by Lily Lowndes

CBS National Investigative Correspondent Stephen Stock says that innovation set him apart from his peers.

Stock started in broadcast journalism in the 1970s and has seen how much the industry has changed, from social media expanding the number of media outlets, to the popularization of data-driven reporting.

When you work in an innovative industry like broadcast journalism, you must be innovative yourself.

“Innovation fits with me,” Stock said. “I’ve been innovating for 10, 20 years because I came to realize that as a journalist and as a reporter, especially on TV, you need to stand out.”

Stock learned how to report with numbers and data before the practice was commonplace. Even as data has become a popular method for storytelling, Stock says that it is especially important today.

“Data has become one of the foremost tools that I think journalists can and should use,” Stock said.

The right data analysis can yield a powerful story. Stock does not bend the data to his needs, but in his investigations, he finds “the truth among the numbers.”

Knowing how to innovate and find key information from datasets is crucial because numbers do not lie, or as Stock said, “data can be an unimpeachable source.”

If step one is finding the data, the other half of innovation is finding the right story that reflects said data.

Stock gave an example of a story he completed recently about young children being arrested in school by resource officers. The team found data that exposed and supported the fact that this was a national problem, but the team also had to talk to a young person who was arrested to humanize and illustrate the problem.

Innovation is combining hard data with the touch of a human story.

“Innovation includes using data and music techniques to tell unimpeachable stories, investigative stories, while still maintaining the human character and finding people who experienced or live what the data shows,” Stock said.

To Stock, broadcast television is the journalistic media channel with the widest reach. When an important event occurs, whether it be a triumphant event like the moon landing or a catastrophe like 9/11, people want to watch and witness history.

Using this powerful medium to innovate and inform the public is crucial.

Stock has created a reputation for innovation in his career. Combining creativity with investigations has led stations to recruit Stock for building investigative teams in Orlando, Miami and San Francisco. He talks with newsrooms across the country about how they can innovate in their storytelling.

When he talks to these newsrooms and editors, Stock emphasizes that journalism is a calling. Journalists are called to do important work by telling stories that hold the powerful accountable, bring justice, uphold the forgotten, change policy and give voice to the voiceless.

Telling stories in innovative ways is the function of a good journalist. Learning new technology and pushing oneself to be creative helps journalists give their audiences compelling stories that can make a difference.

The data is there, the skills are waiting to be learned. We must continue to innovate in this innovative field.

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By Emily Soto

If the local news outlets in Long Island had the support it needed, would George Santos be in office today? White House Reporter Aamer Madhani said, maybe not.

“But that’s crazy, right? Like, somebody got that far,” Madhani said. “And just basically, because he didn’t go through the typical vetting that the news media would put their candidates through…They just didn’t have the ability to cover it.”

As a White House reporter for the Associated Press, Madhani is now witnessing the fallout of Santos’ election, but he isn’t blaming the local journalists of Long Island for not learning of his obscure history earlier. In fact, Madhani is saying that with more resources in the local newsroom, the congressman’s campaign might have been exposed before he was elected to office.

Chicago’s news landscape is adapting to this need for increased local coverage. Outlets like South Side Weekly and Block Club Chicago have emerged to fill in these gaps. This isn’t new though. Madhani, a Chicago native, remembered growing up with a variety of publications to choose from.

“When I was a teenager, the Chicago Reader was an incredible place to figure out like, what to go listen to, or what was interesting and movies that was a little bit less stuffy than, like, reading about in the in the Tribune,” Madhani said. “I felt like [that] was a really great conduit for me, and all those types of places are gone now.”

So, all these years later, as he lives in Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C., Madhani finds himself looking for that same coverage ─ but this time, with no luck.

“I’m a White House reporter now, but I care about how my local government is working, like, I have a child, how the school system is working, I care about the public transportation system I use, I care about the culture of this place…I want to know about the place I live, and I find it much harder than it should be,” Madhani said.

But to be a local journalist today, requires some pretty substantial sacrifices, according to Madhani. When he started at the Tribune nearly 25 years ago, journalists could spend their whole career in one place. Today, not so much.

“I heard these stories, more often than not, of like, reporters well into their career that were very established, doing side hustles just to make ends meet,” Madhani said. “I feel for that generation of reporters that are basically just 10, 12 years younger than I am, and how much it’s changed in that sense and how, perhaps, unless you’re willing to make some pretty substantial sacrifices, that being a local journalist is going to be a lot harder.”

So as journalists who recognize the need for local coverage, is there anything we can do to help these publications?

