Los Espookys
co-starring, co-written, and co-created by Ana Fabrega, FCLC ’13

Ana Fabrega stars in the HBO Spanish-language comedy series Los Espookys, which premiered in 2019 and which she created with co-stars Fred Armisen and Julio Torres. The show follows a group of friends who stage elaborate horror scenes for clients in an unnamed Latin American country—think fake exorcisms and creating a haunted mansion to scare potential inheritors. Fabrega plays Tati, a naïve, accommodating guinea pig for her friends’ experiments, with deadpan earnestness. She also has a penchant for taking very odd jobs, like breaking in women’s shoes and counting people’s steps. “I really like characters who feel kind of lost and sort of slapstick-y in a Buster Keaton way,” she told Vanity Fair in 2019. Before embarking on the project, the Arizona native earned a degree in economics at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, worked at a credit-risk-management company, and made her name in comedy through stand-up performances and appearances on At Home with Amy Sedaris and The Chris Gethard Show. While Los Espookys had to break from filming its second season in Chile because of COVID-19, its renewal means fans can look forward to more haunted hijinks soon. —Adam Kaufman

Blindspot: The Road to 9/11
hosted by Jim O’Grady, FCRH ’82

“Time has flattened our understanding of the 9/11attacks. There’s this sense that they came … out of the clear blue sky of the day itself. But they didn’t,” WNYC reporter Jim O’Grady says in the first episode of Blindspot, an eight-part investigative podcast that brings fresh perspective to the complex tale of politics, power, and “deliberate moves across a global chessboard” that led to the 2001 attacks. The story begins in a Manhattan hotel ballroom in 1990, when the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane is assassinated by El-Sayyid Nosair, described by O’Grady as “the tip of the spear,” with links to cells in Brooklyn and Jersey City committed to violent jihad. O’Grady draws on archival reports plus dozens of interviews with law enforcement officials and others. And it’s not all about missed connections: he also tells the heart-stopping story of Emad Salem, an Egyptian immigrant and former army officer who, working with the FBI, infiltrated a local terror cell and in June 1993 foiled what could have been a devastating attack on multiple New York City landmarks. —Ryan Stellabotte

Tea By the Sea
by Donna Hemans, FCLC ’93

In her long-awaited second novel, Donna Hemans, the author of River Woman (2002), weaves a compelling tale of longing—to belong, to find family and a sense of home, to be fulfilled, and ultimately to discover the truth. Tea By the Sea is the story of Plum Valentine’s 17-year search for her daughter, stolen from the hospital at just one day old. The infant’s father, Lenworth, walks out of the hospital with the baby while Plum recuperates from a difficult labor, setting doctors, nurses, security, and Plum on high alert, but much too late. Readers follow Plum from Jamaica to Brooklyn and back, year after year, as she chases down leads from a private investigator and searches for Lenworth and her daughter. After getting married and having two more children—twin daughters—Plum finds the hint she’s been waiting for on a piece of newspaper she’s using to clean her windows. The pace increases then, as Plum formulates a plan to confront Lenworth and fight for the daughter she’s never met. —Sierra McCleary-Harris

Media with a message.

That’s the key component of Fordham’s one-year, 30-credit graduate public media master’s program, according to director Beth Knobel, Ph.D.

“There are other programs that are here in the media capital of the world, but none of them are in a Jesuit school that brings an emphasis on ethics and on serving the world through communication,” said Knobel, associate professor of communication and media studies. “We designed a program that really takes advantage of our location in New York and really speaks to Fordham’s Jesuit mission of creating people for others.”

The program, now in its fourth year, has continued to grow, both in the number of students it serves and the number of partnerships it has formed.

The current cohort includes 30 full-time graduate students and eight accelerated students, who are Fordham undergraduates taking a few graduate-level courses, Knobel said.

Students in the program choose one of two tracks to pursue—multiplatform journalism or strategic communications—and they also can take a class or two as an elective outside of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Despite the separate tracks, all students get exposure to the many aspects of “media in the public interest,” said Garrett Broad, Ph.D., former director of the program and associate professor of communication and media studies.

