Clips of the Week

The weather is getting cooler, but our hot streak continues. Here are some of the latest pieces:

• It’s not even Halloween, buy many of us already are beginning to think about holiday travel plans. Before sure to check out these Forbes.com pieces by Francesca Levy  about the best and worst times to fly and  how to save on holiday travel.
• Joshua Cinelli tackles the potential impact of Wall Street’s woes on public pension systems for City Hall.
• Jenni Avins’ story about a former temple that’s been reborn as a mosque made the Queens Courier.
• H’Rina DeTroy’s article about East Village anger over the slow pace of a playground rebuilding project was featured in The Villager.
• H’Rina was joined in The Villager by Matt Townsend, who wrote about a pedestrian mall improvement plan along Allen Street.
• Megan McGibney put together a video piece for nypost.com on the race Staten Islanders seem to care about most this year: the contest to replace disgraced Rep. Vito Fossella.
• Abi Ishola’s been hosting the News of the Week segment for CUNY TV’s Independent Sources, a new show, produced by Prof. Prout, about the ethnic media. Abi’s segments are usually about 17 minutes into each show. But be sure check out the full broadcasts – it’s a great way to learn more about what’s going on, and to pick up story ideas and pinpoint more potential outlets for your work.
• Annie Shreffler’s been added The Huffington Post’s OffTheBus masthead for a feature she started, called Eyes and Ears, which solicits fun election-related items.
• Barry Paddock covered a heartbreaking fatal fire story for the Daily News.
• Caitlin Drexler dished up some food-world news for Saveur’s Word of Mouth blog.
• If you missed this week’s live audio webcast of Health Pods – produced by Loren Bonner, Shuka Kalantari, and Djenny Passe-Rodriguez – check it out here.
• Vinita Singla’s timely TV piece about voter registration drives and her companion print story made the News Service.

Congrats to all – and keep ‘em coming!

I got word yesterday that we’ve received a Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence award in the Best All-Around Independent Online Student Publication category for Region 1, which covers Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Central/ Eastern Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. Long story short, we have a shot at the SPJ’s national award in this category come September.

The well-deserved recognition is a tribute to all your hard work and dedication, which also can be seen in this latest batch of clips:

• Rebecca Harshbarger reported on the controversy over redeveloping the Bowery for The Villager.
• Joe Filippazzo’s piece about a split in a Manhattan Beach civic group made the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
• Dan Macht noted the 20th anniversary of the Campaign Finance Board for City Hall News.
• Linnea Covington’s profile of musician Shara Worden found a home in the Brooklyn Paper.
• Mathew Warren contributed to this New York Times congestion pricing story.
• Kate Lurie’s story about seemingly recession-proof pet pampering made Chelsea Now. Kate also notched a Daily News clip with her story about a program that aims to keep troubled teens out of juvenile lockups.
• AnnMarie Costella also made The News with her story about Brooklyn librarians and parents banding to fight RIF program cutbacks.
• Annie Shreffler’s been working on a cool poetry project for WNYC.
• In our alumni corner, Heather Appel’s slice-of-life feature about a Passaic store graced the front page the Herald News.

• Claudia Cruz was busy in two states, heading to her old stomping grounds of Ohio and filing three pre-primary story packages for Off The Bus. Check out her work, here, here and here. She also found time to file an article – in English and Spanish – for the Manhattan Times about a first-of-its-kind study of spending habits of Dominicans in the U.S.
• “Busy” Barry Paddock also was hard at work. He contributed to several Daily News stories, including covering a murder at his local supermarket ! He also scored his first Daily News solo byline with this light, bright and tight Page 2 story about a Fay Wray scream-a-like contest at the Film Forum. An expanded version of Barry’s live-in piece about an author who turned his job at Chelsea specialty foods store in a book was picked up by Chelsea Now.
• AnnMarie Costella’s story about a new controversy surrounding Harry Houdini’s death made the Daily News.
• Maureen Ker took a run of the mill wire piece about a medical study on acupuncture and fertility, and gave it a local angle – and a (very cute) human face. Her story – complete with a picture of a happy mom and her newborn daughter – was published in am New York.
• Jessica Firger’s story about a bunch of clowns with a serious message made Beyond Race magazine’s website, along with one of her pictures.
• Exhibiting some good street reporting and teamwork, Roisin O’Connor-McGinn, Rosaleen Ortiz, Annie Shreffler and Mathew Warren hit Chinatown the day after a much-ballyhooed raid on peddlers of counterfeit designer good. They found some hawkers who were still doing business. The team’s multi-media package can be found on the News Service.
• Clark Merrefield’s story about the battle to unionize part-time workers at the Lower East Side Tenement museum also can be found on the News Service.

