Teaching Journalism for Better Community

Literature Review

The purpose of journalism has never been all that clear-cut. Even early on, much debate transpired about the role of journalists. In the 1920s, Walter Lippmann (1922) argued for journalism that reflected power elites and relayed “pictures” of events while Dewey (1954) countered that reporters helped foster communities and should help citizens engage in public life. In the years that followed, innumerable tomes laid out the tenets of American journalism, with Kovach and Rosenstiel (2014) formally documenting the “elements” (p. 9) as the truth, loyalty to citizens, verification, independence from faction, monitor of power, comprehensive and proportional news, forum for public criticism and compromise, interest and relevance, and personal conscience. The profession settled into a series of work routines that were almost factory-like in their reliance on official/expert testimony, “objective” reporting, and a strict conceptualization of “story” (Bantz, McCorkle, & Baade, 1980; Jamieson & Waldman, 2003; Shoemaker & Reese, 2013; Smythe, 1981; Tuchman, 1972, 1980). In the process of this production, American journalists have constructed and perpetuated societal values, such as ethnocentrism, altruistic democracy, responsible capitalism, small-town pastoralism, individualism, moderatism, social order, and leadership (Gans, 1979).

J-schools began more than 100 years ago to formalize the profession of journalism and develop some uniform standards for the nation’s reporters. J-schools were essential in codifying journalism’s core tenets through university-affiliated professional associations. The creed adopted by the National Press Club was originally penned by the head of the Missouri School of Journalism in 1914, stating a commitment to being “trustees for the public” with “clear thinking and clear statement, accuracy and fairness” (as cited in Folkerts et al., 2013). This aligns with Dewey’s (1954) declaration that reporters are “teachers of the public”.

With this consideration in mind, it is noted that these early trainees in J-schools tended to be White and male, as women and people of color neither had the means, the expectations, nor the permission to attend. Thus these schools were built on exclusivity. There remains a long way to go in terms of diversity: Women make up about 40% of journalism instructors, but fewer than 6% of professors in J-schools have been people of color over the past two decades (Lehrman, 2006). Aleman (2014) found that instructors encourage students to choose assignments for the class based on what they know, on what they love, and also on traditional news values such as celebrity or timeliness or unusual nature, and so on. Thus, the early training of these mostly White students reflects their own worldview and does not foster what is then looked upon as “alternative” coverage of communities of color. Furthermore, Aleman discovered that when students are taught about diversity in the media, professors follow “four discursive strategies—individualism, distorted racism, negation, and normativity—whites use to engage conversations about race . . . that obscure white privilege, invalidate systemic racism, and uphold White supremacy” (p. 73). In other words, even lectures about race highlight the problems of explicit bias and stereotyping and re-enforce the “other” mentality (Lehrman, 2006). A majority of White journalism students adopt a “color-blind” paradigm within which talking about race issues or even “seeing race” is difficult for them (Brooks & Ward, 2007).

This homogeneity carried through to newsrooms. Although 21.4% of the journalism bachelor’s degree went to recipients of color between 2004 and 2013, these graduates have not found jobs at an equitable rate; one study showed “graduating minorities that specialized in print were 17 percentage points less likely to find a full-time job than non-minorities” (Williams, 2015). Today, journalists of color comprise less than 5% of America’s newsrooms—a number that has not moved since the 1960s (Williams, 2015). This lack of diversity has had a negative impact on society: Media coverage generally reproduces stereotypes, simplifies issues into binaries, and fails to advance any kind of progressive dialogue on issues involving race (Lule, 2001; Shah, 2010; Squires, 2007, 2009, 2014; Squires & Jackson, 2010). Scholarship on news work has long shown how the norms of traditional reporters are tied to symbiotic relationships with power brokers and that influences on what appears in the news tend to be limited to the upper echelons of society’s (White, male) hierarchies and entrenched institutions (Bennett, 2011; Bennett, Lawrence, & Livingston, 2008; Schudson, 1996; Shoemaker & Reese, 2013). For example, the “post-racial mystique” that followed President Obama’s victory in news obscured the institutional racism that continued to plague the country, and these “dominant post-racial narratives offer particular modes of doing race and citizenship that do not necessarily represent the interests of people of color,” said Squires (2014, pp. 166-167). In perpetuating the notion that America is somehow beyond race and that we have entered an idealized multicultural place, journalists not only absolve White citizens from dealing with the inequities that abound between the races but also make it more difficult for anyone to highlight them.

