The Boston Globe to Collaborate with Northeastern University and Emerson College on “Your Town” News

“Your Town” will Publish Student Stories, Photos, and Video

BOSTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In separate agreements announced today between The Boston Globe and Northeastern University, and Emerson College, students will contribute neighborhood and town news to Boston.com’s “Your Town” hyper-local websites as part of their studies. Both programs will be overseen by the schools’ journalism professors in cooperation with Globe editors.

“We’re delighted with this collaboration. It provides ‘Your Town’ readers with even more local coverage and enriches the educational experience of Emerson and Northeastern students,’’ said David Dahl, the Globe’s regional editor.”

“We’re delighted with this collaboration. It provides ‘Your Town’ readers with even more local coverage and enriches the educational experience of Emerson and Northeastern students,’’ said David Dahl, the Globe’s regional editor.

Boston.com currently has 50 “Your Town” sites in and around Boston. “Your Town” sites act as digital town centers, offering a highly localized news experience for readers.

"Our students began contributing to 'Your Town’ last semester in one of our core news writing courses. This semester we have a dedicated course taught by the able Lisa Chedekel, a former Pulitzer Prize winner for The Hartford Courant. The 'Your Town' collaboration provides yet another in an array of opportunities for Northeastern students to get real journalism experience through our program of study," said Stephen Burgard, director of the School of Journalism.

"This collaboration with the Globe provides an exciting real-world experience for students,” said Emerson College Associate Journalism Department Chair and Journalist-in-Residence Doug Struck. "They'll have deadlines and work with professional editors, with the goal of having their work published. It’s a chance for them to be fully engaged in the field.”

The students’ work will appear in addition to several other sources of content on the “Your Town” sites. The sites feature stories by “Your Town” correspondents, links to area blogs, Globe stories, and user-submitted photos and articles.

“Your Town” was launched in 2008 to deliver an online community experience that allows readers to learn, contribute, and share information about life in their own hometown. In addition to seventeen Boston neighborhoods, communities in the greater Boston region include: Arlington, Belmont, Beverly, Braintree, Brookline, Burlington, Cambridge, Concord, Danvers, Dedham, Framingham, Hingham, Lexington, Malden, Marblehead, Medford, Melrose, Milton, Natick, Needham, Newton, Norwell, Norwood, Peabody, Quincy, Salem, Scituate, Somerville, Waltham, Watertown, Wellesley, Weston and Westwood.

Users can access each of the Boston.com “Your Town” sites via the main “Your Town” portal at www.boston.com/yourtown. Residents in towns/cities that are not yet covered are encouraged to request a hyper-local site for their town/city at this portal.

About Boston.com:

Boston.com is one of the most visited regional portals in the U.S. and is wholly owned by The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading media company with 2010 revenues of $2.4 billion, which includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.