Engagement Journalism News 04–21–23
Updates on the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY’s engagement journalism MA program and its students, faculty, and alumni, plus good reads, research and other news from the field. Bonus content (!) includes (what else?) Fred pics and a roundup of other tidbits of interest from program director Carrie Brown (views my own). Got some engagement journalism news or good reads? Let me know !
Comin in hot after spring break and a trip to Austin for ISOJ. Alumni say this newsletter needs a better name. I agree, but…I have no idea what it should be. Weigh in.
#EngagedJ at Newmark J School at CUNY
- Hafeezat Bishi, ’22, has a new piece in Salon: From “Rye Lane” to “Love Is Blind,” much-needed safe spaces for Black male vulnerability are on TV.
- Christine Zirneklis, ’22 facilitated a session on zines at Macaulay Honors College. Check out some great pics like the one below from Raksha Vasudevan.
- Rachel Glickhouse, ’15, wrote about how Grist approaches partnerships.
- Bloomfield Info Project, founded and run by Simon Galperin, ’16, is working with Segregated, a NJ journalism collab reporting on race & education. They are crowdsourcing info on racial segregation and integration in Bloomfield, NJ schools.
- Program director Carrie Brown (me!) spoke about her book, Transforming Newsrooms, co-authored with Jonathan Groves, at the research breakfast at the International Symposium of Online Journalism in Austin, as well as future directions for engagement research.
“When I feel stuck trying to make an original idea for a product or service happen, I remember that more ideation, prototyping, testing = more information on how to improve. The new thing could be a complete departure from what you first imagined.” — Wisdom from Kristine Villanueva, ’17 and engagement adjunct faculty
A few good reads 📚
- There Are Better Ways to Study That Will Last You a Lifetime by Daniel T. Willingham. “Rereading is easy because the mind can skitter along the surface of the material without closely considering its meaning, but that’s exactly why it’s a poor way to learn. If you want to learn the meaning — as most tests require you to — then you must think about meaning when you study.” Learning how to learn is probably among the most impactful things you can do.
- The Internet of the 2010s Ended Today by Charlie Warzel. RIP Buzzfeed. “the secret behind BuzzFeed News had nothing to do with technology (or even moving fast). The secret was cultural.” This reminded me of how teaching in the early 2010s was so much fun — not that everything was perfect, by any means, but there was just such a sense of possibility.
- My Transplanted Heart and I Will Die Soon By Amy Silverstein. Uff. Nothing to do with engagement, but this is a gutting piece. “Organ transplantation is mired in stagnant science and antiquated, imprecise medicine that fails patients and organ donors.”
Resource
- Useful thread on finding grants in journalism by Lizzy Hazeltine of NC Local News Lab Fund.
Photo 📸
International Symposium of Online Journalism! #ISOJ2023
It was great, as always, to see friends in Austin. A few brief takeaways that stood out:
- Tracie Powell, CEO of Pivot Fund, presented her research with Northeastern University associate professor Meredith Clark on journalism philanthropy. They conclude: “Journalism philanthropy — and with it, journalism entrepreneurship — has a race problem.” They found that metrics used by funders don’t take into account structural conditions affecting founders of color, and often result in the replication of the inadequate systems we already have. They also noted that funders need to provide more general operating support, and recognize that boot camps can come across as paternalistic. You can read the full paper here.
- Success in news podcasting requires embracing personality and communicating authentically, according to research by Marcus Funk, LaRissa Lawrie, and Burton Speakman.
- 4 in 10 Americans are often or sometimes avoiding the news, Reuters Institute research finds. Why? For some people, “it’s not the news, it’s me.” Some feel that they just have too many stressful, demanding circumstances in life to pay attention to news. For others, “It’s not me, it’s the news.” They see journalism as relentless doom and gloom, not trustworthy, lacking in relevance.
- NYU prof Jay Rosen brought an important analysis of power into the aforementioned discussion of news avoidance. It’s not something that is happening in a vacuum; it is also being deliberately manufactured by by the Republican party’s willingness to broadcast lies. This form of propaganda assumes low trust in media *and lowers it further*
- I was deeply disappointed if perhaps not surprised with New York Times editor Joe Kahn’s unwillingness to meaningfully engage with critiques of the paper, including those from its own contributors, of its transgender coverage, despite being asked directly about them by Texas Tribune co-founder Evan Smith. At the very minimum, as a journalist, academic and subscriber (I do get it through my school nowadays, however), I expect a clearly stated commitment to at least listen to and seriously consider meaningful feedback like this.
Quotes
Tressie McMillan Cottom, UNC professor and NYT columnist, writing on Twitter: “I only want to add that I wonder whatever happened to just being…mildly annoyed. You know, my default state? You can be annoyed and just…sit with that. You roll your eyes a little. Maybe you suck your teeth. But you just sort of suck it up. There is a whole emotional range between “happily accept” and “rage out” that we lost over the last 20 years. I think about this a lot. If you think bad = horrible, I can see how discomfort = injury in your mind. We know language structures our world. If you only have two categories of words, you may only be able to have two categories of experiences.” Food for thought in our increasingly anger-driven and overwrought culture, imho.
