Current Magazine student Elizabeth McNamara rides the bus to D.C. for the Washington Post.

Fueling the future? The hunt for a sustainable biofuel

Magazine/Portfolio student Robynne Boyd's article appears in appears in the Earth Island Journal.

Professor Mary Quigley in Newsday on a remedy for the empty nest.

Professor Dan Fagin on air pollution's toll on children in Scientific American.

"Canadians Among Us!,"

CRC student Leigh Kamping-Carder's piece about the Canadian "Newest New Yorkers" appears in The New York Observer.

AFRICA DISPATCH 2008

While totally immersing themselves in West Africa culture as part of various reporting and writing projects, participants in the Summer 2008 Africa Dispatch uncovered a treasure trove of feature stories along the way. From the elation that soccer conjures, to the frenzied affection for Barack Obama and even elaborate crafting of coffins. Here is a selection of some of those stories along with photographs and some video.

A website on new approaches to journalism education produced by Professor Mitchell Stephens and former graduate student Sarah J. Hart supported by a Carnegie-Knight grant through the Kennedy School.

CRC alumnus Thomas Rogers gauges the media's coverage of the Thomas Beatie pregnancy. Salon, July 3, 2008.

By the time Thomas Beatie, "the Pregnant Man," strode across Oprah Winfrey's stage on April 3, his story had already become a worldwide phenomenon. Beatie — a transgendered man who was born a woman and became pregnant through artificial insemination — had captured headlines, and worldwide attention.

CRC alumna Jana Prikryl looks at the poems of forgotten Scandinavian poet Henry Parland. The Poetry Foundation Online Journal.

The first thing to know about Henry Parland is that you're excused for never having heard of him. While he is a recurring name in books on Scandinavian literature, his death at 22, in 1930, ensured his eclipse. His work itself is defined by compression and jagged wit, qualities that — at least during the confessional half century following his passing — seem to lend dispatch to an already amputated oeuvre, and the scarcity of translation from the Swedish would appear to have sealed his literary fate. Yet by the time Parland died of scarlet fever, he was an important figure in Finland's active Swedish-speaking literary scene.

2008 NewsDoc alumni James West's new book from Penguin (Australia) and Cuttyhunk (US) US, on the year he spent as an exchange employee from Australia at China Radio International, exploring the Beijing tourists rarely encounter, from dancing on the Great Wall at a rave, to asking candid questions of budding entrepreneurs and successful business people by day and exploring China's new frontiers of bloggers, punk-rock dens and underground gay (tongzhi) and lesbian (lala) culture by night.

Prof. Perri Klass' new novel, The Mercy Rule.

The Mercy Rule is a novel about the all-important job of taking care of children. Lucy’s work takes her back into the world of families living on the edge, where every day she must decide whether a parent’s actions are so incompetent—or so clueless—that a child is in danger. It’s her job to make the call, and to step in when she has to. As she moves between her disparate worlds—from worrying about her own brilliant but odd son being labeled with a diagnosis to worrying about parents struggling with drugs and impossible living situations—Lucy must judge herself as a parent, critique other parents, and also deal with the echoes of her childhood.

In Far Rockaway, Pretty Beach Meets Housing Bust

Portfolio and Reporting New York student Matt Schwartzfeld tells the story of the Rockaway Peninsula's tortured development history in City Limits.

The Rockaway Peninsula's tortured development history enters its latest chapter, with ill-fated spec buildings disintegrating next to successful new housing development, and a rezoning belatedly attempting to instill order.

…and five other vexing medical-ethics dilemmas, examined.

Prof. Mark Dery on Scott McClellan in the Los Angeles Times

CRC alumna Lamar Clarkson reports on artists exploring innovative solutions to environmental problems. Art News, June 2008.

From recycling urine and testing algae to creating animal habitats and transforming landfills into parks, artists are finding novel and sometimes quirky ways to heal the world.

CRC Professor Katie Roiphe's most recent book has been published in paperback by The Dial Press.

Originally published in hardcover last June, Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939 received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which called it "vintage Roiphe: provocative, dishy, substantive and fun." Using biographical sketches of historic literary figures ranging from Rebecca West to Radclyffe Hall, the book probes our contemporary notions of attraction and affection. Writing for the New York Times Book Review, Tina Brown declared it "the perfect bedside book for an age like our own, when everything is known and nothing is understood."

