We started the day with a guest, Stephanie Brumsey. She is a professional journalist, willing to answer our questions. Having Brumsey in the first hour of the meeting was tremendously helpful. She answered some of the questions that I had in my mind about the journalism world. Moreover, because she was a super honest person I was able to understand the obstacles and high points of being a journalist.
One of the numerous things that she said encouraged me a lot to overcome my fear of interviewing unknown people as well as to gain confidence with myself — and that it’s OK to not like a certain topic. Further, Professor Zachary Dowdy introduced us to the base of journalism: the inverted pyramid — in order of the most important facts to the least important. He also showed us the pillars, and the importance of the lede — how journalists summarize the news in a few sentences exposing the main points of the news article while grabbing the audience’s attention at the same time.
Today was a full of knowledge, passion and understanding.
Guest speaker Stephanie Brumsey came and comforted the tense environment of first-day jitters. Brumsey enlightened us with the real hardships and experiences Journalism has to offer. She explained that journalism is about hard work and putting yourself out there. Being shy is fine, but the job of Journalism is known for being comfortable with being in public and getting information from people you do not know (and will never see again).
Confidence is key… confidence could be the element that gets you your first real job. Brumsey was able to use her encounters to explain that you are your own spokesperson. If you do not advocate for yourself to your connections and networks then you are not going to prosper as much as you could.
Brumsey then used her insecurities to allow us to realize that a story could be made from personal events. Her courage to explain her life made us understand that Journalism is a lifestyle that tells stories to the public.
Journalism brings stories to life.
After Brumsey finished sharing her experiences, we began to learn how to make a headline and a lede that will bring a reader to our articles. It was very difficult as we were always close but never right there.
Journalism is trial and error. The more we practiced the more we are going to be able to understand and become experts.
Day 3 was pretty long, but very educational. We had Long Island Herald Editor Kate Nalepinski come speak with us during a pep talk. She told us that we should read the same story from different outlets to see how the same story can be told in different ways. Then Newsday photographer John Williams gave us some tips on how to become a great photographer. Professor Dowdy even called him the greatest photographer that he has ever seen without hesitation.
As someone wanting to pursue political journalism, today was an important day for me. Today, my team got to interview Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn. It was the first time I got to interview someone who holds political office.
During the interview, I picked up on the skill to change the questions I asked to fit the direction of the interview. I could tell that Legislator Hahn cared a lot about the issues she spoke about, specifically the opioid crisis. It was an experience that will surely stand as a highlight of this program for me.
Former Greene student Kate Nalepinski, an editor at the Long Island Herald, started the day off with tips about journalism that she wished she knew going into the field. Professional Newsday photographer John Williams then shared tips about taking photos using an iPhone, mainly focusing on lighting and background. Professor Rick Ricioppo followed with basic rules for shooting video, starting off with the mantra of wide, medium, tight, super tight, action, reaction, and capture the moment, all of these different types of shots used in video stories. He went into the dos and don’ts of shooting video and shared a tip to use string to keep phone cameras steady when without a tripod. I can’t wait to try it out later!
We had a break for lunch before Professor Ricioppo continued with tips for interviewing and writing broadcast scripts, it boiling down to keeping things simple enough to be understood but still able to capture the listener’s attention. My favorite part of the day was during the press conference with Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn. She shared her life experiences and her motivations for solving the opioid crisis as well as her other motivations for running for Congress. I really look up to her and I’m excited to work on the story about her with my team.
At the end of the day, my team met to discuss our assignment and decided to do a piece on Kara Hahn battling the Opioid crisis with LICADD and a piece on Kara Hahn and Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming both running for the Democratic nomination for Congress. I can’t wait!
Today marked the start of the much anticipated Greene Institute and it started off great! Stephanie Brumsey’s opening talk was insightful and inspiring to an aspiring young journalist like myself. I specifically enjoyed her discussion about the perception of media bias.
Later in the day, I met with my team for the first time. We came up with some great ideas about the Kara Hahn story and various angles to take with it. I’m looking forward to seeing how it comes out at the end of the week. Overall, a great first day!
Today was my first day at the Robert W. Greene Summer Institute for High School Journalists! The day started off with a talk from Stephanie Brumsey, a former Stony Brook student who went into journalism. She gave us journalistic advice whilst sharing her experiences and answering our questions.
We then learned about ledes and how to structure writing pieces, using the example of “Red Riding Hood” to try and make possible ledes. We had a half-hour break for lunch before continuing on to assembling the Padcaster we had received in the mail. During this, we met the founder of Padcaster, Josh Apter, who helped with any problems that came up.
We had a break before meeting with our teams that we will be working with on an assignment topic. My team will cover Kara Hahn and Bridget Fleming, who are both running for Congress as well as voting during the pandemic. I’m so excited!!
Today’s random fun fact that I learned: When CNN/Fox/MSNBC hosts call politicians nicknames, it’s written into the script. For some reason I always assumed they were just going off script and rambling.
This was my setup for the day! I’m getting some use out of my school Chromebook so the battery doesn’t get messed up over the summer (that and my MacBook dies pretty quick so it’s not good for Zoom).
Today we learned about ledes and tried out writing some of our own. We also learned about the inverse pyramid structure for writing a story. I thought it was really interesting hearing about how it originated during the Civil War and it just stuck (as you might be able to guess by now, I like random facts, particularly when they’re history related, haha).
Welcome to the home of the Robert W. Greene Summer Institute for High School Journalists!
Our thirteenth year is off to a great start, with students from high schools on Long Island and New York City. They were accepted into the program because they all have already produced great work for their schools in the spirit of pioneering Newsday investigative reporter and editor Robert W. Greene, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a founding faculty member of Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism.
Photo by Wasim Ahmad.
Meet the 2021 Greene Team:
Ianna Banfield – Park Slope Collegiate Demi Cabness – HCZ Promise Academy 1 Charter High School Julia Capitelli – North Shore High School Alex Chen – John Dewey High School Chris Chen – Hunter College High School Emely Ou Feng – John Dewey High School Chloe Findlay – Long Island Lutheran Middle and High School Noel Gonzalez – Bard High School Early College Queens T’Neil Gooden – Leon M Goldstein High School for the Sciences Sophia Herrera – Our Lady of Mercy Academy Jada Jackson – High School For Community Leadership Shian James-Harden – Gotham Professional Arts Academy Isabella Lenarduzzi – Kings Park High School Oona Montandon – Millennium Brooklyn High School Michelle Paszek – Kellenberg Memorial High School Aarya Patel – Earl L Vandemulen High School Moriah Pettway – Baldwin High School Daniel Polonia – Baldwin Senior High School Miles Reese – Walter G. O’Connell Copiague High School Camila Rojas – Hempstead High School Chadwick Roy – Campus Magnet High School Mathematics, Science and Technology Dan Stark – Westhampton Beach High School Liliana Stella – North Shore High School Shayaan Tirmizi – Homeschooled Tyler Wong – Millennium Brooklyn High School
Each Greene Team member will work on news stories that will require them to perform key journalistic tasks on all media platforms including writing news stories, taking photographs, producing, shooting and editing video, conducting an interview, addressing a newsmaker at a press conference, posting text and images to a blog or website and covering a speech.
Each student will also work virtually on Stony Brook’s television program appearing live in front on camera at the virtual anchor’s desk or reporting live as an on-air television correspondent.
By the end of our weeklong workshop, each participant will work in a team on various multimedia assignments that will be posted here. Students will be blogging throughout the program also.
We invite you to explore the site to see the fine work the students produce!