Furthermore, this way of doing journalism reifies a certain kind of citizen and closes down that Deweyan ideal of an inclusive civic conversation that our society needs for effective policy making and to establish deliberative forums that amplify all voices. Dewey’s vision holds communication as engagement in the building of connections toward community—a way of living together. The need for J-schools to break problematic frames is even more pressing as the United States becomes a country where the once so-called “minorities” will soon be the majority—by 2060. (Furthermore, the U.S. population of children of color will get there much sooner—by 2020; Chappell, 2015.) Several movements over the years in journalism—often led by or in collaboration with J-schools—have worked to reconfigure the power index. Not least of these was the public journalism (or civic journalism) movement during the 1990s; a Deweyan inspired call for reporters to work in collaboration with citizens on grassroots level reporting with the emphasis that journalists have a stake in public life (Merritt, 1997; Rosen, 2001). Calls for more hyperlocal, engaged journalism continue to be made, as in the recent 11-part series by MediaShift called “Redefining Engagement” that advocated rethinking relationships to sources and audiences to communities and citizens with the goal as “an authentic and sustained conversation, facilitated by journalists, amplified by news organizations, inclusive of diverse voices and responsive to the needs of communities” (DeJarnette, 2016). But contracting newsrooms, fiscal uncertainty, decreasing numbers of reporters of color, and other economic, organizational, and cultural impediments stymie real, systemic change within newsrooms.

One answer might include training journalism students in a new paradigm, a community-first paradigm that privileges citizens rather than officials and advocates engagement as a fundamental part of the job. But how do J-schools adapt? This multi-year, multi-phased project takes into account changing demographics, institutional dynamics, and other obstacles to good journalism toward a new curriculum.

Methods: A Two-Part Study

The first of the two phases explored the coverage of K-12 racial achievement disparities using five case studies—one macro case (Madison, WI) and four additional micro cases (Chapel Hill, NC; Evanston, IL; Ann Arbor, MI; and Cambridge, MA). The topic was chosen because this issue engaged with both race and power within an institutional setting and also because it is a frequent topic throughout the country. In addition, racial disparities deeply affect community life for all, creating chaos in neighborhoods of color (such as the so-called school to prison pipeline), pervasive segregation, stagnant economies, and a startling absence of diversity in public, deliberative spaces (Nelson & Winn, 2013; Turner, 2013). The cities were chosen because of their documented significant racial disparities, their similarities as suburban–urban microcosms, attachment to major universities, and recent public debate on the topic as well as their very White but very active media and blogging public. Case studies, which are helpful in allowing a research to dive deep into some phenomenon (Yin, 2013), are a sensible technique to use when trying to answer questions that would lead to the building of curriculum. Choosing similar cases allowed a measure of transferability of these findings about obstacles to other communities—especially those alike in makeup. ² Interviews included more than 120 reporters, bloggers, activists, and citizens who authored content or were sources about this issue ³ in these cities during 2014 and 2015. In addition, three focus groups of parents of color were held in the macro case study of Madison. These participants were asked their opinion of media-community racial relations in the city and what challenges existed to talking or doing journalism about race. Most interviews lasted 1 to 2 hours; about half were in person and half on the phone. Interview transcripts were coded using critical discourse analysis (CDA), which considers a text’s language to reveal power dynamics that contribute to shaping social life (Fairclough, 2010; Wodak & Meyer, 2009). Via CDA, the inductive analysis revealed three major themes of obstacles inhibiting good journalism in these communities: missed connections between journalists and citizens, structural constraints, and a pattern of failed outcomes. These will be briefly outlined in the first section of the findings. ⁴

These findings informed the second phase of the study: Developing curriculum that might help journalism students enter the profession knowing how to overcome these obstacles. In tackling this quagmire, the framework of Shakil Choudhury’s (2015) Deep Diversity: Overcoming Us vs Them guided the philosophy behind the new course. His paradigm posits that the nature of emotions, unconscious bias, a predisposition toward us versus them, and inter-group power dynamics collude to create racial disparities. People must take on the essential role of bridge builder and engage with all four of these forces at work, he wrote. These bridge builders need to hold the deliberative space open in society with levels of both attachment and detachment to these issues. Dewey would argue that this is essentially the job of journalists as holistic caretakers of democracy via communication. As conscience bridge builders, journalists enable connections and relay meaningful experiences that foster and sustain community (Dewey, 1954). This approach was applied in the development of a new service-learning class called, “Journalism for Racial Justice: Amplifying Voices in Local Communities.” The idea was to create an environment in which students would be taught how to overcome the missed connections, structural constraints, and failed outcomes to build grassroots relationships and restore trust between marginalized community members and journalists.

