Multimedia
The best stories deserve to be shared in as many ways as possible to reach as many people as possible. I have made it a priority in my work to explore different mediums of storytelling to make stories accessible. Whether through data visualization, video, audio, social media, or photography, there is always more to add to a story.
Data-Driven Reporting
At the Bowdoin Orient, I worked on the data team all four years and led the team in my final year on the paper. We conducted roughly four large scale data projects a year that surveyed the student body or entire College community. Beyond my work at the Bowdoin Orient, I have pursued data visualization courses outside of my Bowdoin curriculum, completing a summer course in 2024 online from the University of Illinois titled “Data Vizualisation for Journalism.”
Bowdoin Orient Student Survey (BOSS)
Every semester, the Bowdoin Orient conducts a survey of the student body asking about the biggest topics of the semester. As the leader of the data team, I was responsible for creating and managing the Qualtrics survey as well as overseeing data visualization (using Datawrapper, Adobe Illustrator, and Excel) and writing for each survey. This was a three to four-week process of creating, advertising, and analyzing the survey that I managed among the data staff.
This year, I aimed to reach as many students as possible while maintaining anonymity and security. After collaborating with the Bowdoin IT and institutional research departments, I utilized the internal Bowdoin two-factor authentication system to verify Bowdoin users and distinguish between student, faculty, and staff accounts. By making this extra layer of authentication, we were able to share our surveys through public links on social media and posters rather than our previous method, which limited distribution to email.
The BOSS was always a labor of love and one of my favorite seasons of the year. I eagerly awaited sifting through the survey results and identifying the trends and differences we could uncover. Complementing a semester’s worth of reporting for the paper, it was fulfilling to see more public opinion and beneficial to check in with the Bowdoin student body to see what people were actually talking about on a day-to-day basis.
2024 Election Survey
Every U.S. presidential election cycle, the Bowdoin Orient surveys students on their political opinions and voting intentions for the upcoming election. This year, I wanted to take it a step further and expand the survey to faculty and staff. Using a new authentication method and extensive outreach, I developed the survey for faculty and staff, ensuring the anonymity of data to protect respondents. This was the first time in my tenure that the paper had surveyed the faculty and staff, and I made a point of teaching the other data reporters how to execute a faculty and staff survey to encourage more surveys like this in the future.
I also pursued a data project outside the survey, examining the political donations of faculty and staff in comparison to previous election cycles. This was a data mining project that examined the public Federal Election Commission (FEC) database and compared it to a 2020 data investigation by the Orient. This was a project I had wanted to pursue throughout my time on the paper, as it tapped into my personal curiosity about political finance and was a more extensive investigative piece than what the Orient could typically produce.
First Year Student Survey (FYSS)
Every fall, the Bowdoin Orient surveys the incoming first-year class to get a baseline of demographic information and personal opinions that go beyond what the College reports. It is typically one of the most comprehensive surveys for the Orient data team, and I carried that tradition into my years working with the data desk. Each year, I pushed to make more cross-comparisons in our data, looking for trends across demographics that were not apparent in the baseline results. The 2024 first-year survey was one of the most successful attempts at focusing on cross-comparison and drew out a good example for the data projects to come that year.
Podcast
Audio reporting is the future of journalism, as it enables consumers to access stories on the go. The Bowdoin Orient lacked audio reporting, and I wanted to create opportunities for this medium going forward. Another reporter and I started “The Morning After,” a weekly news roundup podcast for the Bowdoin Orient that came out on Fridays, the “morning after” our production night. I produced each episode by editing the audio we recorded, incorporating interviews and background audio from reporting sessions throughout the week. I then published the podcasts on Spotify and promoted them on social media.
Video
As the Senior Digital Editor of the Bowdoin Orient, I aimed to establish a video team that would complement our written reporting. I taught myself Adobe Premiere and invested in some microphones, and our team was on its way to creating long-form debate coverage, feature videos, and social media reels. I served as the primary producer for each of these projects, incorporating additional video editors and videographers as the team became more comfortable with the editing process.
Creating this team and producing what we did throughout the year was one of my greatest accomplishments in this role, as it taught me how to present stories from a new angle, focusing on punchier quotes and evocative visuals.
Feature Videos
When building the Orient video team, one of my main goals was to produce a video that could stand alone from written reporting. When the student radio station moved to a new location, I knew it would be a great subject. Orient readers were eager to see more of the station, and photos alone couldn’t do it justice. I recruited three videographers from the Orient staff and another reporter to help with the interviewing and storyboarding.
After a week of filming and interviewing DJs and station management, I began editing together a narrative arc, focusing on what went into the move and how students felt about it for the station's future. It was the first video of its kind that the Bowdoin Orient had produced in over two years, and I was proud to make my vision a reality.
Debate Coverage
With both the national and state elections in the fall and the equally pertinent Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) elections in the spring, I wanted to make our coverage of political events more accessible to the curious voter. Bowdoin hosted one of the Maine U.S. Senate debates in the fall, and I wanted to assemble our new multimedia team to create comprehensive event coverage, as we were the only video team attending the event. I learned about coordinating camera angles and equipment that helped with the next debate coverage for the BSG presidential debate.
In the spring, the Bowdoin Orient hosts a debate the week before the election to give the student body some insight into the candidates’ goals for the upcoming year. I coordinated the recording and publishing of the debate for the first time in almost 10 years. Transparency in political events is crucial to reporting and beneficial to constituents who may not be able to get the information otherwise.
Social Media Reels
As the head of the social media team, I realized that reels were a great way to improve our social media engagement across Instagram and Facebook, and they were reasonable to produce within a week. I sought out stories that featured strong visual elements and interviews, and proactively assigned videographers to support the reporters with their coverage. This took a creative eye on the front end to visualize how a reel could benefit the story and continual communication with reporters and videographers about the vision of a project.
Social Media
I have experience working on commercial and journalism social media, and I produced content for Music City Golf and Nashville Sites in Nashville, TN. I took over the Bowdoin Orient's social media in the fall of 2024, with the primary goal of maintaining consistency and cohesion. During my tenure as leader, we implemented a new posting system utilizing Meta for Business and Linktree to maintain a consistent posting schedule and enhance connectivity between our social media accounts and the Bowdoin Orient website. We also adapted to the Instagram ratio shift and continually tweaked the design templates to better present visuals. I led a team of social media editors who helped strategize posting schedules and design posts.