Madhani left Chicago 3 years ago for his current job. Yet to this day, he still pays for a subscription to Block Club Chicago.

“There’s zero reason for me now to need to know, like, what’s going on in Lakeview,” he said. “But [my wife and I] feel this need to like, at least support it because we as journalists, we understand the value of it, but it’s going away.”

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BY: Kate Linderman

Sally Ramirez had reached the peak of a producer’s career. With decades of experience, she was tasked with building CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” from the ground up. The show aired for two years before the network announced the show’s cancellation last month putting Ramirez out of a job.

While one might think she’d join her husband in retirement, Ramirez said her career isn’t over. She said, “I would do it all over again,” referring to the CNBC show, and she said she is taking time to consider new job opportunities.

Ramirez has been a producer her entire career and says she was “born to be a journalist.” She started at USA Today’s The Television Show after completing her degree at DePaul University, worked her way through local networks across the country and ultimately ended up as the executive producer at CNBC’s ‘The News with Shepard Smith.’

Working with reporters throughout her career, she says the relationship is critical. “You have to trust your reporter and the reporter needs to trust you,” she said.

There are discrepancies between producers and reporters about what ultimately ends up on TV. Reporters may be in the field working on their own story, but Ramirez is behind the scenes curating the entire show.

“It’s a team who puts a show together. It’s not an individual,” she said, adding, “I would line produce the story that you’re telling from this, you know, open your show till the goodbye. The reporter is just part of that story. They have a story within a larger story that you’re trying to tell.”

From the show’s start to the end, Ramirez’s top priority is producing the truth. In the age of social media, she finds that to be more critical than ever. Misinformation, incorrect or misleading information, and disinformation, false information indented to deceive people, have constantly circulated social media since its inception.

Social media creates the buzz for potential stories, but false information is rampant on social media. In newsrooms, “When do you cover a story, you know, as a true, circulating everywhere?”

While a breaking story may get caught in misinformation that should be later corrected, Ramirez says that on-air TV is no place to address disinformation.

“Those are really hard to justify giving them any airtime,” she said. “They’re so ludicrous, it’s like really like that too. They’re looking for more attention. They’re way more extreme.”

Though Ramirez says she does not know what comes next, she knows that her journalism career will continue.

“I tell everybody that I work with the best of the best on that team, to a person, their true professionals, excellent journalists, and I have zero regrets,” she said.

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KXAN’s Tahera Rahman, the first Muslim woman to wear hijab on-air shares the cold, hard truth about minority experiences in the industry.

By Sela Estill

Operating in an industry where you don’t look like everyone else can be tough. Sometimes, aspiring journalists of color feel they must adapt to the Eurocentric standards of the newsroom. Sometimes someone blows up that model completely. Take for instance, Loyola University alumna and KXAN Austin’s reporter/producer Tahera Rahman. She began her career facing more than enough pushback for embracing her Muslim culture during the hiring process.

“As someone who’s been in the industry, and through that process, you know, kind of the coded language that comes your way. So, for example, ‘we decided to go a different direction’. That’s like a common phrase I heard,” said Rahman. “And it’s not ‘til after the fact that you find out that you know, it, or you realize that your qualifications are either the same or much better than a lot of the other candidates, but you’re not getting that job for some reason.”

While the sting of rejection can be discouraging, the NBC Austin reporter recalled using that opportunity to defend herself by standing her ground. Despite Muslims in hijab being underrepresented on television, Rahman knew her worth and decided to push her true self forward. She argued that she couldn’t authentically be herself unless viewers could see her for who she is–a woman of Islam.

On February 8th, 2018, Rahman made history as the first full-time Muslim reporter to proudly wear hijab on screen at WHBF-TV, located on the Illinois-Iowa border.  She remembered the surreal feeling of taking that leap of faith and broadcasting her authentic self-on-air.

“It’s something that I had been dreaming, hoping, praying for years. It was also scary, because internally I was thinking, oh my gosh, what if I had tried to pursue this for the last like, five years, and I hate it when I actually do it,” said Rahman. “But I’ve never regretted my decision ever since. So, it was worth the hard work with the patience, with the prayers.”

The Illinois native’s name also became a topic of internal conflict in terms of pronunciation. Rahman admitted that she intentionally pronounced her name unauthentically due to the frustration of others butchering it.

“Ever since high school, I said ‘tuh-hair-uh’, because that’s what I realized, was easier for non-Muslims to say, I’m sick of like, repeating my name eight times, until they got it right. So, I just kind of whitewashed it to begin with and introduced myself as ‘tuh-hair-uh ra-men’ and that’s how I set it up on air,” said Rahman.

