Piece Comment

Review of Bullying in a Community


From the first few seconds of this piece, you feel as if you are actually surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Traverse Square: the community housing development in Middletown, Connecticut where 10-year-old Alexis Madera and Destiny Chandler live, learn, and play. The two young reporters tell us the positive and negative aspects of growing up in this community through interviews with family, friends, and neighbors. The piece is both moving and insightful because the girls expose their personal experience with being bullied while seeming to understand why bullies act the way they do.

Though the piece is short, I felt the arrangement of the story was a bit out of order. I think it would have worked better to include the interviews about violence in the community and how it has improved closer to the beginning of the piece, leaving all of the bullying content for the second half. Producers Maddie Neufeld, Harry Bartle, and Jake Schofeld captured strong interviews and ambient sound that enhanced the story's flow. It's a story definitely worth hearing.