Why journalism is a great foundation for media innovation, content strategy and more: Reflections from three Medill MSJs
The Media Innovation & Content Strategy specialization in the Medill School’s MSJ program is an unusual journalism degree. MICS students build a solid foundation in reporting and storytelling, like all Medill MSJs, but many pursue careers in fields other than traditional journalism — for instance, product management, audience development and content strategy.
Here are three takes from recent MICS graduates on why journalism skills — plus what they learned about media innovation and content strategy — can be applied so successfully in other fields.
Julia Sifferlen: Journalism skills are great for product managers
When I started my Medill education, I knew I wanted to get involved in tech and innovation — but “product manager” was a lofty job title that seemed way outside my skill set. I assumed that without a computer science degree, MBA, or a close family friend who’s an executive at Amazon, there was no way I could get a job like that. Now, having taken classes and completed an internship in product management, I’ve discovered that’s not actually the case.
Product management roles actually require a lot of “soft skills” that can’t always be taught the way that technical skills can. Good journalists happen to have a lot of those skills. And of course, journalism itself actually needs strong product thinkers in today’s digital world.
Let’s break down four journalism skills that translate well from journalist to product manager:
1. Asking the right questions
Any good reporter can tell you that a journalist’s first obligation is to the truth. The path to truth usually involves asking a lot of questions. And the questions need to be asked in a way that allows a narrative to unfold. Journalists build these skills as they learn what kinds of questions work best to tell a story.
Storytelling is actually a big part of a product manager’s job, too. In fact, product managers spend a lot of their time writing user stories that are intended to explain how the product works from a user’s perspective. In order to write a user story and understand the subject’s needs, a good PM will delve into user research. This type of research comes in many forms, but the overall sentiment is the same: ask the right questions to understand the user’s story. It’s important to note that lots of users don’t actually say what they want — so it’s imperative that a PM can dig deep and get down to the truth. Product managers are expected to craft an accurate narrative from start to finish that they can distribute to various stakeholders, like designers or engineers, to understand who they are serving.
2. Doing your research
Whether you’re a hyperlocal beat reporter or a foreign correspondent, journalists typically have to immerse themselves into unfamiliar topics or situations all the time. This means that journalists have to develop strong research skills and become knowledgeable quickly about any given topic. This allows them to ask the right questions (please see above), be conversational with the subject matter experts, and provide the necessary background information to readers.
Product managers have a similar job to do with their products and users. Like reporters, they need to quickly become experts about their products and their users. This can include market research, technology research, competitive analyses, and of course, user research.
3. Communication and writing skills
As a journalist, you have to learn how to write for many different specific groups of people and also be able to write in a way that makes sense to anyone. Depending upon your audience, this voice can change every day. Journalists also need strong verbal communication skills since they’re constantly interacting with new sources or interviewees and need to make a good impression. By establishing credibility and professionalism with their sources, they’re more likely to appear trustworthy.
Product managers’ careers similarly depend upon strong written and verbal communication skills. They’re constantly writing product requirements, specifications, tickets, and lots of emails that are distributed to various cross-functional teams. Many PMs also lead some sort of scrum or stakeholder meeting where they have to verbally guide the discussion while still allowing everyone space to participate. These types of verbal and written communication skills are extremely nuanced and difficult to teach. The same way a journalist has to adjust their verbiage for different audiences, PMs have to translate ideas in a way that makes sense to technical engineers and visual designers alike.
4. Empathy
At the end of the day, the primary goal for both journalists and product managers pretty much comes down to the same thing: solving people’s problems. As a journalist, this might look like advocating for underrepresented groups of people or exposing wrongdoings by government officials. The past few years especially have proven that journalism is a public service, as local newsrooms have supported communities through a global pandemic, racial injustices, and multiple elections. Journalists cannot accurately and ethically cover these kinds of issues without a strong sense of empathy for their readers. If journalists don’t understand the perspectives of the people they write about, they can’t tell a real story.
Empathy sits at the heart of product management just as much as it does in journalism. The best PMs are user advocates who keep their user in mind at every phase of product development. This development starts with identifying the right problem and then ideating a solution. A true focus on the user allows product teams to ship product solutions with better market fit and a higher chance of success. Sometimes that means that a PM has to advocate for what a user needs despite that need contradicting what an engineer or executive at the company is saying. Without empathy, a product manager can’t put themselves in the shoes of the user to ship a product that will genuinely make their lives easier or better.
Julia Sifferlen starts work this month as a growth strategy associate with DoorDash.
Maria Andrade: Applying journalism to content strategy, UX design and user research
Many MICS students aren’t planning on reporting careers, and many will be working at tech companies, startups, agencies and brands rather than news organizations. So what’s the value of studying journalism?
