Q&A: Paul Cheung on how journalists can tell more diverse stories by looking to music and entertainment
Paul Cheung is CEO at the Center for Public Integrity, a national non-profit investigative newsroom. He’s been the director for journalism and technology innovation at the Knight Foundation, president of the Asian-American Journalists Association, and led graphics and interactives at newsrooms like the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.
Over the course of his varied career, Cheung has advocated for increasing diversity in journalism, collaborating with ethnic media and community leaders, and using technology in smarter, innovative ways.
We caught up with Cheung to hear about what he’s learned on his journey and how he’s working to implement these practices at one of the nation’s oldest non-profit investigative newsrooms.
WF: How did you get started in journalism?
PC: Originally, I had planned on becoming a doctor, and my first job was in a hospital doing PR work. I then applied to be an office assistant for the Wall Street Journal, and by the end of the interview, they offered me my first journalism job as a graphics editor on the night shift.
They were looking for someone who could edit, use design software, and crunch data — this was before data journalism was a big thing, and my science skills convinced them I could handle it. I didn’t think being decent with numbers and able to visualize them would set me up for a career in journalism.
WF: What made you want to go from working in journalism to the Knight Foundation?
PC: After about 15–20 years working in news, I realized that I had done enough elections and natural disaster coverage to last me a lifetime. When I was head of interactives at AP, I was working a lot on the strategy side and the Knight job opening allowed me to think more about technology innovation in journalism.
At Knight, I worked on everything from how AI can help local journalism scale to the importance of technical infrastructure in helping news reach a certain level of sustainability. It really helped me understand the breadth of the entire field of journalism. I had a 360 degree view, from startups to B2Bs to nonprofits, and that gave me a lot of insight into what’s going on and what is and isn’t working.
WF: Last year, you took over at Center for Public Integrity, where people of color are now the majority in the newsroom. What made you want to jump back in and how did CPI achieve this?
PC: When the opportunity for CPI came along, I realized that I missed practicing journalism. At Knight, I felt like — and the analogy I use is — you’re almost like an executive producer of a good movie, but you’re never the director or actor or actress. I missed the ‘doing’ part, and from everything I learned, I wanted to practice what I preached — from diversity to using technology and thinking about the expression of journalism for the future.
A lot of the credit for increasing diversity needs to go to the board of trustees and the previous CEO, Susan Smith Richardson. They decided to take CPI’s mission of accountability and focus on the folks upholding and sustaining systems of inequity. From there, they began to work on new missions and started to think about the staff differently. When I took over, we were already on our way there, and we ended up tipping the balance.
I think this is really important, especially when you look at the universe of content, and what we consume day to day. What is it that makes music and entertainment different from journalism? All the really good songs and TV shows and movies have one thing in common — they are geared toward a multi-generational and multi-racial audience. For some reason, journalism is way behind entertainment and music. Now, I’m not saying music and entertainment don’t have any diversity issues, but they understand that creating multi-racial, multi-generational content is important and is a viable business.
WF: You’ve also said that CPI is building “a culture of journalism that’s in partnership with the communities we cover.” How do you think about collaborating with your audience?
PC: A lot of communities are now focusing on their own narratives, because media doesn’t represent them, or they misrepresent them. We have to recognize that communities likely have already thought about solutions for the issues that we’re covering. It’s important not to do parachute or extractive journalism — we should not present information as completely brand new for the audience.
We also have to know that many audiences do not trust or go to media or journalism as their primary source of information. So, what is it that we can do to equip the community to tell their own stories? We want to empower communities to write their own narrative. We can have a role in helping them with the data work, or the craft of journalism, so they can take something and form their own narrative in a way that makes sense for them.
WF: How are you taking this approach at CPI?
PC: We’ve been ramping up our partnerships with BIPOC media and legacy African-American press. Ethnic media play an important part in many communities, but they are usually under-resourced. We’ve partnered with quite a few on joint investigation projects and to help scale up data and investigative capabilities.
A lot of times when you see collaborations, the outcome is a set of really cool stories, and someone might win some prizes. That’s great, but what is it that we’re leaving behind for that community and that community paper? I’m more interested in thinking about a collaborative relationship that not only scales up a capacity they normally don’t have, but on the other end, what is it that we could learn as a national investigative nonprofit about how to tell stories for these communities in a way that’s authentic, and not extractive?
We’re thinking a lot about what telling stories for a community really means. I’m not going to pretend that I have all the answers — I don’t think it’s how journalism was taught to us, and there is a certain degree of unlearning here. But I do think that by collaborating with ethnic and non-English press, who already have the trust of audiences and have been telling their story for years, there are certain insights we can learn from. Both parties should learn and evolve and grow from a collaborative relationship.
WF: Overall, what have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in your work?
PC: A lot of the time, it’s not about what you produce that is good or bad — success is usually about the people and the timing. I believe that now is the right time for us in journalism to think about what multi-racial and multi-generational content looks like. But you need to have the right people to do it. And you can’t have the right people to do that if everyone in charge and in power does not reflect the community you hope to serve.
I see too many journalists thinking that if they produce really good content, it will reach the right people. But this isn’t ‘Field of Dreams.’ In order for good journalism to get to the right people, there’s a lot of work — you need to think about your technical infrastructure, your audience engagement, there’s more to it than just the story.
We cannot look at our published stories as the end of the journey. When we publish a story, that’s the beginning of the conversation with the community, it’s the beginning of potential change, and the beginning of more stories to be told. How are we sustaining the conversation? How do we make sure that the story seeps down to every level? How else are we going to hold people accountable and inspire change?
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Will Fischer is a journalist covering the intersection of technology and media. He’s worked for Business Insider and New York magazine, and conducted local news research for City Bureau. Follow Will on Twitter @willfisch15 or email him at willfisch15@gmail.com.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab (a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Community Foundation of New Jersey), and the Abrams Foundation. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.
