Year: 2019

Investigating Gender Gaps and Using Facts to Create Social Change

dmoseley Journalist Profiles

By Meredith Melland

Reporter Jodi Kantor’s stories often ripple from the pages of The New York Times and transform into massive waves that break gender barriers, bring nuance on politics and culture to the surface and inspire change that continues to reverberate through the United States’ social fabric.

Her reporting on the difficulties facing low-wage lactating workers in 2006 prompted two women to design mobile lactation suites that have been brought to businesses around the world. Starbucks changed their scheduling policies when she reported on the chain’s irregular hours, even before she reported the biggest story of her career.

Kantor and fellow Times investigative reporter Megan Twohey revealed three decades of sexual assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017 — prompting the Weinstein Corporation to fire him and catalyzing thousands of women to share stories of sexual abuse or harassment using Tarana Burke’s Twitter hashtag, “#MeToo.”

As she sat with Twohey in the basement of Chicago’s Vic Theatre before an event for She Said — their book on the reporting process and effects of the Weinstein investigation — and signed books as they were slid to her in a fluid assembly line, Kantor described how she uses gender as a lens for investigative reporting.

“I think covering politics in general is part of what made me want to use gender as an investigative topic,” Kantor said.

When she covered the 2008 presidential campaign and election, Kantor was struck by how the heated discussion on Hilary Clinton’s potential candidacy was permeated with sexism, partisanship and personal feelings.

“I just remember thinking with this, what the gender debate in the U.S. needs is more facts and it needs especially more airing of hidden and secret facts,” she said.

After reporting on the 2012 election and writing a book about the Obamas, Kantor directly pursued stories on gender inequities. She reported on the gender opportunity gap of 1994 Stanford graduates and attempts to change the male-oriented culture of Harvard Business School, which sparked nationwide discussion of college rules on admission and treatment.

By the time she embarked on the Weinstein story with Twohey, she was an open secrets veteran. Still, some moments in the months of intense reporting affected Kantor emotionally, especially when Ashley Judd agreed to be the first survivor to go on the record in what felt like a “massive leap of faith.”

“I still wanted to sound professional, and I remember in that moment searching for something to say to her, and sort of the best I could muster was ‘this means the world to me as a journalist,’” Kantor said.

Kantor said that she and Twohey preferred to keep the focus on their sources’ feelings and pain to understand their stories and effectively do their jobs.

“If you were diagnosed with cancer, you wouldn’t necessarily want to be speaking to a doctor who was weeping in the room with you,” Kantor said.

Though the investigation required the reporters to conduct several meticulous interviews with women divulging personal stories, Kantor stressed that they still had to establish clear journalist-source relationships.

“This reporting definitely requires the ability to talk to people who may have been deeply traumatized, who are recalling their worst memories as they speak to you, but that only makes it all the more important to be professional and to be collected,” Kantor said.

With such a dark subject, working with a partner helped her process information while maintaining appropriate distance from the sources.

“That’s part of why the partnership between Megan and I became so important to both of us, because that was the place where we could take our own feelings about this work,” Kantor said.

The Weinstein story and the duo’s subsequent investigations have continued to impact the country and culture, but not every Kantor article has created widespread social reform. In 2016, she developed a series with reporter Catrin Einhorn on Canadian citizens who adopted Syrian refugees.

“It’s one of the most extraordinary humanitarian efforts I’ve ever seen because it was an example of individuals doing something that governments couldn’t or wouldn’t do,” Kantor said.

She thought the story was a model of a solution for a desperate and difficult-to-solve crisis.

“I hope it opened people’s eyes,” Kantor said.

Though it was widely read, it hasn’t produced visible action. Kantor remarked that the role of a journalist is to inform the public and hope they read and listen.

“You’ll never know who’s read your story and what it’s inspired them to do or change,” she said.

Kantor, like many people in the journalism world, felt overwhelmed by the number of possible investigations and large-scale stories when Trump took office.

“How in the world am I ever going to be equal to this moment? How can I do a story that actually matters?” Kantor said she asked herself then. ”Because I’ve got this precious seat at The New York Times at a time when journalism is under siege, and what am I going to use this for?”

Her advice is to new reporters entering the field during this time is simple — take the most substantive reporting job you can get, keep producing work and try out different media.

“You want to be in a place that will give you interesting opportunities and good advice,” Kantor said.

By using tried-and-true investigative tactics, determining how to best use her voice in different cultural moments and looking through the lens of gender inequality, Jodi Kantor has produced work with lasting impact. She hopes that through reading the book or one of her stories, people will be inspired to investigate and inform the world around them.

Maintaining Objectivity and Transparency – “in this fractured time in which the very notion of truth can seem illusive”

dmoseley Journalist Profiles

By Natalie Wade

New York Times’ Pulitzer Winning Megan Twohey discusses the role of anonymity in fair and accurate journalism and the balancing act of investigative reporting.

Across the country, hushed conversations are surfacing and non-disclosure agreements seem less effective at silencing grievances. Now, widely known are the secrets that protected Harvey Weinstein, thanks to the publishing of the article, Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades. New York Times’ Megan Twohey, after months of reporting alongside Jodi Kantor, was able to expose Weinstein’s abuse of power.