 “And about a year or two ago, I made it my New Year’s resolution to say it authentically, say my name authentically. So, I say ‘tah-hair-uh rauh-man’, so my first live shot of the new year, that’s how I signed off,” she said.

Making your on-air debut can put a lot of pressure on reporters of color. Many must make sacrifices such not wearing the hairstyle of their choice to work. As a black woman, I often fear pushback when it comes to wearing my hair in certain styles.

I find myself switching it up depending on the time of the year. In the summertime when the air is humid, I enjoy rocking knotless braids, and in the winter, I usually have a sew-in-weave or wigs. The variety of styles to choose from must be my favorite part about getting my hair done, and a part of my culture that I refuse to sacrifice completely.

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By Ariana Allen

Picking a career in journalism is often a case of what if’s. What if I don’t like my station? What if the city isn’t a good fit? What if my starting pay isn’t where I want it to be? These questions and more went through the mind of multimedia journalist Danielle Church of WGRZ in Buffalo, New York, and for Church, some of the what if’s came true.

A DePaul alum, she spent time mulling over her career decision before choosing a place to begin her professional life.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to actually do it because I didn’t want to leave Chicago,” Church, who grew up in Chicago’s Northwest suburbs, said of her feelings at the time. She eventually decided to go for it and started a career in journalism in Fargo, North Dakota.

For a lot of students finding a place or as those in the business say, “news market”, the move is often one of the biggest challenges, as first markets are usually in smaller, less familiar towns. Many students are taught that the way to make it to a bigger market like Chicago or Los Angeles, is to work their way up gradually…still, this process can be daunting.

When it came time to leave Chicago’s Lincoln Park and move to the upper midwest, Church had some reservations.

“I’m not going to lie, it was pretty tough…It’d be different if you were moving to a place that you really wanted to go but Fargo, North Dakota is very, very cold. Like -40 degrees [in the winter],” Church said of the move she ultimately made.

While in Fargo, she wanted to familiarize herself with all aspects of the job so she asked her news director if she could try something new.

“I’d really like to learn to produce and learn to anchor,” Church said, and he partially obliged, allowing her two days a week to produce. While Church did gain experience, she realized producing wasn’t really for her.

“I don’t like producing at all. I think it’s very boring,” she said of the behind-the-scenes newsroom job.

When her contract was coming to an end, Church began looking to land elsewhere, but the job search did not go as smoothly as she wanted.

“It took me about six months to find my next job in Buffalo. It wasn’t my first interview, but it was the first station to call me back,” she recalled.

During her interview in Buffalo, the job wasn’t exactly what she hoped as it did require some production, but Church still decided to go for it.

“I was like well this is a good station. I can put in the work and show them I’m a team player and hopefully I’ll be out of [producing] soon.”

Church did eventually work her way through producing and doesn’t do it as frequently anymore, but after almost five years in the business, Church’s future in the career is undecided.

“I just don’t know if I’m going to stay in it to be honest with you,” she said.

Her uncertainty stems from feelings of being underappreciated in the newsroom.

“You work your ass off to get these story ideas…and sometimes I don’t feel like I’m listened to or like my ideas are always on the back burner.”

Church continued, “Everybody is so excited [about going into their first market] which is great. But I really wish somebody would have sat me down and been like, listen, this is what it’s like.”

After listening to her talk about the business, her story rang out as one that is not shared nearly enough as it should with future on-air reporters. The reality is, the starting pay is low, hours are unusual, and most will be far from home if they weren’t already while in college. Being a reporter is a job for those who have a real passion for storytelling and who are willing to take on the responsibility of having such a crucial role in society. Church’s vulnerability allows others to see the truth behind being a new reporter, ultimately showing how good of a journalist she really is by revealing the other side of a story not many are willing to tell.

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By: Abena Bediako

The SPJ code of ethics is clear and direct. Fred Brown wrote them as a guide for professional journalists and made it a point to leave nothing open for interpretation. Whenever they are faced with a difficult decision concerning a story, their reporting skills, or their character, the codes should lead them down the right path.

Former executive producer for ABC News “Nightline,” Tom Bettag believes the standards for journalism are set and clear.

“Journalism is a profession with very specific standards for what you can and what you can’t do,” said Bettag. “And I think they’re pretty well laid out. And pretty well agreed.”

However, there are situations cloudier than others. The code reads journalists must seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent. Some of these principles have become more difficult to follow than others – specifically acting independently.

