Influential 2009: Marc Beja

At once, Marc Beja is irreverent and very, very serious when discussing the things he cares about.

During our interview he talked about the future of journalism quite solemnly, only to tell me, minutes later and with no small amount of pride, that he managed to change his name last year in the Washington Square News masthead a total of three times: He appeared as Marc "Loves Cookies" Beja, Marc Hat and, his crowning accomplishment, Douchebag Beja.

Currently a first-year master's student in Steinhardt's music education program, Beja teaches voice lessons for non-majors and serves as a senior editor at WSN. These are representations of what he sees as two very separate, yet equally important interests: music education and investigative reporting.

Beja's performing career began long before he developed an interest in journalism. He started taking tap dancing classes and piano lessons at the age of five, and was in choirs in elementary school. Among other roles, he played a gangster on a short-lived Fox show called "The Jury" and landed a part in "Abby's Song," a limited-engagement Broadway show directed by Randy Skinner. But by his junior year of high school, Beja had so severely injured his feet that he had to stop dancing.

Beja's musical talent helped him out in difficult times. He left home his senior year of high school after fights with his father. To support himself, he directed musicals and choirs.

During his sophomore year of high school, Beja said he "stumbled into" an interest in investigative journalism when he covered a board meeting for his school newspaper. A member of the Board of Trustees made several off-color comments that Beja made sure to include in his article, yet when the story was published, the administration had removed a great deal of the controversial content.

Years later, Beja has no qualms about holding authority figures accountable for their actions.

That much is clear in his work at WSN, which has tackled issues from campus crime to dirty dining halls. Last year Beja and Gallatin 2009 graduate Adam Playford discovered significant problems with the way NYU reported its crime statistics, both on-campus and abroad. Based on their reporting, NYU republished the 2008 report and changed its methods of crime reporting to present clearer data. Beja and Playford won Best News Story in the New York Press Association's 2008 Better Newspapers contest for the four-part series, "Investigating Campus Crime."

Last summer, Beja interned at The Chronicle of Higher Education, which recently awarded him its David W. Miller Award for Young Journalists for three stories he wrote that summer.

Despite his accomplishments, Beja doesn't consider himself an "advocate" in journalism.

"It's not up to me whether something is changed but just to present the facts," he said.

Beja sees himself both teaching and writing in some capacity after he graduates, careers that have always been very separate pursuits for him.

"Everyone's trying to get me to fall into one camp or combine the two, and I'm not interested in that," he said.

Yet a commitment to teaching is evident even when Beja steps into the newsroom.

"How are internship apps going?" he asked a group of WSN editors.

And when some admitted to procrastinating the necessary, yet often thankless task of filling out forms to work pro bono in journalism, Beja became stern: "You need to get a job this summer."

And Beja's background as a reporter is visible in the classroom, too. His teaching style in the studio seems reflective and investigative: Instead of telling his student the answer, he asks questions.

"How was that? How'd it sound? How'd it feel?" he probed after one of his students sang a rendition of "I'm Alive," a song from the musical "Next to Normal."

Why does Beja teach? Again, he answers my question by becoming very, very serious, followed by a move toward irreverence.

"To see someone finally get something that they had difficulty doing on their own is rewarding, be it in a classroom or in a newsroom," Beja said, trailing off with, "I sound like a goddamn bumper sticker."