Unraveling this story meant combating the idea that journalistic media is riddled with rumors and “fake news.” She had to separate her emotions from her reporting and was not always sure what the end result of the exposé would be.

Tackling an investigation into an issue hidden behind the Hollywood façade, Twohey credits her previous work experience at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Chicago Tribune, with giving her the focus and emotional bandwidth that this would require.

“There’s no substitute for experience,” Twohey says. “It can take time to kind of cultivate the skills and build the experience that sort of ensures that when you do find yourself in the midst of a big story, that you’ve got the tools to execute.”

There were plenty of things – beyond the former Israeli intelligence officials who were paid $300,000 to stop the investigation – that made the Weinstein story difficult to report. Another hurdle was working to get the many allegations of sexual assault on the record, but for Twohey, that was the only way to move forward: “… the people who made allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against Weinstein did so on the record in our stories.”

Though Twohey agrees that anonymous sources may prove useful in an investigation, transparency was key in this story, especially given the sensitivity of the alleged crimes. “We felt like in this type of reporting, in the name of not just accuracy but fairness, it’s important for people making these allegations to go on the record.”

This ethical standard embedded in the Weinstein story is what makes the allegations difficult to contest or be dismissed as rumors. “Even in this fractured time in which the very notion of truth can seem illusive … there wasn’t any debate over whether or not he had engaged in this bad behavior,” says Twohey.

Editor-in-chief at the New York Times, Dean Baquet gave her strict instruction not to speak to Weinstein off the record, Twohey says “… because what we’ve seen in the course of our reporting was that [Weinstein] was sort of a master in manipulation and bullying and if we had allowed him to go off the record it would have only, sort of, empowered him and his underhanded tactics.”

Weinstein’s threats of legal action and intimidation tactics didn’t work on Twohey. “To me the more we saw those attempts at intimidation and threats, the more motivated we were to make sure we were able to publish the truth.”

Attempting to uncover that truth has led to many uncomfortable situations for Twohey, including Weinstein barging into The New York Times office, but that is how she knows her investigative work is important. She remembers being given the best journalistic advice as a college intern at Nightline, where executive producer Tom Bettag said to her, “If you’re not scared of your job, get a new job.”

“That pit in my stomach is actually a sign that I’m taking on the type of challenges that are going to force me to grow,” Twohey says.

Journalism can be a difficult balancing act. When you’ve invested so much time and energy into one story, it’s not always easy to be objective. Twohey believes that, “As an investigative reporter you have to be emotionally invested to sort of spend months pursuing stories.”

However, she explains that this is different from opinion. “It’s not our job to offer our opinions, in fact, we feel like if we wear our opinions on our sleeves that, that can actually interfere with the reporting that we do.”

“We often feel like the best way to help, is often to do our jobs and do it as professionally as possible and that means, you know, doing the due diligence of reporting, the corroboration and ultimately following a process that is not about emotion.”

Almost two years later, Twohey has seen her work reignite the #MeToo movement and many men – who are accused of abusing their power – have come under fire. “I think that this story did help fuel that movement and help serve as a solvent for secrecy, and I think one of the reasons that this particular story had such an impact is because it was really an x-ray into abuse of power.”

The relationship between objectivity and honesty

dmoseley Journalist Profiles

A conversation with David Gelber

By Kayla Molander

David Gelber’s name has appeared as producer on over 100 stories for 60 Minutes over the course of his nearly sixty-year career.

That career is one guided by gut instinct, and trying to do the right thing.

Gelber explains his approach in a phone interview. “What’s given me joy in journalism is to start with what my gut feels about something and try to tell that story as honestly and as powerfully and with as much emotional power as I can find.”

That is a far-cry from traditional journalistic ideals of objectivity, but that has never been a problem for Gelber.

“For much of my journalistic life, if not all of it, I’ve certainly walked this line between journalism and advocacy,” he says.

Advocacy lies at the heart of Gelber’s current project, which is dedicated to what he calls “overwhelmingly the biggest story of our time.”

The story is climate change, and “the enormity of this issue cannot be understated,” he says.

In the presidential debates from the last two presidential elections, there were no questions about climate change in any of the televised debates.

“You tell me how reporters from NBC and CBS and ABC and CNN can conduct debates in 2012 and 2016 without even mentioning climate change once?” Gelber asks.

That is just the beginning of how he believes the networks have failed in their coverage of climate change. He thinks that in their quest for balance, networks have ignored scientific reality.

“Twenty years from now, we’re going to look back at this and see it as one of the most outrageous failings of American journalism… Television should be ashamed of itself.”

Gelber left 60 Minutes in 2011 when he was not permitted to exclusively cover stories about climate change. The YEARS Project was born shortly after, where Gelber created the Emmy-winning documentary series Years of Living Dangerously about climate change.

According to the organization’s website, “The YEARS Project is a multimedia storytelling and education effort designed to inform, empower, and unite the world in the face of climate change.”

Despite its mission statement, Gelber insists the non-profit deals only in fact, and bias is not an issue.