Speaking of the News Service… check out our new News Map. Special thanks to Drew Geraets, Joe Filippazzo and Dana Oliver for making it happen.

• In our alumni corner, Tanzina Vega’s feature about Colombian party buses in NYC not only made the New York Times’ Sunday paper, it also was the day’s most emailed Metro section story.

• Lakshmi Gandhi and Daniel Macht contributed pieces to the Huffington Post’s Off the Bus political blog. Look for a lot more this weekend on Off the Bus from Lakshmi, Dan and the rest of our Team New Hampshire as they head north for the pre-primary hoopla.
• Dan also was busy for the Queens Courier, writing a story about a Jesse Jackson-led demonstration decrying the foreclose crisis, which is hitting Southeast Queens particularly hard.
• AnnMarie Costella also contributed to the Courier with this story about shortages at food pantries.
• Annie Shreffler covered a Haitian community holiday party in Spring Valley for the Journal News.
• Shuka Kalantari wrote an article for Chelsea Now about holiday cards designed by folks with mental illness.
• Mathew Warren contributed to a bunch of Times stories during the holiday week, including this local take on the San Francisco tiger tragedy.
• Check out David Chiu’s piece in the NY Press on British singer Kate Nash.

• Two of our reporters scored solo bylines in the Times this week: Mathew Warren covered the funeral of a Queens soldier that combined elements of the young man’s Buddist background with U.S. military ceremony. And Carolyn Nardiello wrote about vintage car buffs on Long Island who are keeping the tradition of “cruise nights” alive.
• David Chiu was a busy man, publishing two “Critic’s Picks” in New York magazine here and here as well as a short profile for the New York Resident of a Dylan- and Warholian-era figure who sounds like she came right out of the movie “Almost Famous”.
• Annaliese Griffin wrote a great profile of eccentric “Bad Lieutenant” director Abel Ferrara for The Reeler.
• Kate Pastor held NYCHA’s feet to the proverbial fire in a City Limits piece about how new flexibility in federal funding regulations may mean a hit for Section 8 rent subsidies.
• Dan Rivoli wrote about a century-old great-grandmother who seems to have packed in about 200 years of living in this Daily News story. He also contributed to this fun political piece on which presidential candidates are shaping up as Halloween favorites.
• Dorian Davis revealed how the city is clamping down on its controversial practice of allowing architects to self-certify building plans in this article for Architectural Record.
• Danny Massey was there as the ousted principal of Brooklyn’s new Arab language school broke her silence and revealed she had reapplied for her job. He published the piece in Newsday.
• Brigid Bergin covered the Asian Harvest Moon Festival in Flushing for the Daily News.
• Andy Hawkins, writing for City Hall, was on the union beat this week: He chronicled the fight to start a union at the mayor’s media firm, Bloomberg LP, and described the cold war between the mayor and the PBA.
• Annie Shreffler wrote about a community push to make sure that jobs generated by retail stores planned for the Kingsbridge Armory pay a living wage. Check out her lead piece in the Norwood News.
• Matt Townsend and Barry Paddock helped fill the pages of The Villager this week. Matt wrote about community cries to restore the old LaGuardia Bath House and about how a stalled, partially completed construction project on the lower East Side has brought vermin and chased away business. Barry’s piece — about a lower East Side shop makes “designer” doughnuts, is guaranteed to bring out the Homer Simpson in you (well, at least in me).
• In another story with Meet-the-Editors-night origins, Kathryn Lurie described merchants’ distress over how new, wider bike lanes on a stretch of Ninth Ave. are taking away parking spaces – and chasing away business. Check out her article in Chelsea Now.
• Long story (not-so) short: Amanda Michel, who runs Off the Bus, a Huffington Post offshoot dedicated to using citizen journalists to help cover the presidential campaign, attended Prof. Jarvis’ conference and spoke with me (among others), about getting our reporters involved. An opportunity came up this past Saturday and Daniel Macht answered the call. The story he contributed to can be seen here. Here are the reports Dan and others filed. A story – about the story – made the Christian Science Monitor.
• Here’s a birthday shoutout to Manny Jalonschi who is marking the release of the latest issue of Beyond Race magazine, where he serves as deputy editor. He also wrote profiles of Brooklyn Councilman Charles Barron and Tommy Chong (Cheech’s old partner).

