Nicholas Tantillo ’17 (Journalism) wasted little time after graduating at SUNY New Paltz Commencement 2017 before sharing his work with the world.
As an intern for WAMC Northeast Public Radio, a National Public Radio member and Public Radio International affiliate, Tantillo filed an extensively reported story on the debate around Kendra’s Law, a court order that establishes a treatment plan for individuals with severe mental illness.
[Listen to “The Story Behind Kendra’s Law” by Nicholas Tantillo via this link]
Tantillo conducted multiple interviews with sources close to this issue and filed his report as the culmination of his spring internship at WAMC. He credited both the Department of Digital Media & Journalism and the Honors Program at New Paltz with helping keep him motivated as he pieced together his narrative.
On the Department of Digital Media & Journalism:
“I was inspired by my department,” Tantillo said. “By now it is a truism that technology is changing rapidly, and there is great pressure on the faculty to stay relevant. From the get-go they impressed upon me that the central thrust of my education would be storytelling, not technology, because unlike tech, good storytelling doesn’t go out of style. The prevailing thought was that on our way to better storytelling, students would encounter new tools. When that happened, the department provided all the gear, programs and instruction we needed to be successful.”
On the Honors Program:
“The Honors Center provided me with a sense of community on campus. I was a commuter student and didn’t have a dorm or apartment to go to in between classes. The Center gave me a place to go. I wanted to network with people who were doing interesting things, and I found that at the Center. Making the story a part of my Honors thesis meant I had the support of the Center to execute the project, and I frequently leaned on my peers for advice or to bounce an idea off them.”
On the WAMC internship, and what’s next:
“I went into the internship under the impression that I would spend most of my time behind a computer, which was largely true. But I found that the experience was more open-ended than I had previously thought. I wrote host copy, and when the weather was nice I would go reporting. Towards the end of the internship the news directors allowed me to work on my project at the station. The whole experience has motivated me to get a job in public radio.”
Tantillo’s report on Kendra’s Law can be heard in its entirety via this link.
