Clips of the Week

Some more great news this week: The NYCity News Service took Best News Site honors at the first annual eduStyle Awards ceremony. The recognition is particularly gratifying because we didn’t enter this contest — they found us. We also beat out some quality competition: Virginia Tech and Boston University were the other finalists.

The award is another tribute to your fine work. Here are some of the latest examples:

• Claudia Cruz traveled to the Dominican town of Sánchez where she found that the government has yet to provide promised new housing for many folks who lost their homes to devastating landslides.

• Matt Townsend reports on a ban on voter registration drives at VA facilities for Pro Publica.

• WARNING: This video contains footage of people eating live octopus. If you’re brave enough, check out this unforgettable food piece Fritzie Andrade helped produce for nytimes.com.

• Allison Esposito has been working with young journalists from Children’s Press Line. She helped shape this story about a Little League for children with autism. The article made the Daily News.

• Some Queens homeowners may lose part of their backyards to a city-owned nature trail, Barry Paddock reports for the Daily News.

• Danny Teigman, reporting for Newsday, talked to Long Island golfers about Greg Norman’s flirtation with history.

• The Real World is coming to Red Hook, Jessica Firger reports for The Brooklyn Paper.

• Speaking of reality TV, Craig Thompson talked to some participants in the controversial new show The Baby Borrowers for this babble.com piece.

• Elephants let their feet do the talking, Shuka Kalantari reports for Quest, a mutli-media science site put together by Northern California Public TV and Radio station KQED. Shuka also has been working for KPFA radio. She did a segment for Voices of the Middle East and North African about a photo exhibit called, “Not Given: Talking of and Around Photographs of Arab Women.”

• Clark Merrefield reports on a deal to preserve a 582-acre ranch in this Point Reyes Light article.

• Think New York rents are bad? Check out Carl Winfield’s businessweek.com slide show about the world’s most expensive cities.

• Damian Ghigliotty shows the value of follow up in this Crain’s New York Business article about the debut of a new law requiring owners of large stores to provide a recycling bin for plastic bags.

• Linnea Covington wrote about a band that’s bringing the Balkans to Brooklyn. Check out her profile of Slavic Soul Party in New York Press.

• Dan Macht assembled a slide show for the telegraph.co.uk showing a recreation of the Battle of Waterloo. He also did some rewrite on a story about a battle of another sort: Madonna’s alleged marital woes.

• In our alumni corner, Sebastian Bednarski produce a video for the nypost.com about well-traveled soccer superstar David Beckham.

• Matt Townsend placed stories about Orchard Street’s struggles – and Hillary Clinton’s struggles – on the New York Observer’s website.
• Loren Bonner followed up on the Victory Memorial Hospital closure saga for the Brooklyn Paper.
• Linnea Covington also made the Brooklyn Paper with her profile of a local karaoke king.
• Henry Stewart and Joe Filippazzo shared the front page of the Feb. 25 Brooklyn Daily Eagle with stories about Coney Island and Gerritsen Beach, respectively.
• Stephen Bronner did a quick turnaround for amNY, covering a City Council hearing on a new wireless information system for cops and firefighters.
• Cristina Alesci’s story about picking insurance policies made the Daily News’ Your Money section.
• Barry Paddock also was busy for the Daily News, earning three contributor tags in one day, and sharing a byline on this murder story where he trounced the competition.
• Two multimedia packages from Sandeep’s class, featuring some impressive teamwork, made the news service site: Lakshmi Gandhi, Christiana Oliveira and Dana Oliver combined to tell how 1,000 more fruit and vegetable carts are coming to city streets.
• Linnea Covington, Dan Macht and Mellissa Seecharan teamed to cover a protest of a company that runs senior citizen housing in New York and around the nation.

Our alumni were hard at work, too:

• Sebastian Bednarski produced a video on some young chefs for NYpost.com.
• Angela Hill reported this very timely story about racial identity and political power for WNYC.

• Check out Dana Oliver’s story about Chinese New Year’s celebrations in Sunset Park. (PDF)
• Daniel Macht and Rosaleen Ortiz put together a multi-media piece for Off The Bus on what some voters of the future (already gearing up for the 2020 election) are thinking about during the current campaign.
• Joe Filippazzo’s neighborhood profile of St. Albans made amNY.
• Lakshmi Gandhi’s guide to a podcast interview with author Manil Suri appeared on SAJA’s website.
• Mathew Warren was part of the team that produced the New York Times’ front-page story on the arrest of a suspect in the slaying of an Upper East Side therapist.
• Eliot Caroom’s story about a controversy over a composting toilet found a home in the Daily News.
• Stephen Bronner joined Eliot in the News’ Bronx section with his story about a Valentine’s Day push to teach teens how to avoid abusive relationships.
• Cristina Alesci pointed out how credit card companies aren’t following the fed’s led in cutting interest rates in this Daily News business section piece.

Our alumni also are going strong:

• Sweet Georgia Brown! Sebastian Bednarski produced a video about Harlem Globetrotters legend Curly Neal for NY Post.com. He also put together a story on the man behind the White Flag clothing line.
• Heather Appel had the honor of writing the obituary of an extraordinary colleague at the Herald News.

