Clips of the Week

Hard to believe we’re entering the final month of the semester. Here are some of the latest results of our reporters’ continuing hard work:

• Joshua Cinelli wrote an article for City Hall about local efforts to boost the economy by luring more foreign investment.
• We all know quitting smoking saves lives and money – Francesca Levy offers a state-by-state look at the dollars kept by kicking the habit in this article-and-slideshow package for Forbes.
• Heather Chin reaped the benefits of hopping on a breaking story with her video piece about the New York Times hoax edition distributed last week. Her video accompanies an article put together in short order by the News Service class.
• Joe Filippazzo’s News Service story about Bobby Fischer’s FBI file was picked up by El Nuevo Herald, and got many blog links.
• Karina Ioffee profiled a popular sari tailor for the Queens Courier. (Note: as of this writing, the link seems to be broken. I’ll check into it.)
• Sergey Kadinsky wrote about incumbent Assemblymember Marge Markey’s reelection for the Queens Tribune (I have a copy in my office – feel free to come by for a look.)
• If you missed our latest podcasts during the week, check them out here: Health Pods, produced by Loren Bonner, Shuka Kalantari, and Djenny Passe-Rodriguez; and This Place Called Home, produced by Linnea Covington, Celina Fang, and Tyler Mitter.
• Collin (Hoops) Orcutt predicts great things for the Lakers in his latest Men’s Fitness blog post.
• Busy Barry Paddock shared a byline on this Daily News story about a drunk driving tragedy.

Not surprisingly, there’s a strong election theme this week – a sign of much more to come. Here are some of our reporters’ latest pieces:

• Rima Abdelkader’s story about the challenge foreign-language journalists are having translating “maverick,” “Joe Sixpack,” and other colloquial campaign phrases made Off The Bus. The article became our latest election piece to get big pickup, and drove a large amount of traffic to our News Service.
• Maya J. Pope-Chappell wrote about Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama for the Amsterdam News. You’ll have to register to gain access to the site, but it’s well worth the effort.
• Adeola Oladele profiled a Kenyan woman who can’t vote in the U.S. election, but is trying to make an impact by joining a Harlem-based group that traveled to Pennsylvania to register voters. Adeola’s broadcast piece can be found on the News Service.
• Ria Julien and Sandra Roa exhibited great planning and timing with this News Service broadcast story in which they covered a swearing-in ceremony for naturalized U.S. citizens on Oct. 10 – just in time for the new Americans to make the New York voter registration deadline.
• If you missed the live This Place Called Home podcast, produced by Tyler Mitter, Linnea Covington, and Celina Fang, you’ll find it here.
• Just call Sergey Kadinsky Mr. Queens. He put a fun lede on this Queens Courier short about some teens’ sewer-diving misadventure. He wrote a piece for the Queens Tribune about a schoolyard reconstruction project – and he recently was profiled by the paper (by the Class of ‘07’s Joe Orovic). The Trib pieces aren’t on-line – I have copies in my office. Come on by for a look.
• Karina Ioffee’s powerful story about the parents of a murder victim who attended the killer’s sentencing was featured in the Queens Chronicle.
• Collin Orcutt played Friday afternoon quarterback, offering football predictions for the Men’s Fitness blog.
• Matt Townsend scored a solo byline in the Daily News with his article about the return of the Concorde – as a museum piece.
• Stephen Bronner contributed to a Daily News story about pedestrian fatalities in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
• Barry Paddock covered a fire that killed a great-grandmother for the News.

Congrats to all – and keep ‘em coming.

Looks like everybody has really earned the Spring Break respite. Here are the latest fruits of your labors:

• Linnea Covington wrote a very timely story about Passover cooking for The Brooklyn Paper.
• Cristina Alesci wrote a piece for the Daily News about a program that helps train high school students for the business world.
• Claudia Cruz reported on efforts to break gridlock on 181st St. for the Manhattan Times Meeting Tackles 181st St. Gridlock(PDF).
• Joe Filippazzo’s piece about the effects of record high oil prices on fishing in Sheepshead Bay made the Bay News.
• Coney Island is filled with characters and Henry Stewart found one of them: a guy who wants to bring trolley service to the area. His story made Bay Currents (PDF).
• So, what does Eliot Spitzer do next? Carl Winfield takes a shot at that question in the latest issue of The Capitol (I have a copy in my office for anyone who wants to read the article).

