Alex Kane is an alumnus of the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, frequently hailed as one of the greatest journalism programs in the country. Of the Institute’s many dynamic graduate programs, Alex pursued Global and Joint Program Studies, in which a select group of master’s students each year have the opportunity to earn a joint degree in Journalism as well as one with a Global Studies focus. For Alex, that was Near Eastern studies. “It was a unique way to gain expertise in a part of the world I’m interested in and learn how to best write about the region journalistically,” he explained. The program, informally known as “GLOJO,” crosses with various other disciplines, such as Africana Studies, French Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Russian and Slavic Studies, and more.
The best part of being a master’s student for Alex was working on his thesis, which earned him a spot as a finalist in the 2016 GSAS Threesis Academic Challenge. Alex had heard about Threesis through a departmental email and liked the idea of having hard deadlines to adhere to, which would help move along his research and even complete his thesis prior to his program’s deadline. “I had a great time during Threesis. I gained the ability to condense a complicated topic into a three-minute presentation—a skill that all journalists should develop,” Alex said. Working on his project on Israeli surveillance and the “war on Facebook” was one of the highlights of his time at the Graduate School. “Embarking on an intensive, months-long project that involved travel to Israel/Palestine that [then] resulted in a long-form feature that was published in The Intercept, was the best experience I had.”
Since graduating in May of 2016, Kane has been working full-time as a freelance journalist, earning bylines with Vice News, The Intercept, Al Jazeera and The Nation, among others. Alex was also awarded a grant from In These Times, an independent, nonprofit magazine dedicated to advancing democracy and economic justice, informing movements for a more humane world, and providing an accessible forum for debate.
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