• AnnMarie Costella’s story about a Brooklyn do-gooder has a great lede. Check it out in the Bay News.
• AnnMarie and Melissa Seecharan combined efforts on a companion video, which I’ve posted on the News Service site.
• Stephen Bronner’s Jersey City profile made amNY.
• Mathew Warren shared a byline on this Times pre-primary piece.
• Barry Paddock contributed to the Daily News’ Giants victory hoopla.
• Cristina Alesci scored a Daily News clip with this piece about a survey that sheds doubts on whether the Washington tax rebate plan will boost the economy.
• Joining Cristina in Monday’s Daily News business section was alum Emily Stewart, whose piece on mutual funds with low investment minimums originated in Prof. Saunder’s class.
• Sebastian Bednarski worked Fashion Week for the NY Post, producing this video.
• Dmitry Kiper wrote about GodTube.com, a fast-growing video-sharing and social-networking site with Christian content for the Christian Science Monitor.

• Dmitry Kiper’s article about the latest exhibits at P.S.1 enlivened the pages of the Queens Chronicle.
• If you haven’t seen Sebastian Bednarski around much lately, that’s because he’s been very busy producing videos for the New York Post’s website. Here are just a couple examples: a quirky marathon story; and a tribute to Jam Master Jay.
• Joseph Gargiulo’s profile of a local entrepreneur made the News Service site.
• Danny Massey did a followup story for Newsday on the federal investigation of the Rev. Al Sharpton.
• Heather Appel’s story about efforts turn a forgotten Bronx park – once a dumping ground for animals sacrificed in Santeria rituals – into condos, found a home in the Daily News.
• Matt Townsend’s story about one man’s successful quest to bring a Starbucks to Riverdale also made The News’ Bronx section.
• Craig Thompson’s article on the Blip Festival, a geek electronica extravaganza can be found in Chelsea Now.
• Katherine Lurie also made the latest Chelsea Now with her coverage of a GMHC panel discussion on issues affecting HIV-positive African-American men. It’s paired on the news service with a video by Ana Toro that focuses on local black churches stepping up the fight against AIDS.
• Joe Filippazzo’s story about Sheepshead Bay residents’ efforts to turn a vacant lot into a park made the front page of the Brooklyn Eagle.
• Vinita Singla’s story about controversy about trees being planted in Brooklyn managed to make a literary allusion without invoking Betty Smith or Joyce Kilmer. It’s in the latest Courier Life here (PDF).

• Jego Armstrong and Sebastian Bednarski covered a conference on crime and politics at John Jay.
• Khadijah Cole found a whole new ball of wax at Madam Tussauds.
• Marlene Peralta profiled a Brooklyn community fixture who knew the charms of Williamsburg long, long, long before the hipsters arrived.
• If you missed it last Friday, you can find a truncated version of Angela Hill’s 20-20 piece at ABC, Soldiers Who Turn to Drugs and Alcohol.
• Our latest podcast tackles various aspects of the real estate market in New York. Emily Mayer, Megan McGibney, Marlene Peralta and Cristiana Oliveira contributed reports.
• Georgia Kral contributed to a New York Times report about a lawsuit filed against an elite private hospital in Connecticut, stemming from a patient’s suicide.
• Claudia Cruz made the pages of the Manhattan Times with her story about Hannukah celebrations in Washington Heights (PDF).
• Vinita Singla wrote about the hipster Bingo scene (PDF) in Williamsburg for Courier Life Publications.
• Cristina Alesci chronicled the complaints of Bronx tenants in some of the many buildings in the borough recently bought by an investment group. Her story made the Highbridge Horizon.
• Clark Merrefield’s piece about a Lower East Side youth program being booted from its space was published in the latest issue of The Villager.

• Damian Ghigliotty and Joe Hirsch contributed to the Queens Courier’s ongoing series about immigrant day laborers: Damian tells the inside story of clubs where men who left loved ones at home go after work and pay $2 a dance to wile away the loneliness. Joe profiled a 50-something laborer who is ready to return to his family in Mexico after a disappointing 12-year stint in the U.S.
  Damian also wrote a piece about voter apathy for the paper.
• Loren Bonner reported that Bay Ridge’s Victory Memorial Hospital appears on its deathbed in this story for The Brooklyn Paper.
• Matt Townsend chronicled the unlikely alliance between bike polo players and Lower East Side kids to stop a dogrun from opening in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Check out his piece in The Villager.
• Francesca Levy also made The Villager with this look at what little kids’ Halloween costumes say about their parents.
• Dmitry Kiper profiled Gogol Bordello “gypsy-punk” violinist Sergey Ryabtsev for the latest Brooklyn Rail.
• Marlene Peralta covered the arrest of a suspect in an Upper East Side jewelry store slaying that grabbed headlines in this Newsday story.
• Danny Massey also made Newsday with this Day 2 story about the Broadway strike.
• Andrew Hawkins is the hardest working man in City Hall. Here are just a couple of his stories: One about how some pols are riding Mayor Bloomberg’s financial coattails and this piece about effort to get the city to help veterans.
• Mariel DiSibio and Georgia Kral were busy at the New York Times. Mariel wrote about the increase in cats flooding pet shelters in Yonkers and beyond.
• Georgia reported on how a Westport school has learned what a drag it is getting mold.
• This week’s podcast was sounds as a dollar, er, euro. The sad state of the dollar and its effect on New York was the topic of the show, which featured reports by Vinita Singla and Sebastian Bednarski, who also produced the podcast. Check it out on the News Service site.
• Speaking of the News Service, Joseph Gargiulo scored our first Staten Island story: a piece about a new city bus route connecting Staten Island to Bayonne.
• Claudia Cruz had a front page piece for the Manhattan Times on anger at P.S. 314 over the Dept. of Ed’s new school rating system.

• 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.