Student Work | Columbia Journalism School

Sriphaphob Thanthong-Knight, '18 M.S. Stabile, sent FOIA requests to 50 states to find out whether state prisons were providing medication to thousands of inmates with Hepatitis C. He found that nationwide, roughly 97 percent of inmates with hepatitis C are not getting the cure, risking not only their health but also the health of others.

Maya Kaufman, '18 Stabile M.S., examined the failures of a special unit of the New York Police Department to investigate car crashes. Her story led the Sunday Metro section of The New York Times.

Aaron Leibowitz, '18 Stabile M.S., examined how schools are using social media monitoring firms to monitor students in the hope of preventing mass shootings and suicides. His findings were published on the Times front page.

Bianca Fortis, '19 Stabile M.S., writes for Citylimits.org about the state's requirement that the city pump oxygen into the Newtown Creek, a superfund site in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to help maintain aquatic life. Critics think the aeration systems installed in the creek may be concerning for public health, because the action pumps bacteria into the air

Gabby Shacknai, '19 PT M.S., explores Manhattan's artisinal ice cream scene AMNY. Shacknai writes "But is the allure the non-traditional flavors, the higher quality ingredients or simply the Instagram opportunity?"

Olivia Carville worked as an investigative reporter for the biggest newspapers in Canada and New Zealand before enrolling in the M.A. program in Business and Economics. Her thesis reporting led to this story about an activist investor taking on the gun industry, which ran in The New York Times. Olivia is now a reporter at Bloomberg News.

For his Master’s Project, '16 M.A., student Hassan Ghedi Santur traveled to Calais, France, over Winter Break to report on migrants in the notorious “Calais Camp.” Warscapes published his "Calais Jungle": Lives in Limbo based on that reporting, and a longer project that began with the Calais story became the e-book Maps of Exile.

Since the Covering Religion class began in 2001, classes have gone to Russia, India, Jordan and Palestine, Italy, Israel, and Ireland and Northern Ireland. The trips build on reporting students have done in New York. Multimedia work done by the class of 2017 appears at Sangam: Reporting on the religions of India. The Covering Religion class of 2018 traveled to Israel, and its reporting can be found at Godland.

For Prof. Howard French’s China Seminar, Kelsey Ables, '18 M.S., wrote about the rising tech costs for Chinese who want to jump the Great Firewall that their government uses to restrict Internet access. The Diplomat published her story.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, some celebrities and ordinary citizens vowed to move to Canada if Trump were elected. Three months after Trump took office, The Guardian published Kristin Schwab’s, '17 M.S., Master’s Project on Canada's history as a political and social haven for Americans.

The students in the 2017 City Newsroom class were awarded an Eppy for their reporting on "Killing Rikers" which set out to shine a light on the Rikers Island Correctional Facility by talking to people who knew the jail intimately such as former prisoners and guards, historians, and experts.

Students in Prof. Judith Matloff's Covering Conflict class learn how to prepare for reporting trips into conflict zones - and how to write news analyses that explain the roots of conflict to audiences abroad. Santiago J. Arnaiz, '17 M.S., wrote this analysis for Rappler, an independent online site in the Philippines. Using sources reached in New York, Arnaiz put together a story explaining how President Duterte’s drug war was distracting attention and resources from fighting terrorism.