Emily Judem is senior digital producer for WGBH News, where she is responsible for creating video content and graphics for the WGBH News website. Previously, she worked as the multimedia editor of The GroundTruth Project, where she reported and edited multimedia stories about social justice topics. Judem’s videos and stories have won several awards including a regional Edward R. Murrow award, and her work has been featured on the BBC, GlobalPost, Public Radio International, Columbia Journalism Review, The Huffington Post and others. We sat down with her to ask a few questions:
How would you differentiate the WGBH newsroom from other newsrooms?
Emily: The WGBH newsroom is one of the friendliest places I’ve ever worked. It’s extremely collaborative, and everyone is really willing to help each other, which isn’t always the case in the news world. The other thing that makes the newsroom unique is the combination of web, TV and radio. It’s unusual for a newsroom to do all three of those things. That makes it a really exciting place to be. People are thinking in different kinds of mediums, they have different types of training and we can all learn from each other.
What would surprise people about the WGBH newsroom?
Emily: There are always snacks, so many snacks.
What’s the best moment you’ve had at WGBH?
Emily: It’s more a collection of moments. I got to interview women who paved the way in Massachusetts politics: Jane Swift, Evelyn Murphy, Doris Bunte and Kerry Healey. I had watched them in politics, so it was really exciting to meet them in person and ask them my own questions and really hear their unfiltered thoughts on what their experiences were like.
Three words that describe the climate of the newsroom?
Emily: Warm, chatty, and energetic.
What's a favorite piece you’ve worked on?
Emily: A piece about a school that closed in West Roxbury. It was a story that wasn’t being covered in the media much. In my mind, it deserved more attention than it was getting. I was able to spend six months digging into the story and meeting the people whose lives would be affected by the school closure. It was really a case where we were telling a story that needed to be told. You learn in Reporting 101 that that’s the goal of journalism. But it doesn’t always happen that way. Meeting the students was very powerful to me.
What would be the best buy-one, get-one-free of all time?
Emily: Video cameras.
Who would you invite to dinner, living or dead?
Emily: Nelson Mandela. I’d be interested to talk to him about what is happening in the world now—I think he’d have a really interesting perspective.