• Mathew Warren worked on several stories for the Times this week, including this solo piece about Betsy Gotbaum’s ill-fated stepdaughter-in-law.
• Georgia Kral was also busy for the Times, contributing to this story about a lawyer who admitted to destroying evidence in a child pornography case.
• David Chiu proved himself the leader of the pack (groan) in this Queens Chronicle piece about the unlikely comeback of Mary Weiss, lead singer of the Shangri-Las.
• Laura Silver chronicled the meetup of all the city’s meetup groups for City Limits.
• Nadia Zonis told Daily News readers how some teen Queens won a citywide contest with their public service ad warning against reckless driving.
• For this story, Matt Sollars talked to Mets fans. He also contributed to a crime story in the Daily News.
• Dan Rivoli told Daily News readers about Ray Kelly’s visit to Brooklyn Heights in the wake of a spate of anti-Semitic graffiti in the neighborhood. And he got to go to a wedding – and get a solo byline – in this story.
• Annie Shreffler reported on a marching band competition for the Journal News.
• Heather Appel also went north for this story about a new Italian cultural center in Tuckahoe.
• Juliana Bunim, Tim Catts and Matt Sollars combined on a multi-media package about training sessions to teach restauranteurs how to cook without those nasty trans fats.
• Prof. Lieberman wrote about a topic very much in the news – the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) – in this piece for The Nation.

• Mathew Warren shared a byline on this New York Times story about a fatal hit-and-run on Houston Street.
• Annie Shreffler wrote about the struggles of small contractors to get subcontracting work on large public projects – such as the Croton Water Treatment Plant in Van Cortlandt Park – in this piece for the Norwood News.
• Claudia Cruz wrote about a health fair for cabbies (PDF), held at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, for the Manhattan Times.
• Sebastian Bednarski did a segment for Brooklyn Independent Television’s Sports Talk show on a martial arts master who teaches troops at Fort Hamilton. The teacher? Our own Officer George Cermak. Cathy Jedruczek assisted with the interview of George in Bryant Park. The segment is about 12 minutes into the show.
• Amy Goldstein covered the opening of a new playground next to a Long Island City elementary school. Amy went beyond the ribbon-cutting hoopla, and gave the piece some depth with relevant statistics and other context. Her efforts, aided by Emily Keller, were featured in this week’s Queens Courier.
• A two-part investigative series Danny Massey assisted with led Sunday’s Newsday.
• Heather Appel scored a solo byline in the Daily News with her story about Iranians in New York weighing in on the Ahmadinejad visit.
• Matt Sollars also contributed to the Ahmadinejad coverage and to this piece on a major crib recall.
• Andy Greiner gathered reaction for this Daily News story about a City Council bid to penalize owners of messenger services and restaurants whose employees ride their bikes on sidewalks.
• Prof. Anthony DeCurtis hit a high note with this great New York Times Art & Leisure cover piece chronicling the resurgence of Frankie Valli.