When Jerry Berger covered the Massachusetts Statehouse for United Press International, he said they had four reporters covering the Legislature. The Associated Press did, too.
Now, the AP has just one reporter roaming the halls of the capitol, and “he covers more than the statehouse,” Berger said. Berger laments the decline of reporters covering the goings on at Beacon Hill — but by way of the , he’s supplementing what news outlets aren’t able to provide.
As more and more newsrooms shrink or cut their legislative news coverage, Berger’s statehouse program is the largest statehouse press corps, he said. Student reporters write more than 100 articles per semester.
The program has a “solid gold reputation,” Berger said.
“They get total cooperation from lawmakers and staff,” he said. Students who have taken the course have snagged jobs at the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe, along with outlets across the state.
The program comes in the shape of a course within the College of Communication at Boston University. Students in the course, of which there were 13 this past spring, are required to write 10 stories per semester (Berger noted some students go over the mark, such as one who wrote 35 articles in just one semester).
After they write a trial story and Berger gives them feedback, the students are paired off and work directly with one of 14 partner local news outlets. A few of the outlets that consistently run student stories include , the , the , and .
“We’re looking to expand in that sense,” Berger said, adding later, “I’m going to be looking to recruit some other hyperlocals.”
One former student reporter, , now covers the Legislature for The Boston Globe. She says that without her time in the program, “I don’t think that I would’ve had a job.”
Gross took the course in the second semester of her senior year in 2018. She’d reported for multiple internships and was the editor-in-chief of Boston University’s independent student newspaper, . But she had no political reporting experience, and Berger’s course was an opportunity to “get the experience and clips I needed to be competitive.”
She reported directly for the Lowell Sun to produce as a statehouse correspondent, and she used some of her articles as clips for statehouse reporting job applications.
One student last semester reported on whether immigration was becoming a more prevalent issue in Massachusetts politics, and was picked up by a number of outlets, Berger said. Other students reported on climate change and farms, prison education and gaming.
Before they even take the course, all students have to simultaneously take a course called , which teaches students how to handle public affairs reporting. Berger also teaches that.
Instead of a midterm and a final exam, Berger requires his students to produce midterm and final packages, he said. He’ll assign a topic for the midterm; for example, this past spring his students put out 13 housing and homelessness stories, “because of the shelter crisis here,” he said.
For the final, Berger said his students choose whatever topic they want to pursue.
“It’s whatever kind of in-depth, public affairs reporting they want to do,” he said