For the past month-and-a-half, I’ve been working in Newsroom’s Press Gallery office, covering politics, the economy, and the climate. I broke a major story about the alleged Christchurch terrorist writing a letter to a far-right supporter from prison, which made headlines around the world.
I’ll remain in this role for at least the next few months – you can read everything I’ve written for Newsroom here.
Since arriving in New Zealand, I’ve done a lot of reporting for The Spinoff on the far-right. I started off with a broad exploration of the movements operating here in February, a piece that was reprinted in Newshub. After the Christchurch terror attack, I reported on New Zealand’s reaction for USA Today and followed that up with a piece on the alt-right’s response to the Notre Dame fire for The Spinoff – again reprinted in Newshub.
I’ve also been able to write a few pieces about pop culture for The Spinoff, one on the sale of sexualised material at Armageddon Expo in Wellington and another on the Wellycon board game convention.
I wrapped up my internship with the Detroit Free Press in late October and am now moving to New Zealand. My time at the Free Press taught me a lot and I wrote nearly 300 articles, including two of the newspaper’s top ten most-viewed stories of 2018. I was lucky enough to have my work featured on the front page of the newspaper and in the pages of partner publications, including USA Today. I covered breaking news and also wrote enterprise pieces on a range of subjects, from DNA heritage tests to major health scares.
In New Zealand, I hope to continue my freelance journalism and will also be working as a research assistant for a professor from my alma mater, searching for documents related to New Zealand’s 1990s-era education reforms in Archives New Zealand and the National Library.
I’m beginning a summer internship at the Detroit Free Press. You’ll be able to see my writing here. As with the HCNZ blog, I won’t be posting every article in my “Publications” tab.
In March I started writing bi-weekly blog posts for the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand. My first posts can be found here – my posts will engage with Holocaust history, the relevance of the Shoah today, and the intersection between the Holocaust, broader conversations around genocide, and modern New Zealand.
I interviewed Randy Bryce for In These Times after his campaign was endorsed by Bernie Sanders this month. Check it out here!
While in New Zealand I worked to diversify my portfolio a bit. I was recently published in The Spinoff, writing about public housing and New Zealand’s housing crisis. Last week, I published an article in Jewish Currents, a strong voice on the Jewish left, about Jews’ responsibilities as indigenous people.
I’ve written a few reported pieces recently. While studying at Victoria University of Wellington, I’ve been writing for the student magazine Salient. My work for them can be found here.
I also wrote an analysis of a Jewish Voice for Peace report on the Jewish Federation of Chicago for New Voices, critically examining Federation grants to anti-Muslim organizations.
Lastly, for AC Voice, I’ve published a wideranging rundown of athletics at Amherst College.
After attending a number of protests over inauguration weekend, I wrote a short piece for the Jewish Daily Forward on my experiences, which can be found here. I also took a few good pictures!
On November 15, a week after the election, I spoke at a panel organized by the American Friends Service Committee of Western Mass, alongside Professors Vijay Prashad, Uditi Sen, and Stellan Vinthagen, about the election results and activism under a Donald Trump administration. You can check out the audio (and possibly video) here.
Marc Daalder 