The course, which ran in spring 2016, enrolled 14 journalism students—all of whom had taken a prerequisite skills reporting class and stated a desire to work as reporters. Of the 14 students, three identified as African American, one as Asian American, three as multi-race, and the rest as Caucasian; all but one was female, and all were below 25 years of age. About half of the students had completed some social-justice courses or volunteer work, with the other half never having been exposed to such material. The syllabus of the class laid out the major goal to develop an appreciation for the grassroots connection between journalism and community, and stated the course questions as, “How do we enable marginalized citizens to contribute their voice to public discourse? More specifically: How can professional communicators exercise good citizenship, tell important stories, and help improve society at the grassroots level by amplifying marginalizing voices?”

In a three-pronged approach to answering this question, students completed the following major projects: One, students were paired with middle and high school youth—mostly kids of color—to work on 9-week communication projects; these included an FM-radio station, a local middle-school newsletter, and editorials for an online student news site. Two, partnerships were forged with two local news organizations to publish work that amplified voices through collaborations in local neighborhoods to write feature stories in combination with alternative content such as personal memoir or poetry. Three, students collaborated with either media or non-profits to help change infrastructure through internal training documents such as a media kit for an organization or hiring guide for a newsroom. Three surveys with both closed- and open-ended questions throughout the semester, in addition to class observations and debriefings with both students and the community partners, were used to evaluate what worked. ⁵ In addition, post-semester interviews were conducted with seven people from the community sites. In this participant ethnography, all of the materials from this course—from the text of the assignments to in-class discussions to evaluations, surveys, and interview transcripts—were subject to memoing followed by a more deductive analysis that applied the Choudhury and Deweyan frameworks to course outcomes.

Findings: Obstacles for Public Talk About Race

This evidence from the first stage of the project revealed three kinds of obstacles to reporting on issues involving race: missed connections, structural constraints, and outcome failures.

A New Approach: A New Course

Fifteen ⁶ students spread out around the circular table and a woman began the meditation, asking people to envision a close relative, an acquaintance, and an enemy, wishing them happiness and approaching them with compassion. Once the meditation ended, the racial justice training began. It was the third session of “Journalism for Racial Justice: Amplifying Voices for Local Communities.” Guided by the findings about obstacles to public talk, the course was meant to train journalism students to avoid missed connections, to reconstruct—or bypass—traditional reportorial conventions and other structural constraints, and to turn failed outcomes into positive results that might help build trust between media and marginalized communities. The meditative, individualized White privilege training grounded the class in the foundational concept that they themselves must intentionally serve as bridge builders in community and understand the influence of their own biases to help others engage (Choudhury, 2015).

During nine weeks of community service work, students built relationships with youth and their families and staff at non-profit centers. This service work represented a mandatory element of reporting: Journalists must know their communities—all of their communities. As Dewey (1916) wrote, “Any experience, however trivial in its first appearance, is capable of assuming an indefinite richness of significance by extending its range of perceived connections” (p. 217). Students expanded notions of community by developing personal relationships through deceptively mundane interactions. During slow moments at the sites, students would worry that they “were not doing enough.” They were assured their mere presence was speaking volumes. Furthermore, they were training youth of color to amplify their own voices in a common society as well. For Dewey (2008), this exercised his “ethical postulate” (p. 322):

In the realization of individuality there is found also the needed realization of some community of persons of which the individual is a member; and, conversely, the agent who duly satisfies the community in which he shares, by that same conduct satisfies himself.

The nurturing of the youth of color into self-awareness, to educate them to add their individual perspective into the mix, feeds both the youth and the community.

In the second project for the class, students collaborated with citizens on feature stories by questioning institutional practices and policies as well as sources’ backgrounds and philosophies. They asked what was meant by “conflict of interest” and “objectivity.” In one discussion mid-way through the semester, students interrogated “critical distance”: “So if I am in a sorority, I would not be able to write a story about that sorority. But if I volunteer at a local non-profit helping at-risk kids, that would be ok. Isn’t that hypocritical?” The key was to appreciate respective positions in the power hierarchy and understand how journalism either reifies the status quo or allows for power diffusion; a sorority run by upper class White women that the journalist is hoping to use to advance her own career would not qualify as altruistic community building whereas the publicity of a non-profit might. The idea of “distance” was replaced by “transparency.”