“I hate that word [bias]. There’s plenty of bias out there. We are extremely careful. We have never been accused of misstating factual information. The climate issue is a settled issue among scientists. There is nobody, including Exxon Mobile, anymore who pretends that human-caused climate change is not a scientific fact.”

Fact, according to Gelber, can coexist with passion in journalism.

“There’s been amazing journalism that’s been done by reporters who are both passionate about a subject and honest to report it fairly and accurately.”

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics does not state that journalists should avoid subjects they are passionate about, but it does caution to avoid conflicts of interests – real or perceived. The line between passion and conflict of interest is undefined and therefore debatable. Gelber thinks it’s worth discussing but is not the most important issue.

“Objectivity. I don’t know what that is, but I know what honesty is,” he says.

“That word [objectivity] needs to be defined better,” he continues. “The way it’s used by conventional mainstream journalists means don’t tip your hand that you feel strongly about an issue, which really bothers me, because I don’t feel that’s essential.”

It is no secret that Gelber feels strongly about climate change. He makes no apologies for his feelings. He compares denying climate change to believing the earth is flat, and does not entertain climate change deniers. He does not call that bias.

“I think the bias was in this ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ crap that the networks were putting out for years. Where they would give equal time to these liars who worked for the fossil fuel companies.”

Gelber can speak candidly about the networks because he no longer works for them. He is now the chairman of his own foundation. He lets his moral code guide his actions, and suggests young journalists do the same, and not be afraid to speak out against injustice.

“People have to know what they stand for… If they have real integrity they’ll know where to draw the line. They’ll know when to speak up when they see bullshit.”

Uncharted Territory

dmoseley Journalist Profiles

How to ethically report in different cultures

By Mariam Mackar

“Public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity.”

This is the preamble of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. A standard many journalists follow in order to maintain the integrity that is necessary in a field that is constantly being referred to as “fake news.” At its core, SPJ’s Code of Ethics serves as a set of principles to guide reporters during their time in a career that is filled with nuanced scenarios and morally divisive situations.

From the very beginning of a student’s time in journalism, the concept of reporting ethically is drilled into nearly each course taken and every story written, all in hopes of being translated into a future career of honorable investigations and truth-telling. Though one may learn (as much as a person can in the classroom) the standards of reporting in the United States, ethics differ within each culture, country, and community. How, if at all, does a reporter prepare him or herself to report on new environments they are not accustomed to?

“There’s no education that can teach you the things you learn by being dropped in some other country… [reporting abroad] was a real eye-opener and a real gift,” says Michelle Kosinski, CNN’s senior diplomatic correspondent for the U.S. State Department. Before her current position at CNN, Kosinski worked for 10 years as an NBC News foreign correspondent based in London, covering a wide range of domestic and international stories, such as military handover in Afghanistan, the earthquake in Haiti, the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and terrorist plots and bombings in Europe.

Despite the perpetual learning curve that accompanies reporting in constantly changing cultural environments, Kosinski says that being able to work in different countries enhanced her journalistic skills by making her a more well-rounded person. “It made me wiser, it made me more sympathetic to human beings in general… because I think when you see other people’s cultures, you just understand humanity more.”

After her 10 years of foreign reporting experience, Kosinski’s best advice to young journalists on how to avoid reporting with subconscious bias is to do what journalists do best: ask questions.

“The best advice is to just question everything. Question every source; like what is their agenda? What is the background? What political motive might they have to be sharing with you what they’re sharing? Because every source you’re talking to has an agenda and you’re more susceptible to it when you’re dropped into a place and you yourself are like “which end is up?”

From Kosinski’s perspective the way that a person reports doesn’t necessarily change in a new place. However, when in a new country, state or environment, a journalist has to pay closer attention to differences in the ‘rules’ of reporting, including differing laws and socially acceptable actions.

“It’s instantly noticeable, the differences, just in the way reporters conduct themselves. There are other countries where, for example, suspects’ identities are really protected and investigators won’t release as many details as you would be used to getting in America.”

She argues that one of the most valuable things a reporter can do, especially when reporting on a new place, is to ask for help. Whether that is from experts on the topic being covered, colleagues who have knowledge on the matter or natives in the area who can provide a close-to-home perspective.

For Kosinski, the beauty of the field of journalism is the adventure that can be found in any place. Whether that means traveling to new countries or finding stories within your hometown, the nature of reporting allows for new discoveries regardless of the continent one is working in.  Although working in unknown environments can provide differing obstacles, nothing can prepare a journalist for new cultures like first-hand experience. While norms vary from each location, the core values of the Journalistic Code of Ethics are applicable in any setting. As Kosinski’s career has shown, the benefits of being immersed in uncharted territory transcends simply reporting a headlining story by providing invaluable experience to a reporter’s future in the field.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Archibald: Journalist first, columnist second

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By Brian Pearlman

For John Archibald, writing a worthwhile column is not simply churning out a clickable “spin” or “hot take” on a pressing issue. It involves real journalism and real research.

“I believe that a good column is well-reported,” he says. “And then, honestly — particularly now — if it’s not, then it’s just another voice in a world full of voices.”

By good reporting, Archibald is referring to the classic shoe leather variety — trawling forms, data and records to see where governments spend their money; getting on-the-ground experience and speaking to original sources.

