A Case for Hope in the Future of Journalism
Social journalism students showed all that is possible when you engage communities with a commitment to empathy, equity, and sharing power
It was the best night of my professional life.
The 14 members of the social journalism class of 2019 at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY shared the results of a year and half of working *with,* not for, communities on a rainy Tuesday night in December, just days before their graduation.
They brought down the house. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room.
My colleague Jeff Jarvis eloquently shared what each one of them did and how profoundly proud we are; we will link to video of the presentations soon.
Each of our students chooses a community to serve at the beginning of our Master’s program, anything from the families of incarcerated people to the birth mothers of adoptees. Yes, they report on these communities and tell their stories, but they do so much more. They listen, and not just to the usual sources like government officials or cops, but to people who generally don’t hear from mainstream journalists unless there is a crime or a tragedy. They assess people’s information needs and deepest concerns and challenges and create journalism that addresses them. They find creative ways to distribute information that best fits into people’s daily lives, like bots or theater productions or apps.
This group did all of these things with incredible dedication, skill, and humility. They supported and learned from each other in a collaborative spirit that our field could stand to emulate in so many ways.
It can be hard to explain exactly what “social” or “engaged” journalism is. For one thing, it’s a bit complicated for your average tweet. For another, traditionally-trained reporters are often highly resistant to new ways of doing things and insistent on policing narrow boundaries of what can “count” as journalism. I’ve been told at least a thousand times “I still just don’t understand what engaged journalism IS,” to the point that my own elevator pitch for it has sagged under the weight of exasperated exhaustion.
But on Tuesday, student after student stood up, and each one showed us just exactly what social journalism is. Each in their own way, they explained the limitations of traditional reporting and how an approach that prioritized listening made their work better and allowed them to produce meaningful impact on people’s lives. They showed us how the people they served went from mistrustful of journalists, who had burned them before, to impressed and willing to collaborate.
Grandiose ambitious aside, none of us can singlehandedly change the world or a field as old as journalism. But we can make a tangible impact on at least some people’s lives. And people’s lives got better as a result of these students’ work. That’s not conjecture. We know because they measured it.
It’s not an easy time to be a journalist or a journalism professor, or even just a concerned citizen in a democracy. Threats to journalism proliferate, from a president that screams “fake news” to the record number of jailed reporters around the world to a surging lack of concern for facts to vulture capitalists sucking good news organizations dry. And that’s not to mention the journalists themselves that normalize lying and malfeasance as they cling to a vacuous definition of objectivity that demands false balance —let’s just say that in many cases the call is coming from inside the house.
But these students give me hope. I hope they can give you hope too. In so many ways, they exhibit the four pillars of journalism laid out by none other than Mr. Rodgers:
1. Journalists are human beings not stenographers, human beings not automatons. 2. Point out injustice when you have to. 3. Point out beauty when you can. 4. Be aware of celebrating the wonders of creation.
Some overdue thank yous
First of all, thank you class of 2019 for your hard work and kindness. Contrary to popular belief, university teaching is not easy, but you made it fun and rewarding and left me feeling energized.
Permit me a brief tangent. In the fall of 2018, just as you were starting your time with us, I watched Christine Blasey Ford’s brave testimony and the despicable way she was treated with tears of rage. I am lucky enough to have never been a victim of rape or sexual assault, but I am all too familiar with sneering male derision and entitlement, and I vowed that day that I would work harder than I ever had before to fight against the white supremacist patriarchy. As Rebecca Traister points out in her fantastic book Good and Mad, never underestimate the power of a woman who is really pissed off.
I don’t work in electoral politics or with rape victims, but I think we each bring to the fight what we do best, and for me that is training up good journalists who will go on to to question oppressive power structures and fight injustice. Watching you present made me feel like we had finally scored one for the good people.
Secondly, thank you to all of our alumni, who paved an excellent road for our current classes, are out there doing important work, and are exceedingly generous with their time in giving back to us by talking with students and offering them advice and feedback. This semester alone we heard from Allen Arthur, Simon Galperin, Sebastián Auyanet, Alyxaundria Sanford, Kristine Villanueva, Charles Michio Turner, Ghita Benslimane, Max Resnik, and Viktoria Isabel M.
Third, thank you to alumna Melissa DiPento, who just started working with me part-time a few weeks ago and has already been an incredible asset and helped plan the final presentations event.
Fourth, thank you to all the other social journalism faculty members who work so hard to teach and inspire these students. They included LuisMiguelEchegaray, Jessica Firger, Barry Paddock, Malik Singleton, Kelsey Arendt, Geanne Belton, Meredith Bennett-Smith, John Keefe, Jeremy Caplan, Rachel Glickhouse, and Alyssa Zeisler, as well as all the other people who offered extra help and support like Barbara Gray, Diane Nottle, Helina Selemon, Matt MacVey, Tim Harper, Deb Stead, Judy Watson, Marie Gilot, and Jenny Choi.
Fifth, big, very serious thank you to Terry Parris Jr. Terry teaches two of our courses, serves as an engagement coach, and consistently goes above and beyond to help both the students and I figure things out. I do not think I could do this without him and our brainstorming sessions (which may or may not generally involve bourbon and beer.)
Sixth, thank you to Grant Smith for putting up with a wife who opens her laptop between 7 and 8am and often doesn’t close it until ~11pm, with not a lot of breaks in between; not super fun but as the house chef he feeds and supports me anyway.
Seventh, thank you to all the smart engaged journalists and people from other fields who have joined us as guest speakers. Your expertise and fresh perspectives been invaluable to all of us, and because we are committed to learning from people outside journalism as well as those doing the most cutting edge work in the field, your contributions are vital. There are too many for me to list.
Finally, last but not least, thank you to Jeff Jarvis, who came up with the idea for this program and brought me here to run it. Unlike so many other well-known older white men in media, Jeff *always* makes a clear and concerted effort to recognize the contributions and effort of women he works with. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how rare this is. Also, few who know Jeff only from Twitter or television might know how much empathy and support he gives his students, particularly those that may be struggling with issues in their personal lives. None of us would be doing this work without him.
There are many more people at the Newmark J-School to thank, but I’ve been running on for a long time now and I think I hear the music playing so — THANK YOU ALL!
A Coda
My journalism mentor, Bill Kovach, used to give what he called “the benediction” at the end of the training sessions we did at newspapers when I worked for the Committee of Concerned Journalists.
Bill would get us all fired about about the critical role that journalism, at least at its best, highest ideal, plays in having a society that is free and can govern itself. He would tell us that journalism is the closest he gets to a religion (same here). He would tell us that journalism, although it was under threat, will only die if we let it, and that it was up to us to make it better.
I took Bill up on that challenge more than 20 years ago, and I’m so glad to have a whole new group of students who will go out into the world and do just that with me.
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