Spring 08
FEATURED ARTICLES
 
Taking It to the Streets
Students Learn Urban Journalism in the City of Brotherly Love
 
As Temple senior journalism students Tiffany Hall and Erika Brewer walked down Girard Avenue lugging a camera, a microphone and a digital recorder, they were met with curious glances by the residents of Francisville, a small neighborhood north of Center City Philadelphia.

"At first, people were reluctant to talk to us," explains Hall. But when neighbors realized that the two girls were Temple students working on a project to collect stories in their community, they quickly opened up. "Once they realized that we wanted to hear what they had to say, they started telling us more and more about the neighborhood, its history, its problems and also what they hoped it would become… It was like they were relieved to find that, finally, someone was willing to listen to them."

Hall's and Brewer's hands-on reporting experience was the result of the Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab (MURL), a one-of-a kind class for journalism students offered by Temple's School of Communications and Theater. The four-credit laboratory course, housed in a working newsroom at Temple University Center City (TUCC), teaches students to become savvy in all aspects of multimedia, from video editing to feature writing to still photography. 		BAPTIST TEMPLE
 
More importantly, MURL embodies the Journalism Department's commitment to urban reporting and furthers its mission to better tell the stories of under-covered and under-served neighborhoods of Philadelphia. At the beginning of each semester, students choose an area of the city to investigate. They then spend the next 15 weeks engaging with the people and stories in this very specific community. The end product is a complete multimedia package including a print story, web site, podcasts and video and still photography focused on different aspects of the neighborhood.

Associate journalism professor and MURL team teacher Linn Washington, SCT '74, a former editor of The Philadelphia Tribune, explains the foundational basis of the program: "We want students to see that news reporting is not just top down; it's also bottom up. Often, news is covered as what happens in City Hall or in a corporate suite when, in fact, policies and changes that occur [in those places] impact people on ghetto and suburban streets," he says. "Unfortunately, the news media has not performed adequately in terms of getting the news from the street level on up, especially the news and perspectives of communities of color."

Like real reporters with real deadlines, MURL students juggle their time between the classroom and the community. When they are not practicing their on-theground reporting skills in Philadelphia neighborhoods, students meet for six hours each week in the state-ofthe- art multimedia lab at TUCC.

This past fall, students focused their energies in Bella Vista, Fishtown, Port Richmond, Fairhill, Mantua, Francisville and Northern Liberties. In their investigations, they covered a wide range of topics, addressing issues relevant to each community—from the residents’ anxiety about the Sugar House casino being built on the waterfront near Fishtown to the little-known urban agriculture at Greensgrow Farmer’s Market on Cumberland Street. One story enumerated residents’ concerns about parking in Fairmount while others discussed positive and negative aspects of gentrification in Northern Liberties and Francisville, the rich history of the Italian Market and the splintered racial identities of the growing Puerto Rican population in Fairhill.

Temple’s journalism department is the only one in the country that offers—and requires—this particular brand of intensive training for all of its students. According to former director Tom Petner, SCT ’75, who began the program in 2004, MURL has become a model program for other universities across the country, and for good reason. Not only do students learn bottom-up reporting skills, they also learn how to report across platforms, a necessity in an era of rapidly evolving technology and the transition from print journalism to online news. “The New York Times and Chicago Tribune are hiring videographers now and asking their print people to carry recorders,” Petner explains. “Students today must master multiple technologies along with being able to tell important stories. You can’t imagine the number of calls I get from universities in the ‘wanna-be’ stages of development.”

Former television producer and doctoral candidate Dianne Garyantes contends that the experience they receive is unlike any training MURL students would encounter in a more traditional journalism program. “They are out in the neighborhoods, looking for news, following up on story ideas and tracking down information. They’re also learning how to use various media and producing half a dozen news stories in the process.” Garyantes sees MURL’s multi-level approach as invaluable. “You have video editors writing articles, magazine writers picking up cameras and still photographers interviewing community members. These skills prepare them for where the field is going. MURL gives students an incredible edge.”
   

Initially, the idea of spending time in the unfamiliar pockets of the city can be intimidating for some students. “We weren’t sure what to do at first. We’d never really gone out in these neighborhoods and it was a little bit nerve-wracking,” says Hall. “But then we started meeting people and hearing their stories. And I think our talking to them really does make a difference. These are places that nobody cared about. But we were able to give them recognition and attention… It gave them a voice.”
 
Phil Heil, SCT '06, was assigned to Norris Square in North Philadelphia. He and his team interviewed many of the residents, and in doing so, learned not just how to tell a good story, but also how to meet each situation without preconceived notions. "I connected with the people in the community and can see the area from multiple points of view now," Heil says. "I think that as future media practitioners, we need to erase the stereotypes we often see in the news."

MURL's commitment to giving voice to undercovered neighborhoods can be seen in other areas as well. In the summer of 2007, WHYY, Congreso, a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the Latino community, and E3 Power, part of the Philadelphia Youth Network, collaborated with MURL to bring the classroom to out-of-school and disconnected youth in Philadelphia. The resulting "Straight from the Neighborhood" program offered participants between the ages of 17 and 21 training similar to what MURL was teaching at the university level. The young people canvassed the city, investigating topics such as the mayoral primaries, the resources of the McPherson Free Library in Kensington and the bright mural on Thompson Street in Fishtown. Like their college counterparts, they learned how to record and edit video, create web pages and write compelling, community-centered stories. Their final projects were then posted on the MURL web site alongside the undergraduates' work.

For high school drop-out Serge Torres, who grew up in Hunting Park and was sent to a juvenile detention center at age 11, the contact with MURL gave him a wider perspective on his own future. "I found my new hobby, video production. I'm glad that I have learned the lessons I've learned and now I take everything more seriously. Life is no joke. Now I have something to look forward to."

Likewise, the program opened doors for Temple senior Hall. In October 2007, she received a competitive semester-long internship in Manhattan at Alloy Media + Marketing, one of the country's largest providers of targeted media programs. "I think I definitely had an edge because of my experience in MURL. Temple's journalism program has a great reputation."

A look at the undergraduate students' final projects attests to the multiple journalistic skill sets that MURL provides. They have mastered key elements of multimedia technology and reporting. They have immersed themselves in an urban landscape, not as students on a field trip, but as members of a larger community. And, ultimately, they have uncovered the city of Philadelphia; not just the historical cobblestone streets of Society Hill or the green expanse of Rittenhouse Square, but also the unlit corners of Northeast Philadelphia and the playgrounds with faded paint in Hunting Park. Most importantly, they have found that what they are doing can make a difference in the world.

"We really did connect with the adults and children in Francisville," explains Hall. "Just the fact that we wanted to hear what they had to say was really huge. I discovered that a significant part of being a good journalist is simply learning how to listen. I think that's just as important as anything else. It's a lesson I won't forget."

Over the last several semesters, Washington has witnessed the progress of students like Hall as they move through the MURL program. "Students leave here with a unique set of skills. They leave with an emphasis on community reporting. That's why we have MURL. We want our students to be the best journalists that they can be."
 
To learn more about MURL or to see students' multimedia reporting projects, visit www.temple.edu/murl.