“I think when you offer new information, it adds a lot of value to opinion pieces,” he says.

Archibald spent 20 years as a reporter for The Birmingham News before becoming a columnist in 2004. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2018; his winning columns included a novella-like profile of the queer daughter of conservative Birmingham talk show host Rick Burgess; a piece about a 2015 incident when then-Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore cited God in court filings to lower taxes on his 43,000 square foot, seven-car garage home in Etowah county; and a full-blown investigative analysis piecing together the downfall of now-former Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley — step by scandalous step.

It’s his background in investigative work, coupled with a belief that journalism must never lose its sense of social responsibility that drives him. Sure, people can pull the indictments for themselves and read PDFs of court documents online. But it is Archibald’s job to make the happenings of the day relevant and engaging — to increase Alabamians’ civic awareness and political literacy.

In this sense Archibald is a curator, distilling what he thinks is important for people to know and presenting it in a way that readers will hopefully be interested in and, yes, even entertained by.

And Alabama, a state of over 4.5 million people in which Archibald notes “the head of every branch of government has been booted out of office in the last two years,” is a fitting canvas for a journalist’s brush. You might even call it a “target-rich environment” for reporters — Archibald does.

In fact, the question of who can lay claim to the “most corrupt” state of them all was the subject of a fascinating piece Archibald published in April, in which he asked reporters from Illinois, New Jersey and Louisiana to say why they had it the worst. The verdict? It depends on how you measure corruption, and in any case, everybody loses.

But Illinois and Alabama do share more than a few similarities in this respect: Both suffer under the weight of a Machine. In the case of Illinois, it’s the Democratic Machine, famous for clouted hires, shadowy backroom deals and an unwritten pay-to-play rulebook. In Alabama’s case, it’s a powerful fraternity at the University of Alabama that counts many political figures among its ranks and has been linked to influence schemes and even alleged voter fraud. Archibald delved into The Machine in a podcast last year called “Greek Gods.”

Another similarity between the two states: an eye-rolling cynicism among the citizenry about their respective governments’ predilection towards self enrichment and corrupt dealings.

“We are incredibly cynical and expect the worst from our politicians, and we aren’t always rewarded when we get it,” he says.

Archibald is currently on a month-long break from his column while he works on a podcast project, which he jokes is putting him “in the throes of withdrawal.” As such, you can’t currently find his thoughts on some of the biggest recent news in Alabama politics: former Attorney General Jeff Sessions running once again for the Senate seat he held for 20 years.

“I think he’s determined in this very bright-red state to maintain his loyalty to the president, and he would probably be the favorite at this point,” Archibald says.

It hasn’t always been easy for Archibald, especially in the current environment of shuttered newsrooms and major layoffs at newspapers across the country. In 2012, almost two-thirds of the staff across Alabama’s three largest newspapers were laid off, leaving Al.com, under the banner of Alabama Media Group, in their wake. A September 2018 piece in the Columbia Journalism Review quotes Archibald describing the need to hunker down and push onwards with good-old-fashioned reporting, regardless of where the winds of the industry blow.

“I am a columnist,” he is quoted as saying. “I’ve got my head down worrying about what tomorrow’s column is going to be about. I don’t have time to worry about the rest of it.”

Now, he adds an additional word of advice.

“The only time I’m ever happy is when I’m doing good work, and I know that was the case in 1986 as much as it is today,” he says.” While he doesn’t agree with every aspect of the “New Media” landscape, including the over-reliance on clicks as a measure of success, he also says that any way to get more people reading journalism is ultimately a good thing.

“I think,” he says, “we just have to hold onto those good things about journalism ethics and hard work and fairness and being accountable — and writing corrections when you need to, and those sorts of things — and social responsibility, which is what’s really sort of lost in this age — while at the same time looking forward in a realistic way about how to reach people in a changing news environment.”

At a DePaul event with former Sun-Times music critic and investigative reporter Jim DeRogatis in October, the “Sound Opinions” co-host also discussed journalistic ethics and the line between objectivity and fairness. In his view, there is no such thing as objectivity in a world of human emotion and personal, subjective experience, but journalism nonetheless requires scrupulous fairness at every corner, “bending over quintuple backwards to include the other side.”

Archibald largely agrees, though he says he isn’t bound to include the other side in a column. The news business, he believes, has sometimes used “both sides”-ism as a crutch.

“I need to be able to say unequivocally that something is right or something is wrong, something is good [or] something is bad, something is absurd or it’s not — or there’s no point in me writing a column,” he says.

“In not every case do we need to give both sides of the issue a voice. I don’t think I need to go ask a flat-earther if the world is round. There are certain times where everybody’s voice doesn’t need to be heard, and I think we have to be able to figure out when those times are.”

As for Alabama’s political corruption, the beat goes on.

In a series of award-winning columns last year, Archibald and colleague Kyle Whitmire wrote about a state lawmaker being bribed to look the other way on industrial pollution. The wide-reaching case resulted in the conviction of State Rep. Oliver Robinson, a coal company executive and a powerful lawyer; it also ensnared a county tax assessor and the president of the Birmingham NAACP.

