First of all: Happy Dorchester Day!
The Reporter kicked off the celebrations of our high holiday on May 28 with a special event celebrating community journalism. It was held at Southline Boston, the former Boston Globe headquarters on Morrissey Boulevard. About 200 people gathered for the party, which was held in honor of Tom Mulvoy, a former Globe managing editor and current Reporter associate editor.
It was a special evening with many of Tom’s colleagues over the past 61 years-plus in attendance, along with friends and family. (A story about Tom’s life and career, written by veteran Boston journalist Chris Lovett, is presented in this week’s special Dot Day section.)
The event also included a special announcement: Gage Vieno, a 21-year-old Dorchester resident and journalism student at the University of Mississippi, was named as the inaugural recipient of the Thomas F. Mulvoy Jr. Scholarship. As part of the award, Vieno will spend the summer working as a paid newsroom fellow at The Reporter, with support from the Edward W. Forry and Mary Casey Forry Foundation for Community Journalism.
Current and former Reporter and DotNews staff.
The fellowship is designed to give aspiring reporters hands-on experience while strengthening the pipeline for local journalism from Boston neighborhoods. He will also receive a $5,000 Mulvoy scholarship from the Forry Foundation to support his education.
Vieno, who grew up in Dorchester, said in his application that the neighborhoods of Boston are “more than just geography,” and that each part of the city carries its own identity, memory, and way of life.
In a city so decorated and layered as Boston, journalism has an important responsibility to pay close attention to the fine details, and to report fairly to ensure communities see themselves represented accurately and with care,” Vieno wrote.
An alumnus of Boston Latin School, Vieno is pursuing a journalism degree at Ole Miss, where he specializes in visual journalism and writes for The Daily Mississippian as an arts and culture reporter. His work has included event coverage, reviews, and stories prepared for both print and digital publication. He has also developed video and photography skills, which will serve him and The Reporter well in our newsroom.
This summer, Vieno will contribute reporting, photography, and digital work to the Reporter while learning the rhythms of neighborhood news coverage in the city where he grew up.
“I want to pursue journalism, specifically in Boston and its neighborhoods,” Vieno wrote, “because I believe strong local reporting continues to matter more and more every single day.”
Vieno was one of several very strong candidates for this prize and fellowship position— all of them young people from Boston’s neighborhoods who share Gage’s eagerness to join the ranks of reporters. It was a tough call— and that’s a very positive sign about the prospects for this program, which we hope to expand in scope and impact in the coming years.
If we want to preserve and strengthen local news coverage— and indeed news gathering across our republic— we need to be intentional about it. We have to be willing to invest in young people who are willing to take up the profession— and teach them the best practices. That’s what this effort is all about.
If you would like to join the scores of people who’ve already supported us, please consider making a donation to the Forry Foundation and the Mulvoy Scholarship in particular. Go to forryfoundation.org for more information.
Thank you!