Meanwhile, I just posted a slew of new TV pieces to the news service site, including stories by:

• Abimbola Ishola (About a proposed solution to traffic problems in East New York)
• Emily Mayer (On challenges faced by women boxers)
• Megan McGibney (On the Staten Island sushi boom)
• Tyler Mitter (On the increase in organic food sales)
• Adeola Oladele (On how the weakened dollar is hurting folks abroad who rely on money sent from the U.S.)
• Steve Pacer (On a new bar that’s trying to buck the economic odds)
• Djenny Passe-Rodriguez (On efforts to landmark a Chelsea building that may have been a stop on the Underground Railroad)
• Jennifer Saavedra (About confusion encountered by seniors trying to navigate the Medicare Part D prescription plan)
• Anna Limontas-Salisbury (On a Brownsville businesswoman who specializes in personalized party favors)
• Vinita Singla (On the downtown in business faced by Spa owners in Brooklyn)

Check out their great work!

Speaking of video… Be sure to watch alum Chika Osaka’s very lively piece for Reuters (I’m sorry, that’s Thomson Reuters, now) on Tokyo’s cross-dressing maid cafe.

• Our graduation speaker Angela Hill was busy until the very end of the semester, placing an article in the Hunts Point Express about plans to turn a small island off the Bronx into an environmental study center. She also wrote a story about a Queens jump rope competition for the Daily News.
• Tanzina Vega, Matt Sollars and Ana Toro touted their fine multi-media capstone projects on the Brian Lehrer TV show on Wednesday. You can also check out their work on the News Service site.
• Tanzina notched a New York Times clip with her solo byline story about a young man turning his life around – along with an accompanying slide show.
• Mathew Warren also made the Times by contributing to the Ground Zero construction accident coverage.
• Eliot Caroom wrote a piece for The Hunts Point Express about an anti-gay hate attack on two men – going beyond a paint-by-numbers crime story.
• Loren Bonner, writing for the Brooklyn Paper, chronicled the latest chapter in Victory Memorial Hospital’s fight for life.
• Matt Townsend wrote about community opposition to a liquor license application for a hotel slated to rise on E. 5th St. Check out his story in The Villager.
• Our latest podcast focuses on the shrinking music club scene – and features our own Ben Levisohn’s band. Tyler Mitter, Adeola Oladele and Jennifer Saavedra contributed reports.
• Claudia Cruz wrote about the rock ‘em sock ‘em roller derby revival for the Manhattan Times.
• And, appropriately ending on a holiday note, Shuka Kalantari made the pages of Chelsea Now with her story on Operation Santa.

• TiVo Alert: Set your DVRs for 20-20 tonight at 10 p.m., Channel 7. The story Angela Hill spent her summer working on as part of her Carnegie Corporation-supported internship with ABC’s Brian Ross Investigative Unit airs tonight. For a print preview, check out Angela’s piece on abc.com. The topic: Soldiers and Drugs.
• Loren Bonner scored a byline in The Brooklyn Paper with her followup piece on Victory Memorial Hospital’s fight for life.
• Vinita Singla also made pages of The Brooklyn Paper with her story on the impending sale of a particularly noisy Williamsburg bar.
• Vinita also combined with Joe Filippazzo, Tyler Mitter and Daniel Teigman to turn a Craft assignment into a clip with this holiday shopping story for Our Town.
• Also showing the J-School spirit of cooperation were Tanzina Vega and Mathew Warren, who both worked on this tragic story for the New York Times.
• Carolyn Nardiello scored a solo byline in today’s Times with her poignant, personal piece about family trips past to Long Island’s northern shore.
• Francesca Levy chronicled a dive bar’s planned move from the east side to the west side of W. 14th St. in this article for Chelsea Now.
• Matt Townsend offered a sobering look at rising milk and food prices in the latest edition of The Riverdale Press.
• Dorian Davis reported on the raucous City Planning Commission hearing on Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion plan in this Architectural Record article.
• Kate Pastor offered a look at some of the legal wranglings involving the Columbia plan in a story for City Limits.
• Our latest podcast explores at how the city’s older set is embracing the net. Khadijah Cole produced the podcast, with reports by Abimbola Ishola and Anna Limontas-Salisbury.
• Joe Hirsch looked at the conflict between some usual allies over the fate of the Bronx’s Oak Point rail yard. Check out his piece in The Hunts Point Express.
• Danny Massey published an article in Crain’s New York Business about the growing demand for techno-savvy advertising creatives. He also was busy for Newsday with this followup story about the lawsuit filed by the ousted principal of a Brooklyn Arabic language and culture school.
• Heather Appel was equally ubiquitous, publishing a piece in amNew York about a new online registry of accessible apartments for people with disabilities, and contributing to the Daily News’ coverage of the ongoing transit fare saga.