Archibald now writes of a “shadow government” in Alabama stretching from the community level to the highest echelons of political power.

In a state where Donald Trump got 62 percent of the vote in the 2016 presidential election, Archibald is still trying to figure out why so many Alabamians are distrustful of their state politicians, yet they appear overwhelmingly supportive of the White House.

“I can’t figure out the connection,” he says.

A subject for a future column, perhaps.

Stop reading the news

dmoseley Student Perspectives

by Kayla Molander

“Stop reading the news.”

That search term on Google delivered 1,570,000,000 results in 0.31 seconds

 

I did not have to type my entire inquiry into the box. I merely typed “stop read” and “stop reading the news” was the first suggestion.

“Stop reading comments” was last.

Perhaps this means that Americans find news to be more useless and harmful than comments. I like to think that not reading the comments is so obvious by now people don’t need to search for it anymore. There’s no way to know for sure.

What is certain, from the search results, is there is an anti-news movement in this country. Those who believe in purging news from their lives are passionate enough to write essays about it. Hundreds of people comment on those essays. They converse about why my entire industry should stop existing.

This anti-news movement, as I have chosen to call it, is different from the cries of “fake news,” “media elite” or “corporate news.” All of those terms imply that a certain type of news is wrong. News itself is good, journalists are simply doing it incorrectly.

The anti-news movement claims news is a poison that lowers quality of life.

In his essay “This is what happens when you stop reading the news” for Medium, Nick Maccarone writes, “I’m happier, calmer, and still somehow know enough to be informed.”

Martjin Schirp agrees that the news is useless on HighExistence.com in his article titled “Why avoiding the news makes you smarter.” “Almost all news is irrelevant,” he writes, in a sentiment woven through all of these articles.

These authors argue that news should have a direct affect on your day-to-day life, and if it doesn’t, it’s a waste of your time and emotional energy.

Nat Eliason says it best in “The news is a waste of your time”:

“You might feel like it’s important to know what’s going on with ISIS, but you’re not going to do anything about it unless you’re in the military or politics, so stop worrying yourself. Don’t waste your time on it.”

The articles make the point that everything you need to know you can get from word of mouth. The emphasis is smaller, more local.

The problem with that thinking is when people place no value in journalism, the first news outlets to die are the local ones. Nearly 2,000 local papers have died in the last 15 years.

In October 2019, the Boston Globe told the story of Biddeford, Maine, where the local paper, the Journal Tribune, shut down publication after 135 years.

“The three city leaders are distressed. That said, none of them was subscribing to the paper when it published its last issue,” author Zoe Greenberg writes.

Those city leaders were not alone in not subscribing. Although the newspaper served a community of 40,000, there were only 2,000 paying subscribers at the time it closed.

The people of Biddeford are not anti-newsers – at least not all of them. Many mourned the loss of their local paper. Many care about the news – just not enough to dish out a little bit of cash for it.

Now Biddeford is what is increasingly common around the country – a news desert. There is no one sitting in their town hall meetings, digging through court records, and asking tough questions. No one is going to take a peek at the city’s financials to see if anything is out of whack.

The people of Biddeford made that choice. They decided that journalists were not worth the price tag. One-by-one communities around the country will have to make that same decision. America is approaching a day when it must decide whether or not journalism is something worth fighting for.

The people of Biddeford are proof that this is, indeed a fight. Biddeford didn’t burn the Journal Tribune down. The Journal Tribune died a slow, tragic death at the hands of indifference.

It’s not enough to not be anti-news. It’s not enough to like the idea of the First Amendment. It’s not enough to bounce around news outlets and browsers until you hit a paywall. If we want journalism to survive, we have to pay for it, just like we pay for other things we value, like college, doctors, and Starbucks.

As America ponders journalism’s worth, I send out resumes for jobs that may not exist in twenty years. Planning for retirement is hard when you don’t know what will last longer, your career or your industry.

I’ve been told that journalists are not supposed to make predictions, so I will not guess about the fate of my profession. I can only Google “stop reading the news,” and hope to one day find different results.

Podcasts are a key player in the future of journalism, but they still have a long way to go

dmoseley Student Perspectives

By Brian Pearlman

Journalism as an industry is facing a turbulent period of growth and change. As local newsrooms in smaller markets shut their doors and news organizations grapple with the best ways to fund their work, there’s a push to engage audiences in new ways — the infamous “pivot to video” or “pivot to audio.”

It’s in this sense that some have suggested podcasts hold the key to journalism’s future.

Podcasts are downloadable, episodic segments of audio content that are made for on-demand listening at the user’s convenience. The audience for podcasts is young — the Reuters Institute’s 2019 Digital News Report found that half of those surveyed who were under the age of 35 had listened to a podcast within the past month. Users are most likely to listen on smartphones, where they can download podcasts for free from apps like the Google Play store or Apple Podcasts app.

But while much has been made of success stories like New York Times’ “The Daily,” a 20-to-30-minute program that features original audio reporting from the national newspaper and claims a listenership of millions, the fact remains that podcasts have a long way to go before they truly inform a broad swath of the U.S. population.