Dr. Perri Klass, professor of Journalism and Medicine, in the The Moral of the StoryNew England Journal of Medicine.

Prof. Michael Norman on remembrance in the Lives column of The New York Times Magazine.

CRC alumnus David Ng talks with the actor/director about his new stage work, based on the life of serial killer Jack Unterweger. Los Angeles Times, May 2, 2008.

The choreography of murder is a messy business. For Malkovich, it's an artistically challenging one as well. The actor is playing real-life Austrian serial killer and bestselling author Jack Unterweger in a world premiere production, "Seduction and Despair," scheduled to run this weekend at Barnum Hall Theatre in Santa Monica.

Malkovich is no one's idea of a conventional movie star, so it should come as little surprise that when working on stage he gravitates toward projects that are eccentric and potentially disturbing. "Seduction and Despair" is an unabashedly experimental work that combines elements of theater, opera and digital video art into what its creators hope will be a new artistic form.

"The Meat of the Matter,"

Magazine/Portfolio student Justine Sterling had her chat with a bloodthirsty carnivore in Saveur chosen as an article-of-the-week by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

CRC director Susie Linfield reviews the "Archive Fever" photography show. The Nation, May 5, 2008.

Peppered with moving, thought-provoking elements, the photographic exhibition "Archive Fever" is fascinating but essentially incoherent.

CRC Professor Katie Roiphe reviews Germaine Greer's Shakespeare's Wife. The New York Times Book Review, April 27, 2008.

The prevailing image of Ann Hathaway is that of an illiterate seductress who beguiled the young Shakespeare, conceived a child and ensnared him in a loveless union. Germaine Greer's task in her ingenious new book, "Shakespeare’s Wife," is to expose the construction of this fantasy, tracing its evolution from early biographers like Thomas de Quincey through the work of respected modern scholars like Stephen Greenblatt. "The Shakespeare wallahs," she writes, "have succeeded in creating a Bard in their own likeness, that is to say, incapable of relating to women."

Professor David Samuels has published a collection of his long-form narrative journalism and essays for Harper's and The New Yorker titled Only Love Can Break Your Heart.Critic Michael Washburn wrote in The New York Observer: "With an intelligence and unsparing lucidity reminiscent of Joan Didion's work circa Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968), Mr. Samuels has written some of the best long-form literary journalism of the past decade."

The collection, which has also received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, was published by The New Press along with The Runner: A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue, an expanded version of Samuels' 2001 profile of Hogue in The New Yorker. Kirkus Reviews has called the book "a dizzying, exhilarating tale of deception, duplicity and the search for personal identity."

Professor James McBride's's book, Song Yet Sung looks to both the past and the future not only of the black community, but of America itself, as his story poses questions about the true meaning of freedom, redemption, and justice. His is a morally complicated world, in which people may be seen as black or white, but right choices often are not. Yet it is also a world in which the infinite human capacity for love transcends all else, including issues of race, identity, and conflict. Song Yet Sung will resonate powerfully for his legions of devoted fans and draw thousands of new readers of transfixing, touching, eloquently written fiction of consequence.

Professor Adam Penenberg leads Fast Company with a profile of Ning's founder.

CRC alumna Hailey Eber examines the vogue of lo-fi photography in the digital age. The Brooklyn Rail, April 2008.

"Nonfiction: Weird America"

CRC alumnus Thomas Rogers reviews Gregory Gibson's new book, Hubert's Freaks. The Brooklyn Rail, April 2008.

"Noise-Pop, Rachael Ray, and the Magic Box: SXSW 2008"

CRC alumnus John S.W. MacDonald crams 2,000 bands into four days at Austin's annual music festival. The Brooklyn Rail, April 2008.

"Don't Hate the Nader, Hate the Game"

Current CRC student Charly Wilder reviews William Poundstone's latest book. The Brooklyn Rail, April 2008.

"Just Another American Dreamer"

CRC student Vincent Rossmeier reviews and interviews writer David Samuels about his new book, The Runner. The Brooklyn Rail, April 2008.

"Hobsbawm's Empire"

CRC student Leigh Kamping-Carder reviews the latest collection of essays from celebrated historian Eric Hobsbawm. The Brooklyn Rail, April 2008.