“[We want them to] think about how can we use these basic principles of storytelling, of understanding contemporary digital media technologies, of understanding basic human psychology and persuasion?” said Broad. “And how do we kind of bring that together?”

Public Media Partners

One of the things that makes the program unique, according to its faculty, is the growing number of partnerships it has with public media companies, nonprofits, and NGOs in New York City and beyond.

All of the major public media organizations in New York City, including WNET, WNYC, and Fordham’s own WFUV, partner with the program. Prior to the pandemic, the audio narrative class was held at WNYC studios, while the video narrative class was taught at WNET. George Bodarky, FCRH ’91, the news and public affairs director at WFUV, also teaches in the program.

This year, WNET—parent company of Channel 13—is supplying two adjunct faculty members: Dana Roberson, executive producer of PBS NewsHour’s Weekend Edition, and Kellie Castruita Specter, chief marketing and engagement officer for WNET.

“[WNET has been] incredibly wonderful to us from the get-go, because they understand that we are trying to create the journalists and the strategic communicators that they and other public television stations need for the future,” Knobel said.

Neal Shapiro, president and chief executive officer at WNET, said Fordham and WNET share “common values” that have led to a natural partnership.

“The idea about how important the mission is, how important working with the community is…we think about who we serve,” he said. “And that’s what makes public media kind of unique.”

Amy Aronson, Ph.D., chair of the communication and media studies department, said that she would like to see the program continue to increase its community impact.

“The public media really seeks to report on a kind of local level, the kind of community stories, the kind of democratic spirit and the democratic values that go back to the earliest traditions in journalism, but aren’t always achieved in our commercial journalism landscape,” she said.

Strategic Communications for Partner Charities in Mississippi

On the strategic communications side, Tim Wood, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, was looking for hands-on opportunities for students just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City. Some of the nonprofits and organizations in the city that he usually worked with were too overwhelmed to work with students, he said.

He reached out to Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning, who put him in touch with a few charity organizations in Vardaman, Mississippi, all of which needed help with strategic communications.

“The aim at the end of the year is to hand them a plan with step-by-step instructions that they can take and use going forward, and then to do as much of the on-the-ground prep work for that as we can,” Wood said.

One of those was the Catholic Charities’ tutoring program. Graduate students Julia Werner, Anne-Sophie Neumeister, Sajani Mantri, and Morgan Thweatt met with the local organizers who at first told the group they needed a website. But after learning more about the community, the team suggested a different approach.

“We learned that they don’t have people that would be able to maintain that website, and maintaining a website and Facebook page can be quite difficult,” Neumeister said, but they liked the idea of a brochure. “It would be easy for them to maintain. They’re already stretched so thin; we didn’t want to add any stress to their plates.”

The group is working on designing a brochure and newsletter template to give to the group, who can update it regularly and print it. Werner said that listening to what the group needed allowed them to provide the right product for them.

“The organization leaders [wanted to]keep parents up to date on what their children are learning, what kind of fun they’re having at the program,” she said. “A lot of them are immigrants and their main language is Spanish. So [we’re] able to give them a piece of paper to show pictures and have English on the front, Spanish on the back. That the parents feel involved with their child’s academic curriculum is really important.”

Thweatt said that experience helped teach her that sometimes scaling back ideas can be beneficial to the client if it fits their needs.

“When we went into it, all of our ideas were huge,” she said. “And as we started doing our research, and talking with them, we realized that our huge ideas, as great as they were, they’re not good for an organization like this.”

Meeting the Moment

Not only is it important to meet organizations where they are, said faculty, it is also important to meet the public where it is. With a growing distrust of media organizations across the country, but also a growing need for information, Knobel and others said that this program is even more essential.

“We see a need to create the next generation of public communicators who act in the public interest, who act in accord with the highest ethical values. So if anything, the media ecosystem today has just made the need for our program more acute and more visible,” Knobel said.

Shapiro said that he sees public media, and in particular the students who go through this program, as essential to restoring trust in both democracy and each other.

