The Media + Social Justice Collaborative [DEFUNCT SINCE 2019]

Nellie Bly was a pioneer of investigative journalism. Her courageous undercover reporting of the abuses experienced by patients at NYC’s municipal Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island eventually led to important reforms and the closing of the asylum…

Nellie Bly was a pioneer of investigative journalism. Her courageous undercover reporting of the abuses experienced by patients at NYC’s municipal Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island eventually led to important reforms and the closing of the asylum. She is an inspiring example of what can be accomplished when someone with a social justice lens has access to a media platform.

Social workers and journalists should be much better friends than they are.

Social workers are on the front lines of all sorts of pressing social issues, and generate insights and expertise to which we become desensitized within a few months on the job. In my opinion, we have no outlet for these insights, and so our anger turns inwards and we burn out. So, social workers need access to media outlets, for ourselves as well as to advocate for our clients (as well as for society, which would benefit from our intel). Journalists, for their part, need content, need sources, and need leads. Social workers can supply all that in spades.

Despite the obvious potential for symbiosis, the relationship between the two is often fraught for some good reasons and some not so good reasons.

The purpose of the NYC Media + Social Justice Collaborative is to:

  • Facilitate networking opportunities for journalists and social workers

  • Create and distribute informational materials these professionals can use to interface with the other without violating their own codes of ethics, and

  • Build Introduce journalists and social workers to each other, in person and through this spreadsheet.

Get involved - NYC Professionals

Get involved - NYC Student

More info

  • Click here to see what the NASW Code of Ethics says about talking to journalists

  • Click here for an article the Columbia University School of Social Work’s Communications Department wrote about our work.

Questions?

Please reach out to us at nyc.msjc@gmail.com