"Ballet as a Reality Show," "Diana Vishneva at City Center"

Current CRC student Margaret Fuhrer has two pieces on dance in the April issue of The Brooklyn Rail. In "Ballet as a Reality Show," she writes about a surprisingly well-attended open dress rehearsal held by the New York City Ballet, and in "Diana Vishneva at City Center," she reviews internationally renowned ballerina Diana Vishneva's foray into contemporary dance.

Long the domain of male performers, the drag scene has gradually given birth to a movement of women known as faux queens. Storming cabaret stages from coast to coast, these flamboyant females are seizing the fake lashes from their gay boyfriends, and proving that sisters are gluing it for themselves.

CRC alumna Evie Nagy reports on women who impersonate women. Bust, April/May 2008. The article was also edited by a CRC alumna, Priya Jain, who is the features editor at Bust.

CRC alumnus John MacDonald reviews the latest Sun Kil Moon record. The Village Voice, April 1, 2008

CRC student Vincent Rossmeir talks politics and media coverage with Paul Waldman, co-author of Free Ride: John McCain and the Media. Salon, April 4, 2008.

It was a tale of sex, violence and a young girl crossing the color line. It was raw, gripping, sad and triumphant, tracing the heroine's successful escape from an environment of abandonment, abuse, poverty and gangs. It was supposed to be true.

Not a word of it was.

Alumna Stacey Patton in The Washington Post on the Margaret Seltzer memoir hoax

Current CRC student Leigh Kamping-Carder writes about failing G train activism. The New York Observer, March 21, 2008

As infomercials move into mainstream TV, heed these tips to avoid scams.

Alumna Gergana Koleva writes about infomercial scams and how consumers can protect themselves from being hoodwinked by them. Dow Jones MarketWatch.com, January 21, 2008

CRC alumnus and NYU teaching professional Dennis Lim reports from the Berlin International Film Festival. The New York Times, February 16, 2008.

CRC alumna Kathryn Joyce looks at how U.S. religious right activists are seizing on immigration anxieties and falling "Western" birth rates in European countries as an opportunity to export U.S. culture war tactics abroad. The Nation, March 3, 2008.

CRC alumna Meline Toumani reports from Turkey on the Kurdish crisis and one man's attempt at multiculturalism. The New York Times Magazine, February 17, 2008.

INSIDE The Chelsea Hotel (Powerhouse Books) by acclaimed photographer and NYU Department of Journalism alumna Julia Calfee releases the end of March and promises a glimpse of the iconic Chelsea Hotel not seen before and not likely to be seen again.

That garden stone, handmade carpet or embroidered T-shirt you just bought was probably made by child labor.

Portfolio alumna Megha Bahree's report for Forbes on child labor in India.

An interview on the difficulties of reporting with cameras in Iraq with Omer Salih and Marcela Gaviria:

• Omer Salih, Iraqi Doctor turned filmmaker of "Baghdad Hospital: Inside the Red Zone," recently on HBO, winner of International Current Affairs Emmy. The film depicts the life of doctors and patients amid the daily violence during the peak of violence in 2006.
• Marcela Gaviria: producer of "Gangs of Iraq," for Frontline. The film unearths the facts behind the US strategy in Iraq.

This year's graduate film festival showcases the diversity of our students. The stories range from the Bronx's homeless gay youth and a community organization called Petrobronx to bedbugs invading the entire city; from the role of Pakistani women, the inspiration of an assassinated leader in Lebanon to the problem of AIDs in the Dominican Republic and child labor in Ghana; from mail order brides, prisoner rights and Asbury Park decay to the disappearing fishermen in Chesapeake Bay.

View the flyer with films and summaries »

True Stories: Prof. Ted Conover's foreword to the new book by Norman Sims, True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism (Medill Visions of the American Press, 2008). Prof. Conover also reviews Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Street, by Sudhir Venkatesh, in the February 4 edition of The Nation.

Prof. David Samuels has an account of George Bush's recent trip to Ramallah in the February 13th issue of The New Republic titled The Father of Palestine.

He also has a piece in the February issue of Men's Vogue about a trip he took with his old Jewish gangster uncle Myron to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay.

Prof. Robert S. Boynton looks at one of modern journalism's prohibitions. From the January/Februray 2008 issue of Columbia Journalism Review.

An influential religion struggles with how to tell the story of its past.

