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New news site for East Boston
By adamg on Tue, 04/29/2014 - 8:39am
Since January, a group of Emerson College journalism students have been covering East Boston news at All Things Eastie.
Also see:
East Boston Online.
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Comments
Well
done.
I don't get this
Am I missing something? None of the students involved in this look like they have anything to do with East Boston whatsoever. Are they using East Boston as some kind of study or something?
They're journalism students
I'm betting it's a class project. A bit unusual in the Boston area (although the Globe did use to have Northeastern students work on its Your Town sites), but it's been done elsewhere.
Its been done in Boston
I was involved in the early 90's while attending Middle School. WGBH and the "Evil" Kosh brothers funding a short program during the early implementation of the MCAS. If my memory serves me correctly its was at the Back Bay YWCA and we were actually paid, though it probably wasn't very much.
One sided
Most of the articles written have been very one sided. They tend to stick with the immigrant and Latino community input rather than East Boston as a whole.
What are you talking about?
To the person who said the stories are about immigrants, HELLO, East Boston is majority immigrant. Wake up and smell the cafe con leche.
Students vs Pros
I think it's great when a group tries to give additional news coverage and I commend Emerson for it. They are doing no harm.
But they are students and are limited. The reason why people lament the loss of beat reporters is that they have personal connections with a range of people in the community so they can do more then follow up on press releases. Someone who knows the history of a town (and not just Wikipedia history) is going to have deeper coverage and more insight then a student who has only been told that East Boston is home to many immigrants so that's an easy place to start.
No one is going to call a students for an "off the record" tip about something which might be real news and the students aren't there day in and day out to notice larger trends. That's the type of thing which needs to be learned and can't be taught.
If a student reporter contacted you
Would you give them the time of day?
They are working with the people who have stories they want told. Not pursuing people with an old towne mindset who slam doors in their faces.
I'm not seeing the problem here?
East Boston *is* a largely immigrant community, with some scattering of 'yuppies' and artists around the area between Maverick Square and the harbor.
Not a complete picture...
...unless by "immigrant" you include 2nd-3rd-4th generation Italians as immigrants alongside Colombians, Salvadorans, Vietnamese and other more recent groups.
Eastie is really in 3 parts: old school Eastie-types (mainly Italian-descent), Newcomers: White, and Newcomers: Immigrant (mainly non-white - but not entirely). That second group breaks down into the usual waves of gentrifiers -- artists, urban "homesteaders," LGBT (although that's less a phenomenon than in the South End in the 70s/80s as LGBT becomes less of a marginalized population) followed by "yuppies" for lack of a better word. It's pretty fun to see how these three different groups sort of align with one another and then move away from one another in a weird sort of dance around different issues: rising property values/rents, casino, trash in the streets, schools, class issues, etc. Never a dull moment.
As far as the student journalism project: good for them. If it sucks I won't read it - but it can't be any worse than the local papers around here. (Shirley Leung from the Globe should be pushed down a flight of stairs.)
Condescending
As a long time East Boston resident, the whole thing seems rather condescending to me. Elitist students choosing what they perceive to be an immigrant or working class community to use as a "project".
So stick to the Times-Free Press
Or whatever they call it these days. I'm sure they do a bang-up job covering only news fourth-generation white folks could possibly care about.
In the meantime, though If you scroll through all eight pages of posts on the student, you'll notice they're not all about immigrant issues. As I type this, the top three stories on the home page are not directly related to immigrants at all.
If anything, you could argue they don't go far enough covering immigrants in East Boston - where are their posts in Spanish?
You miss the point
The question is, why are they doing this at all? Not whether they are covering enough of the varied populations of East Boston, old and new. It's patronizing. Reminds me of a number of years ago when the Phoenix was still around, and some new-to-Boston writer did an article on Maverick Square, pre-renovations, and referred to it as "quaint".
I'd bet it's a class project
But patronizing? Yes, reporters parachuted into a town can be annoying, but is there anything in particular they've written you find particularly patronizing? Or do you just object to the idea?
The very idea
The entire idea of it as a class project is offensive in itself. "Let's make a PROJECT out of that cute little East Boston full of immigrants and crime and public schools and other urban things that our pampered little college asses haven't seen too much of previously. How very exciting, Muffy. How very gritty."
And you know this how?
Have you actually met any of these students? Have you actually read anything they've written?
Just a feeling
Oh, I don't know. Call it a feeling. I could be wrong. But a cursory glance at the "about us" page shows, among others, Lauren from CT, who "aspires to leave her mark on pop culture as an entertainment journalist", Kathryn from Westchester, NY and currently living in Allston (I'm not making this up), Tracy "from a family of doctors and educators", Keely from Palo Alto who has lived in Boston "just under a year", Ashley from Vermont whose idol is Katie Couric, Danielle from Long Island, and Whitney, a competitive figure skater. Exactly one person is listed as "from the Greater Boston area". And these folks settled on East Boston as their pet project.
Congrats: You've proven Emerson has students from all over
Again, you're criticizing people whose work you don't appear to have actually looked at.
And it's not like the homegrown Globe or Herald do such a hot job covering daily life in East Boston.
Brave anon....
... who finds it _so_ easy to piss on others.
adam
get off my lawn!!!
I know the professor
And some of the students. They decided to focus in Eastie as they feel stories about the community slip through the cracks. They have higlighted issues like a great project some EBHS students did on trash. The kids documented every piece of trash from one block, including what was in public trash bins. They found lottery tickets which face value totaled $6000. In one block! Certainly seems to me there are plenty of people already lured to the gambling habit. A majority of the drink cups were from Dunkin Donuts. Statistics like this tell a lot about a community and the businesses.
Develpment
I'd love it if they reported on the large amount of East Boston that WANTS change in our neighborhood. Those who want development along our waterfront, those who want to see East Boston property value rise, those who are tired of seeing low income housing take over East Boston. Those who are tired of trash in our neighborhood.