“Public media is a place that believes that it’s all about light, not heat—a place where it’s important to understand things in context and take the time to understand them,” he said. “I feel like our job is to try to make sure people understand everything, understand all points of view, without worrying if it’s not necessarily going to be a great 30-second exchange.”

The program is currently accepting applications for its next cohort, which will start in August 2021. For more information, visit their website.

Those are just some of the ways colleagues and friends remembered Richard Hake, who died of natural causes on Friday at his home in Manhattan at the age of 51.

Hake, a 1991 Fordham College at Rose Hill graduate and a member of the advisory board for Fordham’s master’s degree program in public media, worked at WNYC for nearly 30 years. He was the host of WNYC’s Morning Edition, as well as a reporter and producer, and his work was featured on both national and local NPR programs such as Weekend Edition and All Things Considered.

“This is a hard punch in the gut,” said Chuck Singleton, general manager of WFUV, Fordham’s public media station. “Rich was one of my early students in my first role as FUV news director [in the late 1980s]. … He walked in the door and instantly decided what he wanted to do with his life—become a public radio journalist.”

Hake did just that. A New Yorker through and through, he was born in the Bronx, where his father, Richard James Hake, was a New York City police detective; his mother, Joy Mekeland, was a clerical worker and secretary. He began working at WNYC even before he graduated from Fordham in 1991.

Once at WNYC, Hake became known for “neighborhood and people portraits” and taking “listeners to the places they normally wouldn’t visit,” according to his bio.

He received multiple awards from the Associated Press Broadcasters Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the New York Press Club, particularly for his feature and documentary work, including his 1997 piece Coney Island Cyclone Anniversary, which he recorded while riding the world-famous roller coaster, describing the panorama for listeners during the ascent—the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and the Manhattan skyline, the Atlantic Ocean and the D train—before letting out a joyful scream during the ride’s 85-foot drop.

John Schaefer, FCRH ’80, host of the WNYC shows Soundcheck and New Sounds, remembered Hake’s love of the theater by replaying a piece Hake recorded in 2012 with actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein during a cab ride to the opening night performance of Fierstein’s musical Newsies.

But arts and culture features weren’t Hake’s only specialty. He also excelled at bringing breaking news stories to listeners with accuracy, clarity, and equanimity—from the September 11 attacks to Superstorm Sandy to the coronavirus pandemic. He was known for putting reporters and others at ease to create easy-to-understand, in-depth interviews. And as morning show host, he liked to say that he “woke up New York.”

“In his bones and in his heart, Richard cared about serving the public good. … He cared about getting it right, and he loved what he did,” WNYC reporter Jim O’Grady, FCRH ’82, said in his radio obituary for Hake.

As recently as last Wednesday, Hake had been hosting Morning Edition from his apartment near Mount Sinai Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He was no stranger to broadcasting in difficult times—when the WNYC generator failed during the 2003 blackout, he shared the news by telephone receiver and flashlight. But colleagues said he missed the camaraderie of the newsroom in recent weeks, as the coronavirus crisis has kept staff from their office.

“He was 28 years at the station and had the highest profile job in the building, but he talked to every newsroom intern, gave advice to new hires, and greeted guards in the lobby by name,” O’Grady said in the obituary, noting that Hake also served as a negotiator for the union representing WNYC employees. “His fellow workers often said, ‘He wanted you to know your worth.’”

The Humble Mentor

Julianne Welby, FCRH ’93, senior editor at WNYC, said that she attributes her career to Hake. She first crossed paths with him when she started working in the WFUV newsroom as a Fordham undergraduate. Chuck Singleton told her, “‘Go hang out with that guy, he’ll show you what to do,’ and it was Richard Hake,” she said, smiling. “[Hake] showed me how to write a newscast and he had to run back and forth because he was on the air.”

A few months after she started writing Hake’s newscasts, she got a call that changed her career path. Hake was sick, and she was asked to fill in for him on the air. “That was kind of an epiphany for me—I could be on the air. And so I say that Richard launched my career, because not only was he teaching me newscasting from that first day I was at WFUV, but he kind of inadvertently stepped aside and showed me the path for being a public media broadcaster,” Welby said.

