About The WORD

Spring, 2023: Work in Progress Revision


What you need to know about the WORD at hunterword.com. It was funded by a technology teaching grant from the college several years ago, and was founded through a collaboration of students and this professor and it was decided to make it a faculty-supervised student news publication. That is, the students decided unanimously that the publication should be faculty-supervised in order to protect the integrity of the publication from nefarious campus politics and subterfuges that had undermined the designated student publication known as The Envoy, which was known as the Voice of Hunter Students.

The WORD – also known as the WORD – became flesh because of the dismemberment of the Envoy as a functioning student newspaper. The WORD was subsequently funded by additional grants and support from the college and outside foundations, like the Ford Foundation (for a multimedia ethnic news project), the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation and others. It also received generous support for students from other organizations, especially New America Media and the Center for Communication, Inc.

And others.

The first WORD students wanted the publication to try to compensate for, if not fill in, the void created by the diminution of the Envoy as an authentic voice student voice for Hunter students. When that didn’t work out as well as they wanted, the student and the professor focused on developing portfolios, working on special projects and a lot of their stories focused on what was happening on campus. The WORD allowed students develop portfolios that they needed to competed for internships and jobs and journalism competitions like the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards for students. For quite a while, WORD students blaze significant trails and several of them, now alumni, are still blazing in their careers.


A Little History doesn’t Hurt

Spring, 2011
Writers from two Media 292 News Writing Sections; Contributing Writers from Media 386, Ethics and News Responsibility.
Contributing Editors:
Anne-Katrin Titze, atitze@hunter.cuny.edu – 2011 Tribeca Film Festival Project
Sahara Shrestha, sahara.shrestha@gmail.com — 2011 Tribeca Film Festival Project
T.B. Knight [A pseudonym] @ T. Knight B.


Fall 2010
Empowering Students Empowers Their Communities

Nazim Pelinkovic, Assistant Editor

WORD Writers – MEDP 292, Basic Reporting, meeting with Dr. Steven Serafin, Director, Reading/Writing Center, Hunter College.

WORD Writers – MEDP 296, Feature Writing, meeting with Dr. Steven Serafin, Director, Reading/Writing Center, Hunter College.


Spring 2010

The WORD publishing irregularly because the editor/publisher is on a temporary leave. But it does have correspondents at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Pen World Voices Festival of International Literature.

 


Fall, 2009

Senior Editors/Producers enrolled in Ethnic News Reporting, pictures unavailable – Eunji Jang, Krystal M. Bodón-Ramos, Justyna Malota and Andrea León.


Writers, Spring, 2009

End of Semester, Spring, 2009: Feature Writing, 299.47. Guess Who Got the A’s?

Special Correspondents for the 2008 Democratic National Convention:

Kisha Allison, Jacqueline Fernandez and Jonathan Mena.

Special Correspondents for the 2008 New Hampshire Primaries:
Jonathan Mena and Kisha Allison
Senior Editors/Producers:
Jonathan Mena
Contributing Writers:
Mary Max.


The WORD publishes the equivalent of three to five issues a semester, but regularly adds articles and updates stories. It started with a presidential grant and because students, Assistant Professor Gregg Morris and some staff believed student journalism should be serious journalism. It is supervised by Morris, who is the editor and publisher and it operates as an independent news medium. Please be aware that some articles and pictures in this publication are copyrighted. The commentaries and opinions reflect the views of the writers. If you like the WORD, you’ll love itsblog.

The WORD is a member of the NAM Ethnic Media Association and participates in its News Exchange.

The WORD is a dynamic experiment for teaching students journalism as well as a significant resource for helping students get internships and jobs in journalism and communications. This novel experiment has received numerous grants: More than a half-dozen from Hunter College, one from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation in 1997, the Independent Press Association of New York (now the New York Community Media Alliance) and the FORD Foundation, the latter for this instructor to experiment with a multimedia ethnic news reporting project for undergraduate students.

New America Media arranged for press passes for three students – Kisha Allison, Jacqueline Fernandez and Jonathan Mena – to report on 2008 Democratic National Convention, which is being harold as a historic moment in American history. The WORD is constantly evolving. The WORD blog is the latest development.

The WORD, more than any other faculty or student-operated news medium at Hunter and the City University of New York, has been in the vortex of the most contentious battles and issues regarding teaching, teaching students to write and the tenets of academic freedom.