By Danielle Capalbo

Stephen Brophy, a long-time community activist, often finds himself opposing the actions of Northeastern’s administration. It shows in the newspaper he edits, which acts as a beacon for neighborhood movements and a monitor of university expansion.

“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” said Brophy, referring to the old adage that became the motto for the Fenway News when the non-profit community newspaper spawned in the mid-70s.

Some may find it ironic that he bases his publication in a building on campus. Brophy finds himself walking the line when publishing information on the school that may be considered negative.

“If we hammer at Northeastern, one of the things I worry about is that people think I hammer Northeastern all the time because they are our landlords and that I want to demonstrate that we haven’t sold out to them,” Brophy said. “But when I hammer Northeastern, I don’t event think about the fact that they are our landlords. I just think, at that moment, is the fact that Northeastern needs to be hammered. I worry how others perceive that. But we have to figure out a way to work together so the neighborhood isn’t overrun and the school isn’t totally frustrated.”

Though he doesn’t have a journalism degree, Brophy said his career and experience teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) allows him to grow as an editor.

“Tutoring is a lot like editing,” Brophy said.

For almost seven years, Brophy has taught film classes, acted as a teacher’s assistant for college writing classes and tutored undergraduates at MIT.

“One thing that’s always struck me about Stephen is he’s really very attentive to people,” said Greg Dancer, a lecturer at MIT who met Brophy several years ago. “He’s attentive to details that matter to people. One of the best people to work with students I’ve ever taught with.”

And Brophy does have a history in print journalism – he has written as a movie critic for MIT’s student-run newspaper, The Thistle, and MIT’s alternative student paper, The Tech. For four years, his movie reviews were published in Bay Windows, a local gay, lesbian and transgender publication.

His first encounter with the Fenway News was 30 years ago, as a young, activist employed by the New England Food Co-Op Organization. As a correspondent, Brophy used the Fenway News as a platform for his ideas and opinions, focusing particularly around housing and development in the city.

In 1975, Brophy interviewed Northeastern’s fourth president, Kenneth Ryder, for the nascent Fenway News and somehow secured the paper its first home – he simply alerted Ryder to a vacant university-owned building on Burbank Street.

“He turned the building over to the community,” he said. “They gave it to the Fenway Community Development Corporation, which I was the secretary for at the time, to rent for $1 a year. That became the first office occupied by the Fenway Community Development Corporation, the Symphony Tenants Organizing Project, as well as the Fenway News.”

As the university transitioned from a small commuter school to one more campus-oriented , Brophy participated in many protests against the school, but stopped writing for the Fenway News less than a year after it received its original office space. The Burbank Street property was reclaimed about five years ago by the university and the community organizations relocated.

But Northeastern let the Fenway News stay, and offered it free space, closer to the heart of campus, in the Gainsborough Parking Garage.

Brophy began to volunteer again for the Fenway News in January 2007. The paper’s board of directors were then seeking a full time editor. They hired Brophy this summer.

Brophy hopes to expand the Fenway News , improving the monthly to make the move to bi-weekly.

Brophy earned the right to distribute papers on Northeastern campus in September, which he believes will help connect students with residents of their neighboring communities.

Renata Nyul, a spokesperson for Northeastern, said the university sees Fenway News distribution and participation on campus as a step in the right direction.

“It is important for all of us to be up to date in what happens in our community,” she said. “The more convenient we can make it for our students to get that, the better.”