While over half of Americans over the age of twelve have listened to at least one podcasts, the core pool of listeners is relatively small and niche. And the ad revenue generated pales in comparison to FM radio, movies and television shows.

Surprisingly, people also aren’t listening to podcasts in significant numbers on ubiquitous smart speakers like the Google Home and Amazon Alexa. According to a report from the Reuters Institute, while a tenth of the U.S. population now uses such devices, only one-fifth actually listens to them for news.

And in Nieman Labs’ 2019 “Predictions for Journalism” series,

Latoya Drake of Google News Lab and Juleyka Lantigua-Williams of production company Lantigua Williams & Co. both warned that many podcasts are still marked by a white, East Coast bias that entrenches them away from the diverse American populace — and a broader listenership.

Despite these hurdles, the intimacy and portability of podcasts can be powerful for news organizations who want to grab the attention of listeners.

“I think we’re entering a new age where we’re going to see a wider variety of content,” podcasting industry analyst Dave Zohrob told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Antony Funnell in March. We’re going to see more people listening, and really binging on that content like they do a new Netflix show.”

It’s intimate experiences like these, with audiences who are passionate about the shows they listen to and the companies that produce them, that have the potential to plant headphones on peoples’ ears and leave them there for 45 minutes or more.

The trick is to craft meaningful, compelling listening experiences, which is tough for smaller news organizations. Many of the top podcasts are produced by major companies like Gimlet, iHeartRadio and Wondery, the latter of which has found great success in turning newspaper series like the L.A. Times’ reporting on the Golden State Killer and New York Magazine’s reporting on convicted animal wrangler Joe Exotic into successful shows.

While podcasts may not be the panacea for the future of journalism, their continued growth shows that people do crave great stories — and great stories are what good news organizations have in spades.

 

 

 

Do They Love Me, Or Love Me Not?

dmoseley Student Perspectives

A Journalist’s Balance Between Building Sources and Standing Ground

by Mariam Mackar

When I first entered the world of Journalism, one of the most striking things I was told was that a journalist can’t be afraid of being disliked. This idea made sense to me in theory: a reporter can’t be afraid to ask the tough questions to get the right answers and a reporter definitely can’t be scared of nagging to get an interview that will make or break a story. For a notorious people pleaser like myself, I had a bit of a mental back and forth with myself after hearing this from many, if not all, of my professors at DePaul. This internal game of ping-pong consisted of a lot of questions of whether or not I was capable of going the lengths for each story or if my desire to be ‘liked’ swallowed that. Like many who first enter the fast-paced and demanding world of reporting, I wasn’t sure I had what it takes.

I quickly accepted that I needed to step out of my head and push myself further than I was used to in order to become the journalist I hoped to be. Throughout my time reporting I have learned to be okay with asking for interviews, speaking to people who are much more successful than I am, and doing whatever needs to be done to get the right components of each story. I did not allow myself to get lost in the thought of whether or not the people I was speaking to would find me agitating; after all I didn’t enter this profession to be liked, I entered it to learn how to find the truth.

Learning how to be bold in this way is something that every reporter learns how to do, but as I began to come to terms with this factor of the field, I found a new obstacle.

As the saying goes, a journalist is only as good as his or her sources.

All the best journalists have a network of sources that expand throughout their entire career. A good relationship with a source is another tool in your tool belt to utilize for future stories.

So where is the balance?  What is the priority?

“This is a relationship business.” Jenna Goudreau, writer for Forbes, says in her article “10 Tips for Young Aspiring Journalists.” “Good relationships with sources and subjects will make you better at your job. Do not underestimate or shortchange your relationships.”

This is especially important for young journalists like me who are just starting out in the field. I don’t exactly have the “clout” to be creating enemies with the little credibility and network I have. Building those sources and relationships are critical for young journalists like myself as I begin my professional life.

So, if a journalist can’t get held up by wanting to be liked, but must be liked enough to build their network, where is the line and where should it be set?

Building relationships with sources and keeping journalistic integrity are not mutually exclusive. In fact, it often takes a journalist’s ethical integrity and honesty to show a source that they are someone to be trusted both in the moment and in the future.

In his article “Defining the Delicate and Often Difficult Relationship Between Reporters and Sources,” Pro- Publica journalist Steve Mills states that transparency is crucial in fostering a reporter’s relationship with their sources.

“A good journalist explains to that kind of source the risks of cooperating with a story — either by being a source of information or a subject of a story. Journalism can be a sort of hit-and-run business: get information from the source, write the story, never talk to the source again. That approach can be a bit unkind, I think, and shortsighted. I keep in touch with some sources who haven’t provided me with information that led to a story in several years. You never know when they’ll have a story for you.”

A journalist’s goal is to report with integrity and not to create a personal fan-base or new friend. However, this does not mean that one needs to foster a standoffish demeanor or unkind behavior to succeed, but instead to keep the bigger picture in mind at all times and understand that, no matter what they do, they can’t make everyone happy.

As Mills says, a journalist can’t be afraid to go against a source if it means reporting the truth of a story.

“[Journalists] must also be willing to follow the facts wherever they lead, even if that means angering a source with a story that’s tough on them — even if that makes getting information from the source in the future more difficult.”

