The steady decimation of local news has also decimated the careers of working-class journalists without elite educations. We’ve lost many of the journalists who would have been best suited to cover labor issues exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis and related topics like housing insecurity and the cost of healthcare.
Next year, we should expect stronger demands to recruit staff from a broader range of education backgrounds. This will in turn lead to more editors and writers from a broader range of class backgrounds. We must do this to provide accurate and rigorous coverage of the issues impacting most Americans.
There has been increased scrutiny of the homogenous class and education backgrounds of journalists in recent years. In 2019, Asian American Journalists Association Voices released a report that showed how graduates from a small cluster of universities have come to dominate newsrooms. AAJA collected data on the 150 news interns from the summer of 2018 who went to work at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Politico, and the Chicago Tribune. They found that 65 percent of the interns had attended the most selective schools in the country. At the New York Times and Washington Post, one in five went to the top 1 percent of schools known as the “Ivy Plus” (the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago). The report connects the practice of recruiting from elite schools to the disproportionate whiteness of the largest newspapers and media organizations.
This year put the consequences of Ivy Plus-led publications in stark relief. Needless deaths of hardware store cashiers and bus drivers were framed in stories as the sacrifice of “heroes” rather than an outrage and injustice. Or workers were written out of news stories entirely. Early on, when there were shelter-in-place orders and people wiped down every item they bought from the grocery store, the media’s advice for surviving the pandemic tended to be tailored to the work-from-home upper-middle class — order books off the internet! get your groceries from Instacart! — ignoring the people who work at every point in the supply chain. These workers are trying to survive too! There’s been some excellent labor reporting this year, but there’s also been abysmal work — coverage of workers written gingerly with sanctimony and a pandering tone. This is what happens when media professionals live sheltered lives and have limited contact with those who haven’t attended elite schools.
The quality of journalism suffers from this homogeny. The problem also leads to classism and credentialism in the workplace, which self-perpetuates in hiring practices. “It’s incredibly discouraging and scary to hear that my community college, which I was attending because I simply could not afford to take thousands of dollars in debt, somehow brought me down as an applicant — so much that it overshadowed my clips, my work experience, and the skills I bring to the table,” Omar Rashad wrote in Poynter this year. Seeking an internship, he had been told by a media professional that his community college experience was not good enough.
A reckoning is inevitable. In 2021, I expect greater efforts to undo this cronyism. It might involve advocacy to remove all degree requirements (64 percent of the U.S. population doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree). There could be mandates for HR to reach applicants beyond the Ivy Plus and strengthen ties with HBCUs, state schools, and community colleges. Newsroom unions might put forth these demands. All of this, it should go without saying, would be supplemental to diversity policies.
Joanne McNeil is the author of Lurking: How a Person Became a User.
The steady decimation of local news has also decimated the careers of working-class journalists without elite educations. We’ve lost many of the journalists who would have been best suited to cover labor issues exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis and related topics like housing insecurity and the cost of healthcare.
Next year, we should expect stronger demands to recruit staff from a broader range of education backgrounds. This will in turn lead to more editors and writers from a broader range of class backgrounds. We must do this to provide accurate and rigorous coverage of the issues impacting most Americans.
There has been increased scrutiny of the homogenous class and education backgrounds of journalists in recent years. In 2019, Asian American Journalists Association Voices released a report that showed how graduates from a small cluster of universities have come to dominate newsrooms. AAJA collected data on the 150 news interns from the summer of 2018 who went to work at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Politico, and the Chicago Tribune. They found that 65 percent of the interns had attended the most selective schools in the country. At the New York Times and Washington Post, one in five went to the top 1 percent of schools known as the “Ivy Plus” (the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago). The report connects the practice of recruiting from elite schools to the disproportionate whiteness of the largest newspapers and media organizations.
This year put the consequences of Ivy Plus-led publications in stark relief. Needless deaths of hardware store cashiers and bus drivers were framed in stories as the sacrifice of “heroes” rather than an outrage and injustice. Or workers were written out of news stories entirely. Early on, when there were shelter-in-place orders and people wiped down every item they bought from the grocery store, the media’s advice for surviving the pandemic tended to be tailored to the work-from-home upper-middle class — order books off the internet! get your groceries from Instacart! — ignoring the people who work at every point in the supply chain. These workers are trying to survive too! There’s been some excellent labor reporting this year, but there’s also been abysmal work — coverage of workers written gingerly with sanctimony and a pandering tone. This is what happens when media professionals live sheltered lives and have limited contact with those who haven’t attended elite schools.
The quality of journalism suffers from this homogeny. The problem also leads to classism and credentialism in the workplace, which self-perpetuates in hiring practices. “It’s incredibly discouraging and scary to hear that my community college, which I was attending because I simply could not afford to take thousands of dollars in debt, somehow brought me down as an applicant — so much that it overshadowed my clips, my work experience, and the skills I bring to the table,” Omar Rashad wrote in Poynter this year. Seeking an internship, he had been told by a media professional that his community college experience was not good enough.
A reckoning is inevitable. In 2021, I expect greater efforts to undo this cronyism. It might involve advocacy to remove all degree requirements (64 percent of the U.S. population doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree). There could be mandates for HR to reach applicants beyond the Ivy Plus and strengthen ties with HBCUs, state schools, and community colleges. Newsroom unions might put forth these demands. All of this, it should go without saying, would be supplemental to diversity policies.
Joanne McNeil is the author of Lurking: How a Person Became a User.
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products