The need to critically examine one’s own desires for publicity and how that might be framing the story idea was discussed. Students were urged to identify the political, social, and professional norms that were guiding the way they instinctually wanted to work on Project 2. This applies Choudhury’s (2015) recommendation to become aware of the influences of power, tribe (e.g., groupthink), emotion, and bias when trying to build bridges in community. Throughout the semester, self-work was emphasized—that is, being aware of implicit assumptions. As one activist of color said in the interviews, “vulnerability is built into all of this—and we all need to be aware of those biases to step into this work.” Consider this evidence from a comment in a student’s progress report on her project:

I think it is important here to check my biases. In my head, it is a big deal that a lack of space/time/resources hindered the meetings. And it is. But these are all resources I commonly take for granted, and need to realize [profile subject] is more than these constraints, and there is more to this story than an organization needing space.

The discomfort that followed made students keenly aware of their own role as active citizens in this process of community nurturing.

Finally, re-conceptualizing the role of “sources” was emphasized. In traditional news work, sources provide expertise, good quotes to illuminate an issue, “liveliness,” information on what the powerful are thinking and planning, and a diverse set of perspectives as well as demonstrate the reporters’ ability to get access (and thus, raise their authority). In addition to this, students thought of sources as informants who could serve as a conduit for them to communities; the source represented a bridge to be crossed, a beginning rather than an end point. One student spent a month getting to know the single mother of a teenager transitioning from the high school into a special-needs space also run by the school district. She partnered with the family on a lengthy, bottom-up piece about how the public school district needed to do more for special-needs children. This resulted in not only a cover story for the local newspaper, but also exclusive access to a breaking-news story about sexual assault that happened to one of the families’ kids in the schools. Another student logged 30 hours at a community center that attracted African immigrants. She not only captured the story of the center in pictures but spent time with one of its families to tell their story of assimilation; this project also became a cover story in a local media outlet, including excerpts from a poem about isolation that the family’s 16-year-old daughter wrote. In one project, African American kids recorded themselves doing spoken word to go along with a feature a student did about the importance of the art form in political expression. Another documented Hmong professionals’ cultural acclimation as they struggled to honor their heritage; this piece also was showcased in local media. ⁷ The same media outlet also published a student’s self-reflective essay and poem about being a bi-racial Japanese American in a series that also included other multi-racial individuals in the community; the package includes the recording of one prominent activist reading his own poem about being half Black and half White.

This kind of grassroots journalism work forced off-campus experiences and give-and-take exchanges that fostered the kind of necessary connections and “normal communication” that Dewey described as integral to a holistic communal life. There must be “a joint interest, a common interest, so that one is eager to give and the other to take. It contrasts with telling or stating things simply for the sake of impressing them upon another” (Dewey, 1916, p. 217). This class encouraged students to exercise both the “give” and the “take” in this relational conception of journalism. From a community partner following the course, “Recognizing their own lens and perspectives and how that affects the stories that they tell . . . that is huge. The moral ethics is here is for the journalism student to see themselves as a community member.” Such work positioned the students within community, dismissing the notion that reporters stand apart from community, dictating information.

In the last assignment, students worked to execute projects that would disrupt the systemic racism in the community. If the Dewey-held idea that all citizens—including journalists—are participants in the cultivating of community is valid, then reporters must be empowered toward actualizing the conditions of a flourishing democracy from within their organizational structures. This project directed students to experiment, thinking about Dewey’s perspective that journalism entailed a fundamental collaboration on the part of reporters as active citizens. One student worked with a Hmong community center to develop an oral-history workshop for Hmong youth and elders. Several students produced media kits for non-profit centers in the city to help them create more awareness of their communities’ struggles; one of these even created a new logo for the non-profit that they will use in marketing material. ⁸ Still another created a hiring guide for local mainstream newsrooms on how to attract and retain reporters of color.

Many obstacles plagued the new course. Any time a third party enters into the curriculum, a class must be flexible for alternative perspectives and logistical issues. In our first week of the off-campus site visits to the community centers, for example, only two youths showed up to one program and three to another (when both sites had reported average attendance of 10-15). This low attendance continued throughout the semester for one of the sites. The university students had to pivot in their lesson plans, recalibrating each week so that the journalism exercise for the day was not dependent on what had happened the previous week. “It was helpful to be in contact throughout the process on how to make this situation better,” said one community partner. Her colleague added, “I had my idea of the potential of what it could be and then there is the reality of how it is.” In addition, students found themselves somewhat stymied after all of the readings about what not to do, and felt themselves confused about how to change their mind-set and ignore years of training. “I find myself nervous because it is so different from how I’ve been taught up until now,” said one student. “I don’t really know how to overcome the way I usually think about stories.” “Good” stories, sparking conversations, and meeting individually with students to brainstorm pathways forward for their projects were shared. But it is not a mind-set that can fully evolve in one semester.