Years later, Hake would help her launch the next phase in her career. “Richard was the one who opened the door for me at WNYC” when she joined the station in 2008, she said. “He lobbied really hard for me. I would not be in my job at WNYC without his advocacy.”

Annmarie Fertoli, FCRH ’06, now a digital audio journalist at The Wall Street Journal, worked alongside Hake during her time at WNYC from 2010 to 2017, and said he was always willing to help young journalists.

“Richard definitely was an enormous talent, but he didn’t come off that way,” she said. “He was an approachable person, he made himself accessible. … There were a lot of young producers who work on the Morning Edition team that he really looked out for.”

Welby said that Hake, with his humility, was the perfect mentor for young journalists.

“I’ve seen interns and young producers who just speak the world of Richard for making them feel so welcome,” she said.

A Man for Others

Beth Knobel, Ph.D., professor of communication and media studies at Fordham, recalled meeting Hake for the first time soon after she joined the Fordham faculty in 2007.

“If you were a public radio junkie, the way I am, and you get to meet someone like Richard Hake, it’s almost like a rock and roll fan getting to meet Mick Jagger,” she said.

Knobel said that Hake was a huge part of the Fordham community and “never said no” to volunteering to come speak to students or serve on a scholarship committee.

“When I saw the news about Richard on Saturday … I just burst out into tears because Richard was such a meaningful person for our journalism community at Fordham and for the New York, tri-state area,” she said.

George Bodarky, FCRH ’93, the news director at WFUV, remembered Hake as someone always willing to help out and mentor Fordham students.

“Richard was a consummate journalist and a kind and generous person. He never hesitated when asked to serve as a guest speaker in my journalism classes or to talk with the young journalists at WFUV,” Bodarky said. “I will sorely miss him and his trusted voice on the airwaves of WNYC.”

Jacqueline Reich, Ph.D., chair of the communication and media studies department, said that she’ll always think of him when she’s having her morning coffee and listening to the news.

“I’m going to miss him every morning, I’m going to miss him—sometimes he would inject these wry little comments when he would [read the news at]the top of the hour, and I would sometimes say to myself, ‘Oh Richard,’” she said with a smile.

A Voice for New Yorkers

Knobel said that Hake was someone who had a special connection with listeners.

“When people hear people on the radio and see people on television, they kind of feel like they know them,” she said. “Richard was someone who millions of New Yorkers felt that they knew, felt that he was a part of their daily routine, and he was so good at what he did—and I don’t think he understood how good he was. It came so naturally to him. He was just an incredible journalist.”

Singleton said that Hake was able to develop that relationship with listeners because he excelled both in narrative storytelling and breaking news.

“Rich had a huge appetite for the kind of sound-rich, narrative storytelling NPR is known for, and he was also fearless in front of a live mic,” he said. “Those two talents aren’t always found in the same body—honing a carefully produced piece and flying by the seat of your pants when the clock says you need to go back to network programming in three seconds.”

In a message to the WFUV team on Saturday, Singleton recalled a time when he invited Hake and other young journalists over for dinner, and Hake, who had an “enormous appetite for New York City history and culture,” parked himself “next to a bookcase full of New York classics” by Joseph Mitchell, Robert Caro, Jim Dwyer, FCRH ’79, and others.

“He said, ‘I want to move in and just live next to this bookcase for a while,’” Singleton said. “I think Rich climbed inside those covers and is still in there somewhere.”

Hake is survived by his parents and his stepfather; his brothers, Ryan and Jack; and a sister, Christine Hake.

What many people don’t know about pigeons, says Carlen, a doctoral candidate who researches urban ecology and evolutionary biology, is that pigeons mate for life. Moreover, they work hard to keep the romance alive. When you walk down the street and see one pigeon fluffing its feathers and chasing after another, this is not a hapless bachelor pursuing an uninterested mate; this is a sign of a committed relationship.

“They constantly do their mating dance,” said Carlen, who was featured this morning on WNYC. “That’s one way they keep up their pair bond.”

Find the full WNYC story—which also discusses pigeons’ surprising ability to distinguish Monet paintings from Picassos—here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!