At its core, the solution seems to be simple: be a reliable person. Just as every journalist wants to be able to depend on their source’s credibility, sources would like to feel the same with journalists. Report with integrity, honesty, and transparency. Go the extra mile to find the right sources that will expose the nitty gritty of each story.

This is certainly much easier said than done and mistakes are, of course, inevitable. The field of journalism is one that requires opening the door to one’s comfort zone and stepping outside of it indefinitely. What I have learned from the rigorous reporting my colleagues and professors have accomplished is that a reporter should never get comfortable. Each story should make them better in some way, whether that’s by learning how to ask better questions, knowing where to look for answers or learning something new about a person, place or thing.

A reporter can’t live with the worry of being disliked, because the nature of the job transcends the desire of being loved by everyone. By being ethical, reliable, and driven by the goal of getting the job done the right way, the tension between building relationships with sources and being a good reporter disappears on its own.

How Can My Journalism Better Serve Chicagoans?

dmoseley Student Perspectives

By Meredith Melland

Journalism is for the people, and barriers of access, reporter bias and loftiness should not exclude anyone from it.

In 2018, the Center for Media Engagement of the University of Texas at Austin released a survey of Chicagoans in collaboration with City Bureau that contained multiple revelations on how citizens view news coverage of their communities. It found that residents on the South and West sides were more likely to see coverage of their neighborhood as too negative or too often quoting the wrong people, less likely to have interacted with a reporter and more likely than North Side residents to volunteer to report on a public meeting (for more on public meeting reporting, see City Bureau’s Documenters program).

The survey answers show a clear disconnect between reporters and their subjects, often divided along the city’s segregation lines. To address this disconnect and reconcile ways for South and West side residents to see themselves reflected accurately in reporting, Chicago journalists need to seek out feedback and stay in conversation with these communities about what kind of news makes an impact in their lives.

As a journalist, I need to be intentional in making my coverage helpful, equitable and representative, so that my work is useful and relevant to people in all of Chicago. I see three steps reporters and editors can take to achieve this: we can engage communities to find their information needs, prioritize diverse sources and stories and make news as accessible as possible.

City Bureau co-founder Harry Backlund argues that the media in general needs a new structural way to rank news value in “Is Your Journalism a Luxury or a Necessity?” Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Backlund and colleagues sketched out an information pyramid where stories covering basic physiological needs stretch along the bottom and abstract ideals occupy the top triangle. They realized that journalistic institutions tended to pass over basic reporting on food and shelter and instead prioritized higher needs like ‘smarter living’ recommendations and legislation updates.

“These things matter, for sure, but they are abstract—something we engage with only when we have the time to think past our basic needs,” Backlund writes. “Yes, democracy dies in darkness. But so do people. Which are we prioritizing?”

This a bleak view, to be sure, but I think it’s valid to criticize journalists for only consistently meeting the information needs of communities that we assume can support journalism economically. We often create stories on things that will only directly impact the lives of the few and not the many. I’m not innocent here – my stories have often covered the top part of pyramid, or only one city community or have not reflected the racial and socioeconomic diversity of Chicagoans.

I recently performed an audit of my story sources – I looked over all of my reported stories in the last year and noted the gender, race, and role of each interviewee in a spreadsheet. Though I frequently think about the lack of diverse representation in newsrooms and stories, my sources skewed female and white. I never made a real plan to stop defaulting to easily accessible white sources and encourage diversity in my source selection, and change is hard to implement without one. Now, I have developed a plan to seek out sources of color at the start of my reporting to prioritize them from the start. This is an attempt both to produce equitable reporting in a city and nation that is systemically stacked against people of color and avoid boxing my work into my own little one-dimensional world.

It would easy to insulate myself within the subject areas on the North Side or DePaul; they are familiar to me and easy to get to. No matter what I’m reporting on or who my audience is, restricting my worldview to one part of the city would be a disservice because important stories happen all over and are captured most accurately in person.

Former DePaul CJIE student and current women’s health freelancer Ivana Rihter wrote in her blog that “the old timey saying ‘the news is what the editor sees on his way to work’ is not only dated but irresponsible.” This is especially true if most reporters and editors are coming from the same place and look the same. I look the same as a lot of journalists, but I can at least try to take the paths less travelled, gain community input and feature voices of people underrepresented in the media.

Once the news is in tune with the needs of citizens and reporters and editors are diversifying their sources, the next step to achieving meaningful reporting is to make news accessible. The roles of distribution, circulation and publishing are sometimes distanced from journalists because their responsibility is to the business, not the public. However, the model that journalism is produced in directly affects how many and which people receive it.

I think journalism has the most room for impact when it’s free and easy to find. Like Dan Sinker with his free impeachment newsletter, we will only be able to accomplish this if we think of new creative ways to fill an audience’s need that also produce some economic sustainability.

As journalism continues constantly vaulting forward, we need to think about which stories need to be told and how to tell them. I know I will be more fulfilled if people actually find value in my work, and I think that will happen if I provide information that they can access and use in everyday life. I don’t have all the answers, but I believe prioritizing the people is a start.