Finally, almost all of the students in the class were graduating. This made the follow-through mandated by the first-phase research difficult to put into practice. All three site visitations resulted in concrete products: a website, online articles, and small radio segments. Students vowed to stay in touch with sources following the end of the class. A report to the community centers about the experience was relayed as well. But in the end, none of these measures really equate to consistent presence within the communities. Indeed, in post-course interviews, community partners all said they would have liked more time with the students over a longer duration. This is going to be a persistent problem with any such classes, unless the curriculum is removed from a standard course format and an alternative project plan is developed—perhaps collaborating with a year-round newsroom and finding funding to pay students through the summer, for example.

Conclusion

The profession of journalism teeters on an apex of change—both technological change as digital networked media platforms proliferate and demographic change as Whites become a minority. Meanwhile, newsrooms struggle to keep up with both evolutions: Most are actually declining in numbers of reporters of color even as their communities’ demographics become more diverse, and many smaller properties fail to be pro-active in digital environments at the same pace as their audiences. This project seeks to help journalism educators produce professionals better prepared for these dynamics with more pragmatic skill sets, more flexible mind-sets, and a keen sense of civic responsibility in the Deweyan tradition. It sets out to strengthen connections between the Academy and local community, make incremental change in institutional organizations, enable the voices of marginalized citizens, and exercise good stewardship.

The first phase of the project revealed the obstacles that citizens of color and their White allies must overcome to partake of an active civic life. People’s articulations of these challenges served as a blueprint for change in journalistic training. The class provided a structured realm in which to “try out” some of the solutions to these problems by teaching students how to build trust with constituents, how to work within systems already in place for change, and how to enable citizens to tell their own stories. The course encouraged a multi-pronged approach to covering community issues that asked students to be self-reflexive as well as expansive about the traditional tenets of journalism.

Changes to the course might include having students with community partners, 2 days a week for 11 weeks; offering an optional summer internship; and mandating follow-through with community partners. ⁹ Many of the logistics of the new class need to be reconfigured, such as staggering deadlines for the projects in a more feasible manner and using student projects as examples for future classes to alleviate confusion about expectations. Speakers from even more communities would be beneficial; although this class hosted people from Native American, African American, Hispanic, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities, it did not include Hmong, Asian Americans, or other groups. This criticism came across in the evaluations. It is a course that could be easily adapted to other places as long as the course designer developed partnerships according to the specific community’s hardships. As in any service-learning class, community partners need to be consulted throughout the design process to ensure the time and effort spent are worthwhile to their needs. Regardless, logistics must be carefully planned, especially transportation to and from the sites ¹⁰ and coordination of the class time with needs of partners. ¹¹

Although the class contained limitations, it offered a curriculum that took into consideration structural barriers that impede egalitarian society from within mainstream constructions in several ways. Class evaluations showed means of 4.31 (out of 5) for whether the course enhanced knowledge about important issues, 4.31 for advancing important skills, and 4.46 for advancing a sense of social or personal responsibility. ¹² Said one of the community partners in a post-course interview:

I definitely think it is useful to come out and work in the community. It is important for future journalists to be introduced to people of color and gain hands-on experience and cultural competency. It will help alleviate biases that could come up in their journalism career and create better relationships and a broader idea about how to communicate and work in communities that they are not used to.

Three fundamental takeaways for the students resulted from the course. One, the traditional journalism students re-conceptualized tenets such as objectivity by turning the lens onto themselves and the ways in which their own privileges affected their approach to stories. This greater awareness of their own bias helped them find and do stories in a much more balanced, fair, transparent manner—a fundamental premise of objectivity as a concept. Two, the class’s emphasis on collaborative work reconfigured the very role of the “source,” which became a more relational concept for them. This defies the conflict of interest concern because this relationship is not about agenda pushing, but rather about bridge building for knitting communities together in conversation. In that connection, space opens for deliberations between poles—this is fundamentally the role of the journalist in a working democracy. Three, the students worked throughout the semester to overcome citizens’ wariness and to build trust in these neighborhoods that were typically marginalized in mainstream press.

The class propelled these budding journalists toward action themselves, to recognize themselves as having agency in how deliberation could unfold—whether by different questions, sources, and approaches (as in Project 2) or through helping to change the circumstance of that deliberative structure in Projects 1 and 3. Such action does not conflict with the interests of citizens, but instead becomes the obligation of the reporter to ensure that an effective and inclusive space of deliberation exists. Part of this process is enabling all citizens to be able to participate in these spaces—not just the White, educated, middle-class folks. Another part of this is changing structures so the systems themselves evolve from the inside out. In these ways, journalism professors can create a curriculum for journalism students that better aligns journalism practice and citizen democratic practice while also taking into consideration structural barriers that impede egalitarian society.