Lately, when I begin the first class of a new semester, I ask my students a question no one felt compelled to ask me when I studied journalism in the 2000s: Has anyone discouraged you from pursuing a career in journalism?
The answers, unsurprisingly, are consistently “yes.” Students describe parents and friends asking why they’d choose to work in a profession where pay is low, public distrust is high, and stability is elusive. Strangers have asked them why they want to be part of “fake news” or have encouraged them to be “one of the good ones.” And, in general, as soon as they tell someone they’re pursuing a career in journalism, they get a list of grievances about the news in response. (I’ve found this to be true for journalism scholars as well.)
But despite the perpetual discouragement and all the serious issues motivating it, universities across the country are seeing consistent — or even increasing — enrollment in their journalism curricula. The University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media has seen enrollment increase about 70% over the past decade, according to the school’s senior associate dean for undergraduate studies. Journalism programs at Emerson College, Syracuse University, Arizona State University, and the University of Maryland have also seen enrollment increases in recent years. In my department at the University of Utah, our journalism sequence has experienced year-over-year growth since 2016.
So, my prediction: People will continue to pursue careers in journalism despite (or maybe even because of) its ongoing challenges. Many will begin those pursuits in university classrooms.
My hope is that journalism educators meet this demand by doing what we wish more journalists did within their newsrooms: Reflecting honestly and openly about how we’ve been doing our jobs and making meaningful changes to better serve the public.
As Rafael Lorente, the associate dean for academic affairs at University of Maryland’s journalism school, wrote recently: “We have an obligation to build a journalism education model that keeps us grounded in core values while looking to a future we cannot predict.”
To start, we need to reevaluate how we teach the building blocks of news writing and reporting, especially when it comes to representation and inclusivity. Thanks to a growing chorus of journalism scholars and practitioners, the news industry is finally acknowledging the negative impact of the pursuit of “objectivity” on women journalists and journalists of color, who are more often accused of being “biased” or “compromised” than their white, male counterparts. Some are already working to bring this discussion into the classroom so that students can learn both how objectivity has traditionally been pursued as well as emerging alternatives to it as journalism’s overarching value. For example, Anita Varma, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has embraced a persuasive alternative to objectivity and has published resources to help other journalism educators present this alternative to students.
Journalism educators also need to prepare students for the lack of diversity and representation they will find when they start working in newsrooms, as well as the resistance they will encounter within those newsrooms when it comes to changing those circumstances (or even acknowledging them). To do this, journalism programs need to do more to center discussions surrounding representation throughout their curricula. This year, the University of Utah, the University of Colorado, and the University of Wisconsin are all hiring scholars for positions focused on the intersection of journalism and race. This list is by no means comprehensive — there are others thoughtfully pursuing better ways of teaching the basics of journalism. Hopefully, more will follow.
Journalism schools also need to begin teaching students to think more deliberately about the relationship they hope to have with their audiences — specifically, who those audiences include, who they leave out, and how much agency those audiences should have when it comes to how their stories are told. Last year, Northwestern University professor Stephanie Edgerly and I examined course syllabi from leading journalism schools throughout the United States and found that few of them included much, if any, focus on news audiences. Considering the industry’s increasing embrace of audience-supported revenue models and expansion of audience-focused jobs, journalism schools should devote more resources to ensuring that aspiring journalists are thinking about the people they hope to reach from the very start.
Some programs are already doing this: The University of Oregon’s journalism school has been teaching engaged and solutions journalism courses for years and even has a center dedicated to fostering “more community-engaged and community-driven journalism.” At Temple University, professors have involved students in the creation of hyperlocal, community-centered journalism projects, where students learn solutions journalism and engaged journalism practices by collaborating with community members on solutions-oriented reporting and outreach. CUNY’s journalism school offers a master’s degree in engagement journalism that aspires to teach students “how to build less transactional and more trusting relationships with the people we serve and producing tangible impact in communities.” Arizona State’s journalism school recently launched a “Community Engagement Reporting” course, where students are taught to hold “listening sessions” in hopes that they will learn how to “build better relationships with community groups and their members.” And University of Wisconsin professor Sue Robinson has been working with seven universities to create guidelines and modules intended to help university journalism professors teach students how to host community conversations.
Finally, journalism schools need to do more to offer students not only the skills required to produce the news, but also the knowledge they will need to navigate this profession during such an uncertain period. That means teaching students about labor unions, so they can make informed decisions when it comes time to consider joining one. It means teaching students about the risks and challenges of social media so they understand the perpetually looming threat of online abuse and are also best prepared to consider how what they put online will be evaluated by potential employers. And it means teaching students how best to protect themselves from burnout and other mental health issues that seem endemic to professions where idealism is so easily exploited.
The news industry is a tough place to work right now. We’re lucky that so many people still want to. And if we can meet the challenge of preparing them for what they will find when they begin their careers, we’ll all be better off.
Jacob L. Nelson is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Utah.