I’m not referring to reporters publicly aligning themselves with political parties. It’s clear that should never be a topic of discussion. However, there are other movements and acts they might find difficult to separate themselves from.

Journalism is one of the few professions where separating the worker from the occupation is not an option. Frank Whelan, a features writer, participated in a Pride parade in 2006 as a co-grand marshal. Whelan and his partner chose this day to celebrate themselves and their relationship. But does participating in a gay parade contrast with acting independently?

Gay pride might fall under a political issue for some, and others see it as part of their identity. Supporting gay rights doesn’t have to affect your reporting skills, but the audience may not see it the same way. Other journalists might question the act as well.

“I think if you’re a journalist, you’re a journalist, and you can’t take your journalist hat off,” said Bettag. “You know this whole thing about to what extent can you go marching in a parade, like Black Lives Matter, these are really tough issues. And each one of us has to decide that for ourselves.”

Whelan decided and chose himself. He took two days off, considered unpaid suspension by his employer, and never looked back. He felt his job’s reaction to being in the parade fell under the category of sexual discrimination, age discrimination, and defamation. And he proved this with three lawsuits. Whelan was faced with the challenge of choosing between his humanity and his role as a reporter. For issues like this one, reporters must consider things like objectivity and credibility.

“Credibility is so rare that we are in the credibility business. If we are more than anything else trying to be accurate, then we have a chance of being credible,” said Bettag.

While Bettag agrees that credibility must always play a role, he has different views about objectivity.

“The word objectivity, I think, is not a good one. I don’t think journalism ever tried to be objective, that’s an impossibility because we are all brought up with different backgrounds. The goal is to be fair and open-minded. The journalist is saying, ‘I will always keep an open mind.’”

Journalists are not activists and vice versa. A reporter’s opinion and stance on a specific issue should never interfere with their work. They need to remain open-minded because they don’t work to serve themselves. They work to serve the public. Acting otherwise could tarnish their integrity and credibility.

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By: Monique Mulima

 Like most people I know around my age, I get most of my news from social media. As more people cut the cord and get rid of cable they’re turning to social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok or Facebook rather than sitting down to watch the nightly news.

Although younger people may associate public media like NPR or PBS with their parents or grandparents’ generation tuning in on their car radio or watching afternoon television, publicly funded news organizations are also adapting to the world of social media news.

Geoff Bennett, chief Washington correspondent for PBS NewsHour spoke about how public media has had to think about how and where people will see their stories.

“The way that people consume news now is completely divorced from the way we program it,” said Bennett.

When news stories appear on social media it’s usually just a couple minute clip. Twitter, Instagram and TikTok have limits on how long videos can be and on social media users are more likely to engage with short videos.

This means that when people see news online, they won’t be seeing it in the context of a full broadcast or previous coverage. Bennett explained that because of this it’s important to think of every story as a distinct segment on its own that should be “accurate, engaging and tell the full story.”

With more staff and larger budgets corporate for-profit media like CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox etc., are able to invest more money into breaking stories and expanding their digital outreach compared to public media. But Bennett, who has worked at both NBC and PBS, believes that public media has strengths that can help them excel on social media too.

Bennett explained that the time public media has to put together stories allows them to provide more context and tell a more complete story, even if they’re not the ones who broke the news .

“The approach, quality and content of public media is unmatched,” said Bennett.

One example of a recent public media news story I saw on Twitter that did this well was a social media video by Chicago’s local PBS station, WTTW, about why Chicago’s recycling program problems persist. This video was just over 2 minutes long and told the story through animations and graphics touching on issues with the system, the history of it and how it compares to other cities. Although recycling may not always be the most interesting topic, the video’s graphics and pacing made me want to keep watching.

The video told a full story and provided context in a visually engaging way, but it’s also a story that would have taken time. To animate this would have taken from a few days to a week, and then there would have also been time needed for research and writing. This isn’t a story that could be turned around on a short one-day deadline, which would usually be required for breaking news. But since public media is often given more time to work on stories, they were able to put together this piece and still peg it to America Recycles Day.

These types of opportunities that public media has to offer much needed context to stories and stick with them longer is what Bennett thinks public media should be doing more of.

“Public media needs to find new ways to innovate and own the lanes that they should own,” said Bennett.

In contrast, corporate media focuses more of their social media strategy on breaking news. One example of this is how NBC Chicago was able to quickly turn around videos from election night like Darren Bailey conceding, and post them to social media. Breaking news online like this on tight deadlines is something corporate media is able to do well because they have more staff.