Multimedia: A Double-Edged Sword

dmoseley Student Perspectives

By Natalie Wade

Today, the world of journalism no longer manifests between the pages of the print newspaper delivered to your doorstep. Like the abundance of cat videos and fashion blogs, journalism of 2019 has found refuge in the internet, where most of the world has turned its attention. This may mean a blurring of opinion and commentary, the insatiability of online advertisement revenue and an “always-on,” 24/7 social media news culture. However, there exists a silver lining to what some reporters have called “the death of journalism.” The power of multimedia and the expanded set of tools reporters can call on to create compelling and multifaceted stories have emerged within the new age of internet-based journalism.

Contemporary online reporting can spread stories across the world in seconds, but grabbing the attention of readers and holding it long enough to read 800 words is harder than ever. As a result, many publications have expanded their digital efforts to produce stories with audio and visual components that are captivating, eye-opening and immersive. The rise of the new embrace of digital media often is credited to The New York Times, hired its first social media editor in 2009, and later, in 2012 , produced Snow Fall, one of the first breakthrough pieces that opened the eyes of journalists to using video, topographical mapping and data visualization together. Soon, the role of the journalist expanded to include photography, videography, video editing, and social media proficiency, while journalists’ multimedia skills made their way into the newsroom. This has also led to new positions in the newsroom, such as multimedia editors, community engagement editors, and social media editors.

There are many great examples of work that showcases how creators have elevated online stories. Take a moment to read, watch and listen to Life Without Power. The story combines video, audio, and digital design with powerful narratives to share the story of post-hurricane Maria. This interactive documentary-style article reminds me that we don’t have to limit ourselves to a single format. In fact, we should not limit the media we use to tell a story. Life Without Power includes maps, infographics, and added sounds, such as the hum of a power generator as audiences flick through different story elements at their own pace. This story exemplifies the combining of different elements in a way that is effective, honest and artistic. Unfortunately, not all users of multimedia create a product of similar honesty and impact. Multimedia is a double-edged sword and must be used with the understanding that users are sharing a story, not creating one.

The internet, like the variety of multimedia options at our disposal, is a tool that should be used to broaden reach, create more accessible information, and draw in audiences for longer periods. Like any tool, it’s neither inherently good nor evil. In this case, the journalist holds the power to decide how they use the internet in their reporting.

As many other multimedia journalists have noticed, documentary filmmaker David Leeson saw, “new ethical challenges emerging for him and other newspaper photojournalists like him as they made the multimedia metamorphosis” (Winslow). Multimedia ethical challenges should be a major concern to journalists, and similarly to the SPJ code of ethics, there should exist a set of rules and guidelines that mirror the progressing of the field.

“While all the ethical guidelines that apply to still photography, graphics, and news writing would largely apply to video,” Leeson said, “motion and sound set the medium apart.” Because multimedia has so many components, so many more “moving parts” than just still photography, there are more opportunities for unethical lapses.

– David Leeson

There’s no denying that these tools could potentially be used to produce “fake news” or to create a cocktail of something that is one-part news, two-parts entertainment. That is the very reason the journalistic the code of ethics is as important as ever.

This never-ending wave of digital revolutionization has made it much easier for the public to dismiss information as lies. Even something as simple as slowing down the speed of a video, using basic photoshop techniques, or sharing information on social media that is misinformed or out of context adds to this distrust. The New York Times’ Claire Wardle, an expert in online manipulation, responds to a recent phenomenon called ‘deep fakes.’ In a clearly labeled opinion piece produced by The New York Times, she discusses how these advanced digital effects have even triggered fears for national security, and that this “weaponization of context” (Wardle) is not new at all. She explains how manipulation and the spread of false information can be much simpler and doesn’t require AI technology to be pervasive.

“When anything can be fake, it becomes much easier for the guilty to dismiss the truth as fake,” says Wardle. In her opinion, this “liar’s dividend,” is what people should be worried about.

The ethical grey area where multimedia seems to reside is something that journalists need to be aware of going forward. A reporter could easily find themselves not living up to the standards most journalists strive to uphold, and it could become much harder to do your job – as you’re forced to interrogate each piece of media you come across. However, with this digital renaissance, individuals now have the power to identify the faces of neo-Nazis through camera footage or to watch as miles of Arctic Ice melts into the sea, and that might make a difference.

 

References:

 

  • Branch, John. “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek – Multimedia Feature.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Dec. 2012, www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/index.html#/?part=tunnel-creek.
  • Chadwick, Nicole. “Revolutionizing the Newsroom: How Online and Mobile Technologies Have Changed Broadcast Journalism.” Elon Journal Of Undergraduate Research In Communications, vol. 5, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1–3.
  • Luz, Sin. “Life without Power in Puerto Rico – and No End in Sight.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/puerto-rico-life-without-power/.
  • Saltzis, Konstantinos, and Roger Dickinson. “Inside the Changing Newsroom: Journalists’ Responses to Media Convergence.” Aslib Proceedings, vol. 60, no. 3, 2008, pp. 216–228., doi:10.1108/00012530810879097.
  • Wardle, Claire. “This Video May Not Be Real.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Aug. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/deepfakes-adele-disinformation.html.