Lately, when I begin the first class of a new semester, I ask my students a question no one felt compelled to ask me when I studied journalism in the 2000s: Has anyone discouraged you from pursuing a career in journalism?
The answers, unsurprisingly, are consistently “yes.” Students describe parents and friends asking why they’d choose to work in a profession where pay is low, public distrust is high, and stability is elusive. Strangers have asked them why they want to be part of “fake news” or have encouraged them to be “one of the good ones.” And, in general, as soon as they tell someone they’re pursuing a career in journalism, they get a list of grievances about the news in response. (I’ve found this to be true for journalism scholars as well.)
But despite the perpetual discouragement and all the serious issues motivating it, universities across the country are seeing consistent — or even increasing — enrollment in their journalism curricula. The University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media has seen enrollment increase about 70% over the past decade, according to the school’s senior associate dean for undergraduate studies. Journalism programs at Emerson College, Syracuse University, Arizona State University, and the University of Maryland have also seen enrollment increases in recent years. In my department at the University of Utah, our journalism sequence has experienced year-over-year growth since 2016.
So, my prediction: People will continue to pursue careers in journalism despite (or maybe even because of) its ongoing challenges. Many will begin those pursuits in university classrooms.
My hope is that journalism educators meet this demand by doing what we wish more journalists did within their newsrooms: Reflecting honestly and openly about how we’ve been doing our jobs and making meaningful changes to better serve the public.
As Rafael Lorente, the associate dean for academic affairs at University of Maryland’s journalism school, wrote recently: “We have an obligation to build a journalism education model that keeps us grounded in core values while looking to a future we cannot predict.”
To start, we need to reevaluate how we teach the building blocks of news writing and reporting, especially when it comes to representation and inclusivity. Thanks to a growing chorus of journalism scholars and practitioners, the news industry is finally acknowledging the negative impact of the pursuit of “objectivity” on women journalists and journalists of color, who are more often accused of being “biased” or “compromised” than their white, male counterparts. Some are already working to bring this discussion into the classroom so that students can learn both how objectivity has traditionally been pursued as well as emerging alternatives to it as journalism’s overarching value. For example, Anita Varma, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has embraced a persuasive alternative to objectivity and has published resources to help other journalism educators present this alternative to students.
Journalism educators also need to prepare students for the lack of diversity and representation they will find when they start working in newsrooms, as well as the resistance they will encounter within those newsrooms when it comes to changing those circumstances (or even acknowledging them). To do this, journalism programs need to do more to center discussions surrounding representation throughout their curricula. This year, the University of Utah, the University of Colorado, and the University of Wisconsin are all hiring scholars for positions focused on the intersection of journalism and race. This list is by no means comprehensive — there are others thoughtfully pursuing better ways of teaching the basics of journalism. Hopefully, more will follow.
Journalism schools also need to begin teaching students to think more deliberately about the relationship they hope to have with their audiences — specifically, who those audiences include, who they leave out, and how much agency those audiences should have when it comes to how their stories are told. Last year, Northwestern University professor Stephanie Edgerly and I examined course syllabi from leading journalism schools throughout the United States and found that few of them included much, if any, focus on news audiences. Considering the industry’s increasing embrace of audience-supported revenue models and expansion of audience-focused jobs, journalism schools should devote more resources to ensuring that aspiring journalists are thinking about the people they hope to reach from the very start.
Some programs are already doing this: The University of Oregon’s journalism school has been teaching engaged and solutions journalism courses for years and even has a center dedicated to fostering “more community-engaged and community-driven journalism.” At Temple University, professors have involved students in the creation of hyperlocal, community-centered journalism projects, where students learn solutions journalism and engaged journalism practices by collaborating with community members on solutions-oriented reporting and outreach. CUNY’s journalism school offers a master’s degree in engagement journalism that aspires to teach students “how to build less transactional and more trusting relationships with the people we serve and producing tangible impact in communities.” Arizona State’s journalism school recently launched a “Community Engagement Reporting” course, where students are taught to hold “listening sessions” in hopes that they will learn how to “build better relationships with community groups and their members.” And University of Wisconsin professor Sue Robinson has been working with seven universities to create guidelines and modules intended to help university journalism professors teach students how to host community conversations.
Finally, journalism schools need to do more to offer students not only the skills required to produce the news, but also the knowledge they will need to navigate this profession during such an uncertain period. That means teaching students about labor unions, so they can make informed decisions when it comes time to consider joining one. It means teaching students about the risks and challenges of social media so they understand the perpetually looming threat of online abuse and are also best prepared to consider how what they put online will be evaluated by potential employers. And it means teaching students how best to protect themselves from burnout and other mental health issues that seem endemic to professions where idealism is so easily exploited.
The news industry is a tough place to work right now. We’re lucky that so many people still want to. And if we can meet the challenge of preparing them for what they will find when they begin their careers, we’ll all be better off.
Jacob L. Nelson is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Utah.
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
James Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
AX Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world