The two approaches of longer storytelling with more context and breaking news are both needed on social media. Users want to know what’s happening in the moment and also want to know the context of why it’s important.

As where people get their news continues to change, newsrooms need to think about how their stories stand on their own, so that the public can have sources where they can get reliable and fact-checked information both on television and online.

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by Erik Uebelacker

Neil Steinberg has been at this for a while – 35 years to be exact. He was shocked to learn that college kids are still reading his work.

“As a rule, I just imagine that all my readers are 80 years old,” Steinberg told me. “I would never have imagined that you existed.”

The longtime Chicago Sun-Times columnist has, what he describes as, a dream job. Getting paid to share personal opinions and experiences with readers is almost an unattainable dream for recreational column writers like me.

In fact, I’ve often been taught to sway away from this kind of sharing. The idea that “true reporting” requires us to completely remove ourselves and our experiences from a story has been drilled into my head after nearly five years of journalism school.

But sometimes, following this golden rule can leave out the most interesting parts of a story.

“The idea that journalism is only some sort of factual list of something – I mean, that’s stenography or something,” Steinberg said.

Steinberg’s ideas come from his own observations and curiosities. At times, his pursuit of knowledge the topics he selects leads him down some interesting paths that he chooses to share with readers in first-person. In these cases, he doesn’t remove himself from the story. His journalistic process becomes the story.

I remember reading a column of his last year titled, “Why does peanut butter taste so good?” It was one of his zanier concepts for an article, and one that led him down a rabbit hole as he sought answers from “big peanut butter.”

“I didn’t set out to be part of that story,” Steinberg said. “I like peanut butter, and it was my perception that it tasted better than it used to. That was when I went to Smucker’s to ask about it. This was something which they could have just responded to, but they didn’t. And it was maddening.”

Steinberg’s received a lackluster response from the Smucker’s organization and was ghosted by other big players in the peanut industry. His relentless pursuit of knowledge eventually led him to Jordan Powers, food scientist at the University of Georgia, who gave Steinberg the answers he’d been looking for.

There was no crunchy revelation; the simple answer is adding more fatty acid that preserves flavor for longer. But for peanut butter-enjoyers of a certain age, that makes a big difference in taste.

This story had a big impact on me at the time, not because it was groundbreaking investigative journalism, but because Steinberg engrossed me in a topic that I never thought I cared about and brought me along on his reporting mission through his first-person writing.

Steinberg has even proven this writing strategy’s effectiveness with more serious topics. One of his most frequented issues is gun control. He once went to a gun store to rent and shoot a gun for one of his stories.

“When I first went, they said, ‘We can’t rent the gun to you,’” Steinberg said. “’Why?’ I asked. He said, ‘Because people who rent the gun commit suicide, so you need a second person.’ So, I brought my 11-year-old son in.”

That’s a hell of an anecdote, and one that would have likely been left aside if Steinberg was too worried about removing himself from the story. I, for one, am glad he wasn’t. When the reporting process is as engaging as Steinberg’s was, no one should be.

After all, opinion writing is still journalism, despite what detractors may say. Steinberg went to the edge of the earth to find data on peanut butter. If Smucker’s was a public institution, I bet he would’ve filed a few FOIAs, too.

Presenting found information in a first-person column doesn’t detract from the journalistic value a story holds, so long as that information is vetted and correct.

“I think, to have trusted sources and to have people to mediate that information is essential,” he said.

Mediator of information – that’s a liberal definition of “journalist” that I can get behind.

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by Tiffany Payton

Journalist at NBC News and DePaul alumna, Chloe Atkins, has always had a love for writing. But Atkins notes, that this “road to success” was nontraditional and “not as glamourous as everyone thinks.”

Atkins currently covers abortion access and breaking news. Atkins’ wide array of storytelling began during her time as a college student. She started her career as a fashion and women’s health writer at Vogue and credits her time at DePaul as what shaped her into the reporter she is today.

“For me, during my experience, the professors at DePaul were so gracious to those who wanted to learn. This business is all about learning. Just when you think you know, you don’t. I try to keep that same inquisitiveness with every story I’m on. It’s a part of it.”

During her time at Vogue, Atkins pushed out stories every day under tight deadlines. Atkins would begin her day talking to activists, women, and reproduction experts on both sides of her story. Those connections with Vogue helped her cover the abortion care debate in America by understanding how to cover a topic that encompasses many oppositional voices. Today, she covers abortion access at a critical juncture with the possible overturning by the U.S. Supreme Court of the landmark legal decision of Roe vs. Wade.

