June 15, 2018

NYU Journalism student team wins New York Emmy®

A team of students from NYU Journalism’s Studio 20 program recently won a New York Emmy® in the Public/Current/Community Affairs: Series category for their multimedia project, “Finding Sanctuary NYC.”

The 14-student team worked for four months on the project, which included a short documentary series and an interactive website. The list of team members also included students from the Interactive Telecommunications and Global and Joint Studies programs: Lindsay Abrams, Sheba Anyanwu, Setareh Baig, Emma Cillekens, Alessandra Freitas, Levi Gikandi, Sanjana Gupta, Stephanie Ho, Shelley Xinyu Hu, Maria Jose Lavandera, Anissa Pierre, Ayesha Shakya, Andrew Urodov, and Andi W. The team was also led by Vice’s Josh Davis and ProPublica web coach, Mike Tigas.

The project follows the lives of six people who have found or are seeking some form of sanctuary in New York City. The stories cover a formerly undocumented immigrant who crossed the U.S./Mexico border as a child; an American-Muslim woman who was banned from her homeland of Palestine, and a woman who moved from Jim Crow South to New York City. The team also spoke to a woman who was born in a Japanese internment camp in the U.S. during World War II; an Auschwitz survivor who found her home in New York City; and a man who lived in shelters and now feeds the homeless.

“This award recognizes the outstanding effort and teamwork by a special group of students,” Davis said, “Their hard work and enthusiasm is inspiring.”