Over the past three weeks, three different journalism industry professionals visited Elizabeth Colahan’s Journalism Lab elective to speak about their careers and provide advice for aspiring writers and reporters.
The four speakers, Josh Brogadir, Brian Sullivan, Matt Prichard, and Sean Colahan, who came to class shared examples of their daily work lives in the journalism industry, as well as advice on how to be a good journalist. Some speakers brought in drafts and examples of their work to demonstrate the process of preparing a segment for television news. They also gave the class a chance to ask questions about their careers, education, and experiences.
The first speaker was Josh Brogadir, an anchor and sports reporter for WCVB Channel 5’s SportsCenter 5 team. Besides impressing students with his stories about scooping stories about the Patriots, he also demonstrated the importance of building relationships and making connections.
“He had a lot of energy and woke us up. He was really good at keeping our attention,” said Sophomore Anna Julia Ferreira.
“His speech was really informational and I learned a lot about sports reporting, all in a short period of time,” said Sophomore Eve Washburn.
The second speaker in the speaker series was Brian Sullivan, a reporter who covers Global Extreme Weather, a beat that he initially proposed for Bloomberg News. He spoke to the class about the importance of writing and gifted every student with a blank journal.
“He was a really good and talented journalist. I appreciated the journal [that he gave us] and I am excited to use it for my interview notes from now on,” said Junior Ryan Needham.
“It was cool to hear about how long his career was. I didn’t know how much work it took to write about weather events,” said Sophomore Deandrey Alexandre.
The final speakers were a reporter-photographer team from NBC 10 Boston. Politics reporter Matt Prichard and news photographer Sean Colahan talked about collaboration and walked the students through how they created news packages.
“The advice they were giving us to make our writing better was really good,” remarked Sophomore Ian Muchai.
Journalism teacher Elizabeth Colahan thought that the speaker series was a success.
“I was really proud of our speaker series this year. I think that it is always good to have professionals come into class and share their experiences with students. It really brings journalism to life in a way that the classroom can’t,” reflected Colahan.