Prof. Mark Oppenheimer on Mitt Romney's run for the presidency and Mormonism's growing influence, in The Boston Globe.

Alumna Shomial Ahmad with an audio piece on an unlikely business: a North Texas butcher shop busy with orders for the Muslim holiday Eid ul Adha. First run on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.

Undergraduate Sarah Lynch reports on NYU's environmental efforts for CNN's "CNNU".

Prof. Mohamad Bazzi reports for The Nation on Muqtada al-Sadr's long view strategy and decision to go back to school -- to become an ayatollah, which would give him vast influence in Iraqi life.

CRC graduate student John MacDonald looks at the growing practice of non-Jews hiring mohels to circumcise their baby boys, for The Forward. The story was also discussed on The New York Times' well-known blog Freakonomics.

Where have all the nurses gone?

A shortened version of alum Barnaby Lo's documentary on the flight of medical professionals from the Phillipines is featured on the PBS Frontline "Rough Cut" site. Lo originally created the piece for the Advanced News and Documentary class at NYU, and it was part of the New Docs: The 2007 Graduate Film Festival.

Visiting Professor Dean Olsher discusses the transcendant properties of music on All Things Considered, December 14, 2007.

Rumor had it that a crocodile lived at JFK Airport — an anonymous source spilled the beans.

Alumna Sabine Heinlein searches the tropics of eastern Queens in the Dec 2007/Jan 2008 issue of The Brooklyn Rail.

Alumna Freda Moon reports on the tensions between cabbies and owners in the New Haven Advocate.

In pushing its free-trade pact with Colombia, the administration is arguing for an anchor of democracy and capitalism in an increasingly hostile region.

CRC and Portfolio alum Adam Graham-Silverman with a cover story in the December 3, 2007 issue of CQ Weekly. Download as PDF (570K)

NE Charter School Uses Innovative Program to Combat Teen Pregnancy

NYC Mosaic publishes original stories about immigrants — legal and undocumented — and immigrant life in New York City. The online news site is produced by New York University student reporters in the journalism course “Undocumented NY” with Professor Evelyn Hernández. Read it!

Inside one young man's quest to remain in New York City, rather than be returned to the violent setting he fled by foot nearly two years ago.

GLOJO alumna Gabriela Reardon in the November 26, 2007 City Limits.

A special report for MarketWatch from Portfolio alumna Polya Lesova looks at how military and political developments are affecting Turkey's economy and rising profile in world markets. The package consists of multiple articles and a video overview.

Alumni Dustin Roasa writes from Cambodia for The American Scholar, Autumn 2007.

Prof. Mohamad Bazzi in The Nation on Syria's ongoing jousting with the U.S.

Also see "U.S. must cut ties to Pakistan's dictator" in New Jersey's The Star-Ledger.

Faculty member Michael Norman this November reprises in an article (published in a special magazine by the Vietnam Veterans of America to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.) an introduction he wrote to The Wall: Images and Offerings from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Collins Publishers, 1987. The magazine was produced by the Boston Publishing Company. Download the PDF (3.4 MB).

Pakistan has been in turmoil for months, and its nascent television news industry has been following each twist and turn of the historical drama. But this weekend, President Musharraff announced he would put Pakistan's democracy on hold, and he is doing his best to put blinders on television news as well. He will have his hands full.

Portfolio student Shahan Mufti in the Columbia Journalism Review.

The British philosopher Antony Flew was one of the West's most influential nonbelievers. Then came news — from conservative Christians — that he had recanted. But his change of heart may not be what it seems.

Prof. Mark Oppenheimer in The New York Times Magazine, Nov. 4, 2007.

Why the home of a freed slave should be kept where it stands.

Alumna Stacey Patton's Op-Ed in The New York Times.

Yale vs. Roomba: The feud that fried a famous restaurant.

Alumna Freda Moon's cover story on the saga of a six-year property battle between two hard-working restaurateurs and the city's most important institution, Yale University. In the New Haven (Connecticut) Advocate.

All over the sprawling Salt Lake suburbs, the writing’s on the wall(s).

Portfolio alum Jonah Owen Lamb explores the wide world of "graf" in the suburbs of Salt Lake City for the Salt Lake City Weekly.

The story of how two women struggled to reconcile the passions of the historic 1957 desegregation in Little Rock — a remarkable journey throu