About the Gloria L. Negri First Amendment Institute

Journalists from a variety of media and all six New England states will gather at Northeastern University in Boston from Oct. 20 to Oct. 22 to learn the latest investigative and database reporting techniques and public records access skills. The fellows chosen for this 14th annual New England First Amendment Institute reflect today’s diverse news media and come from daily and weekly newspapers, television and radio stations and online publications. Learn more about previous institutes here.

Supporters

This year’s institute is made possible by the generosity of Northeastern University, the Academy of New England Journalists, the Rhode Island Foundation and Boston University.

In addition to those named above, we would like to thank the following Leadership Circle donors and Major Supporters for their contributions: The Boston Globe, Paul and Ann Sagan, The Robertson Foundation, Hearst Connecticut Media Group and WCVB-Boston.

Locations

In addition to local freedom of information law workshops, the Institute will be at the following locations in Boston from Oct. 20 to Oct. 22:

Northeastern University

The Institute will be held at Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue in Boston. For more than 40 years, the university’s School of Journalism has combined academic excellence with practical experience, preparing students to be analytical thinkers and successful communicators. Here’s more information on Northeastern University. A campus map can be found here.

Tuscan Kitchen

Dinner on Oct. 20 will be provided at the Tuscan Kitchen, 64 Seaport Boulevard in Boston.

The Westin Copley Place

The Institute hotel and the location of our Oct. 21 keynote presentation and dinner is The Westin Copley Place, 10 Huntington Avenue in Boston. The hotel is a short walk from the Northeastern University campus.

Institute News

• Negri First Amendment Institute Keynote Speakers and Faculty Announced
• Select Group of Rhode Island, Massachusetts Journalism Students to Attend Institute
• Meet NEFAC’s 2024 Gloria L. Negri First Amendment Institute Journalism Fellows
• Applications for Negri First Amendment Institute Now Available; Open to New England Journalists

Application Materials — (Closed)

• Application and Recommendation Form

Institute Information

• Schedule, Curriculum and Class Materials

Keynote Speakers

Jill Abramson leads the Northeastern University Burnes Center for Social Change’s Initiative on Investigative Solutions Journalism. She is a journalist who spent 17 years in the most senior editorial positions at The New York Times, where she was the first woman to serve as Washington bureau chief, managing editor, and executive editor. Before joining the Times, she was deputy Washington bureau chief and an investigative reporter covering money and politics at The Wall Street Journal for nine years. She was the editor of Legal Times in Washington, D.C. She is the author of six books, including Strange Justice, which she wrote with Jane Mayer and Merchants of Truth, a narrative history of the digital transition of the news media. From 2015-2019 she also wrote a weekly political column for The Guardian.

Lauren Chooljian is a senior reporter/producer at NHPR, the NPR affiliate in New Hampshire. She is a part of NHPR’s DOCUMENT team, a narrative-driven, long form reporting project. She is the host and reporter behind The 13th Step, a podcast about sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment industry. The 13th Step was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Audio reporting. The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Vogue called the show one of the best podcasts of 2023. Chooljian’s work has won numerous awards, including the prestigious duPont-Columbia award, a National Edward R Murrow award, an RTDNA First Amendment Award and she has been recognized by the Third Coast International Audio Festival. Chooljian has also been featured in the New York Times for co-hosting Stranglehold, an award-winning podcast about New Hampshire’s first in the nation presidential primary. She was featured again in June 2023, for the retaliation she, her colleagues, sources and family faced for her reporting in The 13th Step.

Jason Moon is a senior reporter and producer on NHPR’s Document team. He has created documentary podcast series on topics including unsolved murders, secret lists of police officers, and overdose deaths that are prosecuted as homicides. Moon’s work includes Bear Brook seasons one and two, which together have been downloaded more than 28 million times by listeners in over 150 countries. Stephen King called both seasons, “the best true crime podcasts I’ve ever heard. Brilliant, involving, hypnotic.” The New Yorker magazine called Bear Brook S1 one of the best podcasts of 2018. In 2021, Moon and his colleague Lauren Chooljian were honored with a Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition award. Before joining NHPR in 2015, Moon interned with a variety of public radio organizations including StoryCorps, Transom.org, and WBHM in Birmingham, Alabama. He graduated from Bennington College.

Sigmund D. Schutz represents the news media in First Amendment matters, defamation and privacy, state and federal freedom of information, newsgathering and cyber law. As a partner at Preti Flaherty, LLP and media law counsel for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram for more than 25 years, Schutz has served as counsel in many precedent setting public access cases in Maine. They have involved access to transcripts of 911 calls, the right to attend jury selection in criminal cases in Maine state court, access to “draft” settlement agreements to which the State of Maine is a party, access to dash cam police cruiser video, obtaining records of closed law enforcement investigations, access to state police disciplinary records and the standard for proceeding under pseudonyms in federal litigation.

Paul Singer is the Senior Editor, Equity & Justice at GBH News. Singer previously served as Investigative Editor for the GBH News Center for Investigative reporting, where he spearheaded GBH’s Life After Prison series documenting the challenges faced by thousands of people in Massachusetts who return from incarceration each year. With a group of Boston University students, Singer also led the creation of the interactive project ” Mapping the Enslavement History of the Freedom Trail.” Prior to moving to Boston in 2018, Singer served as Politics Editor for USA Today, White House Correspondent for the UPI wire service and stage manager/roadie for the National Folk Festival in Lowell (and other cities).

Faculty, Presenters and Other Speakers

Negri First Amendment Institute Fellows

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Negri First Amendment Institute Student Fellows

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