Andy Rosen '05 always had a love for human connection, which made him want to pursue journalism from a young age. Rosen said, “I remember being a kid and going into the newsroom with my dad and thinking this place is amazing and this is the energy I want in my life.”
Rosen has more than 15 years of journalism experience as a reporter and editor at organizations such as The Boston Globe and The Baltimore Sun but is curently a writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. His journey started once he declared a major in Journalism in 2001. Rosen thanked the UMass Amherst atmosphere for teaching him his role in the democratic process and the Journalism Department for showing him the real, grounding reason for why journalists do what they do.
The biggest takeaway from his Journalism courses was determining where the gaps in his knowledge were. He also learned to decipher if his story will have a positive or negative impact. Now his priority as a journalist is to be ethical.
While in school, Rosen interned at the Daily Hampshire Gazette, and through a connection, he got his first job post-graduation at the Brattleboro Reformer. The Reformer taught Rosen the foundations of journalism. “They held you accountable. They wanted you to understand the context of what was happening and the lives the people led," Rosen said.
Rosen took the lessons he learned from the Reformer and brought them with him in his next chapter in Baltimore, Maryland. He started off at a local paper called the Daily Record, which served as a gateway in getting him a position as a Crimes and Courts editor at the Baltimore Sun. The Sun taught Rosen how to learn the rhythms of the news cycle from the management side and how to build a solid coverage plan. Rosen reflects on how the city was going through tough times and said, "I had to find the way to tell the story to the people affected.”
His next move was to Boston where he started his career at The Boston Globe. Rosen always knew he wanted to be a business reporter. "Business reporting gives you another lens to understand why the world moves the way it does,” Rosen said. One of his favorite parts of his role has been mastering explanatory writing. This is when a reporter is given a story they know little about and must accurately explain it to someone the following day.
Rosen wants to make news digestible for everyone, especially kids. Through his latest passion project called "Extra Scoops," Rosen developed a podcast that exposes kids to current events in the news to help them understand the cool stuff happening in the world around them.
His great success is due to his drive for taking on any assignment, no matter the size, and he encourages students to do the same. Rosen said, “Students are not always going to get the premiere assignment; they need to forget about the size of the opportunity and see how they can use it in their portfolio."
This profile was written as a part of the 2021 Alumni Spotlight Series by students in the Writing for Public Relations course.