Faculty
Prof. Gil Griffin
write2professorg@yahoo.comGil Griffin comes to NYU from San Diego, where he taught journalism, media studies and communications studies at the University of San Diego and San Diego State University. He is a native New Yorker who also spent part of his childhood in Washington, D.C. His award-winning professional journalistic career has spanned nearly 20 years and has included writing, reporting, editing and consulting positions in newspapers, magazines, the Internet and radio stations around the world. He was a staff writer at the Albuquerque Tribune and San Diego Union-Tribune and an associate editor at Young Sisters and Brothers (YSB), the country’s first, national monthly lifestyle magazine targeted at a young adult, African American readership. In 2003, Griffin’s “Field of Broken Dreams,” a Sunday newspaper feature about the demise of a Tecate, Mexico professional baseball team earned him the California Chicano News Media Association’s La Pluma award for the year’s best sports story. In 2000, Griffin was one of only two dozen American journalists selected as a Knight Fellow by the International Center for Journalists. In that fellowship, he was assigned to be a media trainer at publications and radio stations in the Pacific Islands. He was based in Fiji and also worked in newsrooms in Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands and Papua New Guinea.
Throughout his career, Griffin has freelanced for several publications, including the magazines Time, Billboard, Sport Diver, Baseball America, the Crisis and the Australian Football League Record and newspapers such as the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. He also has written, voiced and produced radio features, most recently for KPBS-FM, in San Diego, where his work also aired on National Public Radio.
During his career, Griffin has covered sports, courts, performing arts, breaking news, race and ethnicity, lifestyle and travel. He also speaks Spanish and Tagalog (Pilipino) and has an uncanny ability to impersonate other people’s voices. Griffin currently is an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, his alma mater, and at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Stories contributed by Prof. Griffin’s students:
“The High Cost of Giving Up Your Eggs”
To a cash-strapped student, the typical $8,000 payment can seem tantalizing. But donors say the money is fully earned
by Brooke Edwards
“Does Mother Know Best?”
If not, why are Mexican immigrants bearing more healthy babies than the Americanized second generation?
by Carolyn T. Kormann
“Author, Strategist, Chief Bottle Washer”
Non-blockbuster writers find modest success in publishing their own work
by Laura Palotie
“A Second Life for Your Wedding Dress”
Someone else wants it as much as you did
by Diana Aydin
“Pow! Splat!”
Women muscle in to the macho world of comics
by Christa Babson-Thomas
“Gay Asylum Petitions Grow”
Many flee harassment at home for more accepting communities in the United States
by Diana Britton
“A Bargain in Turkmenistan”
The dictator is dead, but you’d never know: his portrait dominates the capital, and people still instinctively whisper when they speak. But one ancient freedom dies hard.
by Deirdre Tynan
“Sweet Touch”
An arts exec turned cupcake designer publishes a baking book for kids
by Melissa Fleming
“A Mexican Sonidero Shouts Out”
A young DJ delivers a home-grown tradition to New York Mexicans, one of the city’s hardest-pressed immigrant groups.
by Miguel Angel Angeles
“Cool Brew”
A sax-playing Harlem brewer who named her beer after “Take the A Train” gets ready to expand
by Michael Tedder