as a web page dedicated to Flint Unfiltered.
Stay tuned for more info. Students are busy producing their pieces, and our sneak peek certainly had us coming away extremely impressed. We look forward to seeing the final results and doing what we can to amplify the work and story.
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