JRL Students Make News

Our Journalism students and graduates continue to make news -- literally. Here is a short list of projects and jobs our students are working on:

Journalism Honors major Nick Antz was such a quick study that, within a couple of months of graduating, he turned an internship into a job. Manager of social media at WNYT TV, he runs the twenty-five web sites in their NewsCafe. "I can definitely use UAlbany students to post for us," says Nick, "and I would kill for someone who could give me 150 words, every three days, from Fort Edward or Gloversville."

Ian Pickus is a Saratogian who got his start in journalism flogging daily racing sheets at the track. He covered sports for the ASP and graduated with a B.A. in Journalism and English and an M.A. in English. After reporting for the Associated Press and The Saratogian, he began working as a producer at WAMC in 2008. He anchors newscasts, contributes to The Roundtable, and produces The Capitol Connection, Congressional Corner, The Academic Minute, and other programs. In 2010, he received Edward R. Murrow and Associated Press Broadcasters Association awards for his production work.

Nick Reisman went from editing the Albany Student Press to working in Glens Falls for The Post-Star, where he stirred up enough trouble in his first year on the job to get the paper awarded a Pulitzer Prize. How do you do that? You file a FOIL request for the names of all the local people holding pistol permits. Fellow reporter Mark Mahoney's "relentless, down-to-earth editorials" defending Reisman and arguing against "the perils of government secrecy" were cited by the Board when they awarded the Post-Star a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2009.

"My journalistic chops were honed on the UAlbany campus," says Reisman. "Thanks to my experience at the ASP, I got to cover campus crime and other hot-button issues important to students. Before I knew it, I was an intern reporting from the State Capitol and working at The Daily News in New York. If it wasn't for the Journalism Program's diverse classes that drill the basics and teach emerging multimedia technology, I wouldn't have got my job at The Post-Star." Since 2011, Reisman has been working as a reporter for the Time Warner cable news television channel YNN.

Wenwen Ren, an international student from China, who arrived in Albany three years ago barely speaking English, now has her sights set on attending the Columbia School of Journalism. In the meantime, here is Wenwen working as a reporter for SinoVision out of their New York bureau. The story is about a Shanghai artist opening a show in New York.

Lauren Russo, a cum laude English and Journalism major, is headed to grad school in the Media Studies program at the New School, where she plans to "focus on writing, documentary films, media theory, editing, and everything else that makes me love this program, where the possibilities are endless!" Not even a merit scholarship is enough to save her, though, from "an apartment search in the boroughs, since living in Manhattan is for millionaires nowadays."