As companies become more aware of the impact storytelling has on sales, we’ve started to see brands turn into gifted publishers. Take Patagonia, for instance. It’s a lifestyle brand that doesn’t only sell products; they have developed a compelling narrative around taking care of the environment and enjoying life outdoors. The brand uses its website not only to sell clothing but also as a platform for stories, films and blog posts on outdoor adventures, extreme sports, sustainable choices and nature.
The company even made a nostalgic 30-minute film about people talking about their favorite Patagonia garments that they’ve worn for 15+ years. Who would have thought that you could find a story there?
This mission-driven marketing is a powerful way to connect with audiences, but it’s effective only if it’s done through inspiring storytelling. And who better than a journalist to serve that purpose?
Few people know that Banana Republic was a pioneer in this type of storytelling. It was actually founded by two San Francisco Chronicle journalists in 1978 after Mel Ziegler bought a army surplus jacket in Burma while on assignment, his wife Patricia mended it, and suddenly everyone he met wanted one like it. They saw an opportunity and created an illustrated catalog with well written stories about the garments.
Patricia and Mel told the stories of the brave men that wore the clothing they were selling, the faraway places they had traveled to, and the personality that came with owning such a piece of clothing. Needless to say, Banana Republic became extremely successful at selling clothes, but it all started with a story.
But storytelling is not the only reason why journalists can help brands. Journalists can also be a valuable asset when it comes to designing user interfaces that speak to people in positive ways. Image editing apps are a great example of this. (I interned with PicsArt, a company that makes one of these apps, in my final quarter at Medill.
Most image-editing apps use similar technologies that can alter faces and bodies in a matter of seconds, offering a very realistic result. However, the difference between them lies in how they name the features. Tools can be labeled with language such as “remove imperfections” or “even skin tone” — or words “add glow,” “replace color” or just “make a photo awesome”. These word choices can appear unimportant, but they have an enormous impact on user experience by reinforcing beauty standards, provoking negative emotions or negatively affecting user self-esteem. Having a journalist in a UI design team can help ensure that the product is conveying the right message and communicating appropriately with its users.
Journalists are also a valuable asset on user research teams. We’ve been trained to do great research by asking the right questions, taking notes in a fast paced environment, assembling and unpacking information that comes from interviews and developing valuable insights from them. These are exactly the “design thinking” skills that a UX researcher needs to drive innovation and change.
Some of us hope to apply these principles to creating better journalistic products that resonate with today’s audiences. But even if we don’t, you’ll find us pushing the limits of where and how journalism can be done.
Maria Andrade is looking for career opportunities in content strategy in Colombia or the United States.
Justin Pasionek: Journalism training prepares you for many career paths
What does journalism mean?
You might picture a notepad and pen, a microphone and camera, or an old-fashioned fedora with a press pass sticking out of the hat band. At least, those were the first images that came to my mind when I decided to pursue a journalism major at Northwestern. After three years of undergrad and one year of graduate classes at Medill, I have a different perception of what journalism can look like.
Coming into Northwestern my freshman year, I had no experience with any form of journalism, and so I wanted to try as many as possible. I joined Northwestern News Network, the broadcast news show, WNUR, the news station and WNUR Sports, the radio sports station. Much to my dismay, I didn’t enjoy what I was doing. I was then recruited into St. Baldrick’s, a student-run nonprofit that raises money for cancer research, by a friend and became the marketing director and applied the journalism skills I had gained my first year in college. Journalism didn’t have to stay inside the rigid box I had assigned it.
I decided to pursue a certificate in Integrated Marketing Communications, as I became incredibly interested in the application of journalism to business and technology. Journalism is about communication and storytelling, and those skills are very applicable in the business world. Every company has a story that it needs to tell its customers.
For my required for-credit undergraduate internship, I decided to work at Kivvit, a public affairs company in downtown Chicago, as an Insights Trainee. I learned a plethora of digital tools and used my talents as a journalist to craft findings and presentations for executives at several different organizations.
For what would have been my senior year, I decided to pursue a Medill master’s degree as an accelerated master’s student. I chose the Media Innovation and Content Strategy specialization because it seemed to allow me to explore even more deeply the connections among business, journalism and technology.
Through my MICS classes and my internship with SmithGeiger, an entertainment consulting agency, my perception of what journalism can be has evolved greatly. Being a journalist does not mean you have to work in a newsroom or hit the streets to talk to people for news stories. You can be a journalist — or at least, use those journalism skills — in many different kinds of roles.
Justin Pasionek started work in June as a growth consulting junior associate with IRI.
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