Four Wagner College students participated earlier this month in a conference
sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) at the Craig Newmark
Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in Times Square.
The two-day conference on May 2 and 3 drew 200 professional journalists and
journalism students from the tri-state area and featured more than 60 concurrent
sessions on topics ranging from media law to data reporting and fact checking
under the theme, “Reporting in Turbulent Times.”
Cameron Kirkland, Sadie Kottich, Naseem Rahman and Avery Stirling represented
Wagner at the event and pitched in as volunteers at the registration area. They
toured The New York Times and met with Polo Sandoval, a CNN correspondent
who covers a wide range of breaking-news stories across the country.
The students also spoke with representatives from the Student Press Law Center,
the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Journalists Association of New York and
the Journalism and Women’s Symposium.
Rahman, a sophomore from Dallas who plans a career in broadcast journalism,
got the opportunity to moderate a 50-minute session with veteran CBS News
correspondent Martha Teichner, a frequent contributor and substitute anchor on
“CBS News Sunday Morning” and the winner of 15 Emmy Awards. His interview
highlighted her courageous reporting from war zones and her thoughts on the
evolving media landscape.
Professor Claire Regan chaired the conference, which was hosted by the Deadline
Club, the New York City chapter of SPJ. Regan is a past president of the chapter
and served as national SPJ president in 2022-2023.
