Two sprawling multimedia tasks dig into the influence of the Erie Canal on the lives of upstate New Yorkers, simply in time for the historic waterway’s 200th anniversary.
Newhouse College college students spent a 12 months engaged on tales, images and podcasts for the canal’s bicentennial 12 months, a milestone being celebrated throughout New York state in 2025, together with the World Canals Conference held in Buffalo Sept. 21-25.
Newhouse Affiliate Professor Seth Gitner kayaks by the canal lock in Baldwinsville. (Photograph by Zach Krahmer)
The aim of the award-winning tasks was so as to add depth to the general public’s understanding of what the Erie Canalway Nationwide Heritage Hall describes because the “longest synthetic waterway and the best public works mission in North America.”
“The Erie Canal is one thing that many [upstate New York] residents are accustomed to seeing frequently,” says Jon Glass, government editor on the Newhouse College and professor of follow of magazine, news and digital journalism (MND). “We thought these tasks can be a good way to introduce our college students to the tales that relate to this canal and the influence it’s had on the state of New York.”
Or the remainder of the nation, for that matter.
About 80% of upstate New York’s population lives inside 25 miles of the Erie Canal system. Completion of the Erie Canal within the 19th century dramatically lower down on journey time throughout the state and revolutionized American commerce. New non secular teams such because the Seventh Day Adventists and what would turn into generally known as Latter-Day Saints began in canal communities, with followers spreading their message along the waterway.
“Canal Keepers” host Gloria Rivera (proper) data an episode with Lauren Bavis. (Photograph by Jess Van)
The tasks launched following an concept by Aileen Gallagher, affiliate dean of educational affairs at Newhouse and an MND professor. Her suggestion of utilizing the canal’s 200th anniversary as the topic of reporting tasks appeared like a pure match, Glass says.
The thought became two distinct reporting tasks, “Unlocking New York” and “Canal Keepers,” that have been ultimately united below one banner dedicated to Erie Canal storytelling. By these experiences, college students broadened their creativity, reported within the area and produced resumé-building multimedia content material.
What the college and college students didn’t need was a historical past lesson on the 200 years of the canal, however a deeply private narrative on the lives and livelihoods of the folks surrounding it.
“The Erie Canal shouldn’t be this historic landmark that’s not functioning. It’s including to New York’s financial system and creating jobs,” says Lauren Bavis, an MND professor of follow.
Canal Keepers
A six-part podcast, “Canal Keepers” started in January 2024 as a senior capstone mission within the MND Multimedia Tasks course taught by Bavis and Adam Peruta, an affiliate professor. College students labored on 
their episodes up till the launch in late June 2024, even after a lot of them had graduated.
Every 10-minute episode highlights, amongst different topics, the paranormal, invasive animal species, people music and marginalized voices of the canal.
“You might have college students which are simply devoted after they know one thing is necessary and goes to shine on their resumés, but additionally assist their friends too,” says Bavis, whose skilled background is in podcasting.
Isabel Bekele ’24 cowrote and reported on the episode “The Erie Canal Past Historical past Class,” which focuses on the displacement of Black and Indigenous folks in the course of the canal’s building. By her reporting, the journal, information and digital journalism alumna dug into what she referred to as the “hidden historical past” of the canal.
“There’s this factor that existed and made a big impact on the infrastructure of upstate New York,” Bekele says. “However who needed to undergo to be able to make that occur? Who was displaced to be able to make that occur?”
She carried out analysis and interviewed topics onsite, retrieving sound bites so as to add to the episode, which strengthened her inventive muscle tissues. Some college students traveled so far as Buffalo to report in-person and document sound.
“The episodes have been alleged to be satisfying and fascinating on an audio stage,” Bekele says. “That compelled us to get extra inventive with our reporting.”
Unlocking New York
“Canal Keepers” helped to pave the way in which for “Unlocking New York,” The NewsHouse’s multimedia mission. The coed-run information platform has carried out complete reporting tasks yearly over the past six years, masking subjects together with marijuana legalization and disinformation.
College students started reporting for Unlocking New York in summer season 2024 with the mission launching a 12 months later in June. Greater than 30 tales spanned 5 sections on the mission website: Canal Culture, Corridor Living, Foundations and Frameworks, Echoes of Erie and Here First. College students, below the steering of Newhouse college, oversaw writing, modifying, images, designing, scheduling and extra.
Nate Harrington ’24 was the longest tenured pupil on the mission, working because the content material director and managing college students, tales, copyediting and pitching for over a 12 months. Harrington, who majored in journal, information and digital journalism, says he honed his abilities as a knowledge journalist, one thing he wasn’t keen on earlier than the mission.
Discovering his area of interest in information allowed Harrington to open up profession prospects and attend the ACC Meeting of the Minds pupil analysis convention in March 2025; he was the one journalism pupil there.
“I bought to current in regards to the Erie Canal and the way we have been amassing a ton of various tales to extra holistically inform the historical past in ways in which probably haven’t been advised earlier than,” Harrington says.
The tasks have drawn nationwide recognition. “Unlocking New York” received the multimedia class within the Affiliation for Schooling in Journalism and Mass Communication Journal Media Division Pupil Journal Contest, whereas “Canal Keepers” is a finalist on this 12 months’s College Broadcaster Inc./National Student Media Convention Awards.
“It actually exhibits how inventive and the way persistent Newhouse college students are and that they need to strive new issues,” Bavis added. “They need to get higher at the whole lot.”
