School of Journalism partners with FOX25 News

Northeastern’s School of Jour­nalism and Boston’s FOX25 News have teamed up to pro­duce inves­tiga­tive reports that will air on the TV sta­tion starting in February.

The stu­dent jour­nal­ists in pro­fessor of the prac­tice Mike Beaudet’s inves­tiga­tive reporting sem­inar will work to uncover social prob­lems impacting Mass­a­chu­setts, scouring public records and using computer-​​assisted reporting to gather infor­ma­tion. Eight bud­ding muck­rakers have enrolled in the first iter­a­tion of the course, which will be offered to both grad­uate and under­grad­uate stu­dents at least once each aca­d­emic year.

“I want all of my stu­dents to dig deep on any given story, taking the time to ask follow-​​up ques­tions and see what else can be uncov­ered,” said Beaudet, an award-​​winning inves­tiga­tive reporter who has worked at FOX25 since 1996. “Our job as jour­nal­ists will be to keep dig­ging until we get to the truth.”

The part­ner­ship with FOX25 dove­tails with the School of Journalism’s long­standing com­mit­ment to inves­tiga­tive jour­nalism and expe­ri­en­tial learning. Over the past sev­eral years, stu­dent jour­nal­ists in Pulitzer Prize-​​winning pro­fessor Walter Robinson’s inves­tiga­tive reporting class have pro­duced more than two-​​dozen front-​​page sto­ries for The Boston Globe.

Beaudet’s stu­dents will pro­duce sev­eral mul­ti­media reports this semester, working in groups to gather data, cap­ture video, con­duct inter­views, and writeTV scripts. FOX25 will edit copy, gather addi­tional video, and vet the reports, some of which will include online slideshows and vignettes wherein stu­dents dis­cuss their muck­raking experiences.

“The stu­dents who take this course will encounter real obsta­cles that inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists face every single day,” Beaudet said. “Often­times people won’t want to hear from us and we’ll have to find ways to nav­i­gate the story.” Noted FOX25 news director Lee Rosen­thal: “We look for­ward to making a dif­fer­ence by working with these stu­dents and North­eastern University.”

Elijah Kaplan, AMD’16, is taking the course to hone his watchdog reporting skills and mul­ti­media prowess. “Real-​​world work will lead me to becoming a more effec­tive reporter,” he said. “I want to affect the world in a pos­i­tive way through mean­ingful reporting that trans­lates to real change.”