Select Group of Students to Join Annual New England First Amendment Institute This Month
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT Justin Silverman | 774.244.2365 | justin@nefac.org
The New England First Amendment Coalition is pleased to announce that a select group of student journalists from Rhode Island will be joining its annual Institute.
Now in its 13th year, NEFAC’s New England First Amendment Institute has trained about 300 local and professional journalists.
With the support of the Rhode Island Foundation, the coalition is accepting this year a group of student journalists to attend along with 25 professional reporters, editors and producers from newsrooms throughout New England. The students were all nominated by faculty members at their respective schools.
The Institute — provided at no cost to those chosen as fellows — is Oct. 29-31 at Northeastern University in Boston and features many of the country’s elite reporters, editors and media attorneys.
Keynote speakers this year are Eric Meyer, publisher and editor of the Marion County Record, the weekly newspaper in Kansas that recently made national headlines when local sheriffs raided its newsroom; Sisi Wei, Editor-in-Chief of The Markup, a nonprofit, investigative newsroom that challenges technology to serve the public good; and Brian Rosenthal, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The New York Times and the president of Investigative Reporters and Editors.
In addition to the Rhode Island Foundation, NEFAC would like to thank Northeastern University, the Academy of New England Journalists and Boston University for its support of NEFAI 2023.
NEFAI 2023 Student Journalism Fellows
From left to right.
Susan Azizi | Salve Regina University
Azizi is a transfer student majoring in English, communication and media. Previously, she was a third-year Journalism and Mass Communication student at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Azizi created a podcast that focused on stories of Afghan refugees. She also worked on a documentary where she shared her experience in Afghanistan while the Taliban took power in August 2021.
Noble Brigham | Brown University
Brigham is a senior journalism student at Brown University who hopes to spend his career in local news. He writes investigative stories regularly for The Providence Journal and interned at The Idaho Statesman this past summer as a general assignment news reporter on the accountability team. In the summer of 2022, he interned at The Virginian-Pilot as a city hall reporter.
Lauren Drapeau | University of Rhode Island
Drapeau is a junior journalism student at the University of Rhode Island and Entertainment Editor at the school’s newspaper. Drapeau works at the Digital Research and Writing Center on campus where she teach other students how to use programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Indesign and Premiere, for multimodal projects.
Tyler Jackman | Rhode Island College
Jackman is a senior and communications major at Rhode Island College. He is the Managing Editor of The Anchor, the college’s independent student newspaper. He is also the Social Media Manager for Anchor TV, the college’s student-run television station.
NEFAC was formed in 2006 to advance and protect the Five Freedoms of the First Amendment, including the principle of the public’s right to know. We’re a broad-based organization of people who believe in the power of an informed democratic society. Our members include lawyers, journalists, historians, academics and private citizens.
Our coalition is funded through contributions made by those who value the First Amendment and who strive to keep government accountable. Please make a donation here.
Leadership Circle donors include the Rhode Island Foundation, The Boston Globe, Paul and Ann Sagan, and the Robertson Foundation. Major Supporters include Hearst Connecticut Media Group, Boston University, the Academy of New England Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists Foundation, Genie Gannett for the First Amendment Museum, Linda Pizzuti Henry, the Champa Charitable Foundation Fund and Connecticut Public.