Topics of women’s health can be daunting when you’re a woman reporting it because it affects you directly.  There are two very different sides to the abortion debate and Atkins says she reports the truth “no matter what.”

“At the end of the day, a job of a journalist is to stand on the truth and include a variety of opinions,” Atkins said. “Everyone  will have an opinion. Your job is to include these opinions, but fact-check everything you get from a source and report. You cannot weigh your personal feelings in your reporting. The truth and the truth only,” Atkins added.

Truth-telling is the heartbeat of journalism, our audiences trust us to do just that. “If someone tells you it’s raining, as a journalist, you can’t just believe it’s raining. You have to go outside and check to see if it’s raining,” Atkins remarked.

As a journalist, there’s no limit to what you’re going to report on, but you must do it. “That’s your duty. You can’t get too emotionally involved in a story. Truth-telling is not about emotion, it’s about the truth and what affects the general public.”

Atkins stresses how crucial objective reporting is, and how you must balance your personal life with that. “Don’t get involved in a story because it can affect you. As reporters, we all have stories to tell, but audiences, do not have the same experiences and that’s important so you must be cognizant of that. But regardless of how someone personally feels, each day you go home you will feel great that you told the story in truth.”

The truth in storytelling should always enable the reader to fully understand all the information and facts as well as opposing sides of any story. The truth is what the audience deserves and that’s how you build trust with your audience. You cannot build trust without the truth.

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Fox News’ John Roberts sheds light on how to let viewers down easy

By Hayley DeSilva

When the pandemic first broke out in 2020, our eyes were glued to our screens.

Trying to get whatever information we could, trying to predict the unpredictable, trying to figure out ways to keep ourselves and loved ones safe.

Soon after, we saw a summer filled with violence after the murder of George Floyd sparked civil unrest across the country. Up next, a highly controversial election that had us all on the edge.

As we all know, so much more has happened since. Currently, we find ourselves in the wake of another horrendous mass shooting in Uvalde, TX–and all the news that comes with it.

Simply said, the past two years have hardly been a time of ‘good news.’

The New York Times published a study last year that revealed U.S. media had the most negative coverage of Covid-19 compared to any other source, such as scientific journals or international publications.

The study found that this was true across all national networks, from MSNBC to Fox News.

For so long, everywhere we turn, there is something new to punch us in the stomach.

As a journalist, you get paid to readily receive and dissect those low blows.

While many in our country have been encouraged to limit their news intake for their mental health, those in our profession can’t afford that luxury.

So, in the midst of trying to make sense of the seemingly endless atrocities happening all over the world, how can we do better for our audiences? How do we give them the information they need without sending them into turmoil?

John Roberts, co-anchor of ‘America Reports’ on Fox News and a former senior national correspondent for CNN, believes that it comes down to providing more context.

“Myself and Sandra, and our team for America Reports, try to give people added value, context and perspective on whatever the big story is,” Roberts said. “So, it’s not just, ‘Oh, here’s the horrible news.’ It’s, ‘Here’s what the news is now. What does it mean to you? What can be done about it? How do we change things?’”

Roberts further believes that viewers broadening their media horizons, so to speak, can be another way to avoid being inundated by negativity.

“In this day and age when people have access to so many different streams of information, awareness is becoming more and more important…You need to be able to take a look at something whether it’s online or whether it’s a report from somewhere or wherever you get the information and compare that to other things that you have heard otherwise,” Roberts said. “It’s very easy for you to get drawn down a rabbit hole. So, the broader your platform of information is, the better able you are to have an understanding of where you sit in the universe and what’s really going on in that universe.”

But journalists don’t have to go down that rabbit hole either, according to Roberts.

“Just like anybody who deals with a lot of data, whether they be a stock trader, or whether they be the CFO of the company, they’re being inundated by figures every day,” Roberts said.

What he suggests is that we do our best at compartmentalizing our information, focusing on one subject at a time.

“If you’re trying to grasp everything all at once, you can feel overwhelmed, but if you put it in silos or buckets…it’s much easier to digest and focus on and much easier to compartmentalize,” Roberts said.

One of the authors in the Covid-19 media coverage study, Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth University, shared that the issue wasn’t with accuracy, the negative things being reported were true. The issue, he believed, was with what facts were being emphasized.

Perhaps, if we can keep ourselves from feeling overloaded by the news of the day, we won’t feel the need to over-emphasize. Maybe if we try to see the whole picture, good and bad, our audience can too.

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