Student Reporting Partnerships Will Bring Depth and Breadth to Local News Coverage

For the second year in a row, Burlington Buzz is partnering local higher education institutions to bring new depth to news coverage in Burlington, Massachusetts, while giving undergraduates the opportunity to develop their real-world reporting skills.

One challenge to reporting on local news is that publishers often don't have the time to thoroughly report on all the issues of import to residents of their communities. Professors Lara Salahi from Endicott College and Steve Greenlee at Boston University have decided to address this issue head-on by creating student newsrooms that provide expanded coverage for local news publishers wile giving students experience with researching background, interviewing subjects, and writing news articles as well as access to professional editing via both the class professor and the newsroom editor.

Students in Salahi's highly-competitive Newsroom class collaborated with Burlington Buzz in 2024 to produce a number of news stories about topics outside the Buzz's typical municipal coverage capacity. This year, Salahi is working with 9 students and over 50 local news publishers from around Massachusetts—including Burlington Buzz once again—to continue with this work.

Newsroom students will be producing "everything from text stories, to newsletters, to in-person community events, to multimedia content," said Salahi, adding that 70 stories are planned for this semester, one of which is a large multi-part series.

Salahi can't say enough good things about this semester's cohort. "Our students are heeding the call to cultivate a sense of community by sharing stories that matter to our cities and towns," she said. "I wake up every morning excited about the work we do each day."

Also joining the Buzz will be Elaina Fuzi, a junior in Greenlee's course, also called The Newsroom. Greenlee, who joined BU in 2024 after 12 years as the executive editor of the Portland Press Herald in Portland, ME, co-leads this course along with Journalism Department Chari and former Boston Globe editor, Brian McGrory. The course has been around for a number of years and is intended to give journalism students the experience of being in a real newsroom. But this year, McGrory and Greenlee have reimagined the program, placing students in actual newsrooms around the state rather than treating it like an academic exercise.

Students had to submit work portfolios with their applications to the course and, Greenlee says, there were so many strong applicants that the 15-student cap was raised and 18 students were accepted. Students are assigned to work with a dedicated newsroom and the course work, paired as it is with a professional project, earns them eight credits towards graduation.

BU's The Newsroom course is partnering with 15 local newsrooms this spring and hopes to expand the program in the fall.

These Buzz collaborations are aimed at expanding Burlington local news coverage beyond what can be accomplished by a single reporter as well as giving the next generation of journalists practical experience with all the things that come with working in a newsroom, including time and relationship management, balanced reporting, implementing editorial feedback, and building trust in a community.

Student reporters will be spending time connecting with the Burlington community via in-person visits or phone conversations to learn about the community, experience the unique features the town has to offer, and interview the key players in some of the town's major happenings.

If you have ideas for stories you'd like to see us cover, you can reach us at hello@burlington.buzz.