Does your newsroom really need to be in midtown Manhattan?
Is Los Angeles really the only place you can produce that podcast?
Have you considered that perhaps all of your reporters don’t need to move to downtown D.C.?
And most importantly, do you realize who you’re shutting out of your publication if you’re still making relocation a non-negotiable?
After the year we just had, in 2021 we should be asking serious questions about any news outlet that bills itself as “national” but hasn’t fully and unreservedly embraced remote work.
This year broke open necessary, long-overdue conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion in journalism. In particular, we’ve begun to reckon with racial injustice, critically examining who gets pushed out of newsrooms versus who gets to rise to their highest levels, and which stories get championed, fundamentally misunderstood, or completely left out as a result. At the same time, the nature of work has shifted ,as the pandemic forced many previously resistant industries to go remote. If we’re smart, watching those developments side by side will spark a realization: Building national news teams with roots in every corner of the country won’t just produce better journalism — it’ll help diversify and democratize the industry.
Journalism has long been an industry that’s challenging — if not downright hostile — for women and journalists of color. It’s also notoriously insular, with the most prestigious and widely-read “national” publications clustered into expensive major cities on the coasts. The effect is that many talented journalists are shut out from influential, major platforms because of who and where they are. Maybe they’re working class and can’t afford to move to a high-cost-of-living city on an intern’s pittance. Maybe family responsibilities or a partner’s job mean they have less geographic mobility, as is true for many women. Or maybe, just maybe, they’ve deliberately set down roots in a part of the country that’s not New York City because they love it, or it’s where they’re from, or they value the local communities of which they’re a part.
None of those situations ought to be a barrier to a national news career in the era of Zoom, Slack, and high-speed internet. Not only does worshipping at the altar of centralized “in-person” newsrooms disproportionately shut out women, BIPOC, the working class, and disabled people, it has a pernicious effect on the kind of reporting that gets done. Parachute reporting becomes the norm rather than offering opportunities to reporters who are deeply rooted and well-sourced in their communities and who have a nuanced understanding of local issues.
Indeed, when we started building Prism in 2019, we intentionally created an all-remote newsroom. As a result, we’ve assembled a geographically diverse, all-BIPOC team that includes working mothers and folks from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
As we’ve worked together over the past year, it’s clearer than ever that a newsroom doesn’t have to be a single, physical place in order for reporters and editors to collaborate effectively. We write, we edit, we videochat, we make liberal use of gifs and emoji via Slack — and our journalism is genuinely national, because everyone’s exactly where they want to be.
Remote work won’t solve every problem in journalism, but it’s long past time we start pulling every possible lever to make this field more accessible, inclusive, and reflective of the communities we’re covering. Let 2021 be the year national news outlets see the value in letting journalists freely choose the homes that work for them, and in the more reflective, accurate, and accountable coverage that will result.
Ashton Lattimore is editor-in-chief of Prism.
Does your newsroom really need to be in midtown Manhattan?
Is Los Angeles really the only place you can produce that podcast?
Have you considered that perhaps all of your reporters don’t need to move to downtown D.C.?
And most importantly, do you realize who you’re shutting out of your publication if you’re still making relocation a non-negotiable?
After the year we just had, in 2021 we should be asking serious questions about any news outlet that bills itself as “national” but hasn’t fully and unreservedly embraced remote work.
This year broke open necessary, long-overdue conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion in journalism. In particular, we’ve begun to reckon with racial injustice, critically examining who gets pushed out of newsrooms versus who gets to rise to their highest levels, and which stories get championed, fundamentally misunderstood, or completely left out as a result. At the same time, the nature of work has shifted ,as the pandemic forced many previously resistant industries to go remote. If we’re smart, watching those developments side by side will spark a realization: Building national news teams with roots in every corner of the country won’t just produce better journalism — it’ll help diversify and democratize the industry.
Journalism has long been an industry that’s challenging — if not downright hostile — for women and journalists of color. It’s also notoriously insular, with the most prestigious and widely-read “national” publications clustered into expensive major cities on the coasts. The effect is that many talented journalists are shut out from influential, major platforms because of who and where they are. Maybe they’re working class and can’t afford to move to a high-cost-of-living city on an intern’s pittance. Maybe family responsibilities or a partner’s job mean they have less geographic mobility, as is true for many women. Or maybe, just maybe, they’ve deliberately set down roots in a part of the country that’s not New York City because they love it, or it’s where they’re from, or they value the local communities of which they’re a part.
None of those situations ought to be a barrier to a national news career in the era of Zoom, Slack, and high-speed internet. Not only does worshipping at the altar of centralized “in-person” newsrooms disproportionately shut out women, BIPOC, the working class, and disabled people, it has a pernicious effect on the kind of reporting that gets done. Parachute reporting becomes the norm rather than offering opportunities to reporters who are deeply rooted and well-sourced in their communities and who have a nuanced understanding of local issues.
Indeed, when we started building Prism in 2019, we intentionally created an all-remote newsroom. As a result, we’ve assembled a geographically diverse, all-BIPOC team that includes working mothers and folks from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
As we’ve worked together over the past year, it’s clearer than ever that a newsroom doesn’t have to be a single, physical place in order for reporters and editors to collaborate effectively. We write, we edit, we videochat, we make liberal use of gifs and emoji via Slack — and our journalism is genuinely national, because everyone’s exactly where they want to be.
Remote work won’t solve every problem in journalism, but it’s long past time we start pulling every possible lever to make this field more accessible, inclusive, and reflective of the communities we’re covering. Let 2021 be the year national news outlets see the value in letting journalists freely choose the homes that work for them, and in the more reflective, accurate, and accountable coverage that will result.
Ashton Lattimore is editor-in-chief of Prism.
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
An Xiao Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned