00:45
we both signed up to take um advanced
00:48
news reporting this semester
00:50
and the class actually got cancelled
00:52
because there weren’t enough people
00:54
signed up to do it but the professor who
00:56
was teaching it is actually also our
00:58
advisor for our student newspaper
01:00
and he volunteered to do an independent
01:02
study with the two of us
01:04
that was nice yeah he’s pretty great but
01:08
he had kind of posed the question
01:09
because at the beginning of the semester
01:12
we got an email stating that fdu won’t
01:14
be taking newcom
01:16
students next year because we had
01:20
our like department chair retired at the
01:22
end of last year
01:24
and then one of our full-time faculty
01:26
members like left very abruptly before
01:28
the start
01:29
of the fall semester um and
01:32
now on the course listings for next fall
01:36
the third of our four full-time faculty
01:39
members isn’t
01:40
listed so we think he might be retiring but we aren’t sure
01:42
as well
01:43
but basically the school told us that
01:45
they want to kind of revamp the
01:46
communications program
01:48
and our professor kind of gave us this
01:51
idea and he was like
01:53
well why don’t we tell them how they
01:55
need to do it
01:57
that is smart and it’s smarter than you
02:00
guys to come up on it and that you did
02:01
the leg work for them
02:03
yeah um so we actually talked to our
02:05
university provost kind of about like
02:08
their vision and everything before we
02:10
reached out to like experts to try and
02:13
see
02:13
what other thoughts were and also just
02:16
trying to get a background of like
02:18
you know what does the future of
02:20
communications look like and
02:22
what actually matters for us who are
02:24
graduating with this kind of degree
02:27
okay tell me a little bit more about
02:29
your school where it is what the student
02:30
body is like what the area is like
02:34
jen do you want to go or you want me to
02:36
care um so as far as our school
02:38
it’s located in if you’re familiar with
02:41
new jersey it’s located
02:43
in hackensack slash t-neck it’s
02:46
it’s like 20 minutes away from like
02:47
metlife stadium to give it like a
02:50
a good visual of where it’s around as
02:53
far as the student body
02:54
it’s not the largest school but it’s not
02:56
the smallest school
02:58
i would say roughly like our total
03:00
enrollment is about
03:01
close to ten thousand but not quite i
03:03
may be even overshooting it just a
03:05
little bit because our
03:06
our school is separated into two main
03:08
campuses
03:09
as far as the one we go to i’m talking
03:11
about the one in hackensack and t-neck
03:14
but otherwise that’s pretty much it and
03:16
then it’s mostly like
03:18
we where we have our two campuses our
03:20
other campus is more specialized
03:22
and like the arts where it’s like
03:24
communications like the humanities all
03:26
that type of stuff where our campus
03:28
although it has those programs is more
03:30
specialized than like the sciences
03:32
and like education programs so that’s
03:34
like a little bit like
03:35
of a rough biopic of our school
03:38
okay is it is it a public school
03:41
no private university
03:46
why do people come to your school what’s
03:48
the number one reason for attending
03:49
your school i’m gonna be completely
03:52
honest right here it’s the amount of
03:53
financial aid that they give
03:55
that’s a hundred and ten percent the
03:57
reason people go there um
04:00
i know that like myself and jen was full
04:03
rides at fdu
04:05
and that was like my deciding factor and
04:07
everyone i talked to
04:08
has like fantastic financial aid
04:10
packages
04:12
why is that i’m getting somewhere with
04:14
this i’m not just like
04:15
quizzing you for my own interest
04:17
although it is interesting
04:21
i would say it probably comes from the
04:23
fact that a lot of donors so
04:26
right now they have this like two
04:28
campuses one university campaign that
04:31
they’re doing right now
04:32
um recently had a donation to our school
04:35
that was
04:36
quite large that they’re going to be
04:37
building a new building with
04:39
on our campus um so it’s i think that
04:42
the financial aid definitely comes from
04:44
the fact that they just have a lot of
04:46
money donated to the university
04:50
do you guys is this a guess on your part
04:53
or do you have any
04:54
research that indicates that you guys
04:56
have really high financial aid
04:59
yes so we actually looked at the
05:02
financial aid numbers
05:03
on our website um and that’s also
05:05
something that like when you go on a
05:07
tour at fdu
05:08
like one of the first things they like
05:09
tell you in like their little
05:10
presentation at the beginning
05:12
is that they give x amount millions of
05:14
dollars in financial aid every year
05:17
so it is definitely a point of pride and
05:19
it’s a well-known fact not just among
05:21
journalism students but other
05:24
folks yes okay
05:28
um okay that’s very interesting what
05:32
would you say the number two reason
05:34
people would come to your school is
05:39
probably athletics
05:42
so we are a d1 school and i specifically
05:46
know like
05:46
there’s a lot of um players
05:50
on like the baseball team or even
05:54
um not necessarily like basketballs like
05:55
our big thing but like baseball softball
05:57
those kinds of things
05:58
that were at like d2 schools and end up
06:01
transferring in their sophomore junior
06:02
year
06:03
to fdu because you went to school and
06:06
they got an opportunity to
06:08
go there to play yeah
06:12
i would definitely say between the two
06:14
it would definitely be
06:15
unless you do ask for the number three
06:17
reason as far as
06:20
as far as the number two reason it’s
06:22
definitely either athletics or like i
06:24
said where
06:25
our school is more specialized in like
06:27
we have like a lot of four plus one
06:29
programs especially for like
06:31
the sciences and education programs most
06:33
people who are going to fdu
06:35
are either going to like study like i
06:37
said within the sciences whether they
06:39
want to become a doctor
06:40
or some type of profession in the
06:41
medical field or it’s because they want
06:44
to become an educator and we have like i
06:46
guess a really good
06:47
close like program that
06:50
is able to get their foot in the door
06:52
faster rather than going to somewhere
06:53
else
06:56
okay i will stop asking questions now
06:59
and let you guys ask me
07:01
but if you come back to this i do have
07:03
some thoughts i do have some ideas for
07:04
you guys if i can
07:06
share those after you’re done yeah of
07:08
course
07:09
um so our first question for you it just
07:11
kind of we wanted to know like what your
07:13
journey in communication really looked
07:15
like to get where you are at pointer
07:17
today with kind of specializing in like
07:20
college and um university like
07:23
communications
07:24
okay well i’ll tell you i specialize
07:26
probably probably in empathy
07:29
if you really had to had to pinpoint it
07:32
a blind luck
07:34
uh the universe just lining things up
07:35
for me so i
07:39
i’ll try to be brief i’m the i’ll go
07:41
backwards i’m the director of college
07:43
programming for pointer
07:44
and that is a job that i created for
07:46
myself
07:47
based on needs that i saw i had come to
07:51
pointer three years ago
07:53
to be the editor of pointers website i
07:55
have no
07:56
freaking idea why they picked me to do
07:58
that i had no pedigree i mean my
08:00
co-workers are from like
08:02
the washington you know they came from
08:03
the washington post in the new york
08:05
times
08:06
one was the editor of the charlotte
08:07
observer which is one of the best papers
08:09
in the country
08:10
another was an emmy-winning tv producer
08:12
i have no idea why they picked me
08:13
because
08:14
at the time i was serving as the advisor
08:18
to a newspaper
08:19
at the college that i went to and had
08:21
been the editor there
08:23
so after i graduated
08:26
and spent about a dozen years in local
08:28
media i was lucky enough
08:30
to go back to my alma mater
08:33
serve as the advisor and then for a few
08:36
years i was also the like the director
08:37
of student media not like the academic
08:39
department but the
08:40
newspaper campus media department um
08:44
so with my background in like
08:48
higher ed i just noticed that pointer
08:50
had a lot of resources that weren’t
08:51
really being
08:53
i mean they were there but they’re kind
08:54
of passive you know and
08:57
i wasn’t really sure that students and
08:59
professors knew
09:00
how to access the materials if they
09:02
realized like how much stuff we made
09:04
with college students in mind and that
09:06
sort of thing
09:08
sorry i’m like huffing and puffing i’m
09:11
just getting my
09:12
my you know my uh pandemic walk in um
09:17
so that’s does that kind of answer your
09:19
question
09:24
throughout my career i worked with
09:25
students in one way or another and
09:27
um i had some
09:31
you know i’m gen x and there’s a lot of
09:34
um
09:36
there’s a big swath of gen x missing
09:38
from our nation’s newsrooms because
09:39
they’re the right age to
09:41
take a buy out switch careers
09:44
whatever in the last 20 years that
09:48
um newspapers have been struggling point
09:50
being
09:51
um you have your i’m being
09:54
speaking in very broad generalities here
09:56
this is not everybody
09:58
but you have your more baby boomer type
10:01
journalists who
10:02
are very um get a thick skin
10:05
toughen up kind of a thing which is fine
10:08
for them
10:09
because they’re not on twitter and they
10:10
don’t know how it works they don’t know
10:12
not to read youtube comments
10:14
um and then you’re missing a lot of gen
10:17
xers who
10:19
i think tend to be um
10:24
maybe i’m tooting my own horn i like to
10:26
think that gen xers have some of the
10:27
best
10:28
qualities that we we look for in
10:29
journalists you know
10:31
empathy patience a little bit of
10:34
reflective qualities
10:36
and so that’s i think that’s kind of how
10:39
i got to where i’m at
10:41
is that probably i just like to listen
10:44
and i’m not so egotistical as to think
10:46
that i have all the answers
10:47
or um can fix anybody’s problem really
10:51
sometimes what people need is just to be
10:52
listened to especially
10:54
um college students who are
10:58
at a really tricky point in life where
11:01
they’re trying to especially in your
11:02
all’s case
11:03
and you’re managing a student media
11:05
organization you’re trying to get a job
11:07
trying to maintain your grades sometimes
11:08
you have a part-time job
11:10
so whatever it is that you all love
11:11
about your advisor
11:13
hopefully i was that kind of advisor too
11:15
like
11:16
there’s a you know you like when we go
11:18
to like conferences and there’s other
11:20
advisors like we
11:21
we we can spot each other pretty quickly
11:23
you know like the
11:24
the good witches and the bad witches so
11:27
that’s my
11:28
that’s my communications journey okay
11:32
yeah our advisor um he’s been putting a
11:34
very big
11:35
focus on um kind of checking in with
11:38
everyone before we actually start our
11:40
meetings since everything has to be
11:42
online right now
11:43
so i think that was something that like
11:46
becoming editor-in-chief in the middle
11:48
of a pandemic was not what i expected
11:50
out of my college career
11:51
oh my gosh so that’s a lot
11:55
it is a lot um kind of having that like
11:58
family aspect at the newspaper has
11:59
really like
12:00
helped us a lot i think yeah it’s funny
12:04
i was
12:04
talking to somebody the other day one of
12:06
my friends from my newspaper days
12:08
who’s now the editor of a major metro
12:10
daily and i said like that was my family
12:12
like
12:13
i don’t because i have a child but he’s
12:14
in college now and she doesn’t you know
12:16
she’s not in journalism and i’m like i
12:18
don’t know where to tell her where to go
12:19
like when i was sad i just went to the
12:20
newsroom
12:21
you know that’s where my family was um
12:23
so that’s i think it’s
12:25
that’s the first step in you know if you
12:27
stay in journalism
12:28
i think in a lot of ways that that ethic
12:32
that ethos kind of kind of runs
12:34
throughout journalism that we’re kind of
12:35
a family so
12:36
anyway yeah um our next
12:40
question was um what would you say are
12:42
the top three most valuable skills for
12:45
someone who is looking to go into a
12:46
communications
12:48
um job to have whenever they graduate
12:52
like with the kind of job market that
12:54
we’re in right now
12:55
okay so you want top three skills i’m
12:57
gonna answer this two different ways
12:59
i’ll tell you my top three skills but
13:01
i’ll tell you first if you’re preparing
13:02
a dossier for your
13:05
like administration if i was advising
13:09
them i would say i’m a little suspicious
13:12
of what’s happening in your school like
13:13
i’ll be i’ll be honest and say like
13:16
you guys will probably be fine but you
13:19
need assurances from them that they’re
13:20
not going to just kill the program
13:21
outright or something
13:22
you know because that is happening
13:24
across the country
13:28
so you know when you go back i don’t
13:31
know i don’t know you’re all business
13:32
but i would just like
13:33
don’t tell them not to pull punches be
13:35
like if that is on the table then
13:37
let us know so that we can do some
13:39
research to help you tell you why that’s
13:41
a terrible idea
13:42
yeah um that’s actually like a very
13:45
interesting point because
13:47
when all this news like came out the
13:50
dean of our like actual school um is
13:52
stepping down now
13:54
so like he’s like the calm department
13:57
but also like the liberal arts
13:58
school as well um and he’s stepping down
14:02
at the end of
14:03
like this summer which seemed a little
14:05
sus to me as well
14:07
i mean you know i’m i’m like i’m such a
14:10
skeptical journalist i’m like
14:11
everything’s nefarious you know there’s
14:12
always a plot afoot
14:14
so i especially there’s a real us
14:17
thing with like administrators and
14:18
student journalists like well
14:19
administrators and students period
14:22
you know we’re here we understand things
14:23
to be a certain way
14:25
um we know things that you don’t know
14:28
well
14:28
yeah i know things that you don’t know
14:30
you know
14:32
they need to work with you to figure out
14:33
what you all need and you need to make
14:35
the case that
14:37
you know a journalism program is a vital
14:40
well hello
14:41
is a vital um part of any college campus
14:45
and the reason i was asking you all
14:46
those questions about why people come
14:48
there
14:49
here’s what i think is gonna here’s what
14:51
i think is administrators need to know
14:53
about the next 20 years
14:55
i think you’re going to see increased
14:58
specialities right like
15:01
i’m trying really hard to scrub right
15:03
from my vocabulary that’s like such a
15:05
middle-aged white woman thing to do so
15:08
if i do it again scream at me okay
15:11
just like hit a taboo buzzer or
15:13
something
15:16
you saw this with sports media programs
15:18
all of a sudden all over the country
15:20
were these sports media programs where
15:22
they recognized
15:23
that they could offer a journalism
15:25
degree
15:26
that would also teach sports hungry
15:29
youths
15:30
mostly men who wanted to be you know rub
15:33
shoulders with athletes
15:35
how to be sids how to be you know sports
15:38
agents how to be pr people for
15:40
teens and stuff like that i see that
15:43
expanding into like
15:45
like to use an example that i would
15:47
think about like where i lived where i
15:49
was from in oklahoma right in the middle
15:51
of the plains
15:52
we just happen to have a really rich
15:57
we had an abundance of all kinds of
15:59
energy we had
16:00
wind turbines oil and natural gas
16:03
petroleum
16:04
and coal and so we talked very seriously
16:07
about adding
16:08
an energy reporting certificate or major
16:10
to our program
16:12
and i think people are having those
16:13
conversations everywhere so what was
16:15
interesting to me is if like you held a
16:17
gun to my head
16:18
i would say right now there’s not a
16:20
journalism school that specializes in
16:23
reporting on higher ed which
16:27
what administrator would want to teach
16:28
you all how to blow the lid on what
16:30
they’re doing
16:31
but there’s so many issues
16:34
around higher education and just as an
16:37
example i just finished a course with a
16:39
reporter from the chronicle for higher
16:40
education which is a magazine like an
16:42
online
16:43
and print magazine that covers um higher
16:45
education america
16:47
we just did a long course on
16:50
understanding title ix because
16:52
title ix is used at every university
16:54
across the country
16:55
and yet most students don’t have a clue
16:59
what it is or how it works but guess
17:02
what
17:02
if you get you know uh
17:06
sexually harassed by a professor or god
17:08
forbid
17:09
you know sexually assaulted at a party
17:12
you’re gonna end up at your title ix
17:14
office probably
17:16
and then what so
17:19
circuitously what i’m saying is rough
17:22
gun to my head i might say hey
17:24
you know here’s a program that isn’t
17:26
offered in american journalism
17:28
it’s um reporting on higher ed
17:32
you know we are the only
17:35
institute in the country that offers a
17:38
certificate
17:40
and a minor in this you know growing
17:43
area where more and more reporting is
17:45
being done around the finances of higher
17:47
ed or the
17:48
hiring practices of higher ed so
17:51
you asked me about go ahead sorry no no
17:54
it’s okay i was just
17:55
i was just gonna agree with your point
17:56
because a little background about me is
17:58
i’m actually one of those people
18:00
that is wanting to be in the sports
18:02
media programs and when applying to
18:03
colleges
18:04
i saw that like how you said like it’s
18:07
becoming a little bit more specialized
18:08
in certain skills of reporting
18:10
or like obviously with me like my
18:12
specific major majors broadcasting
18:14
communications
18:14
with a minor in sports media so i
18:17
definitely think you echo a great point
18:19
yeah it’s just like give me a little
18:21
something that sets you apart from other
18:23
schools and the key of course is
18:25
will it bring in more money our sports
18:28
media program which is one of the first
18:29
in the country
18:31
we it was an embarrassment of riches we
18:33
had so many students we didn’t know what
18:35
to do with
18:36
um because because somebody at oklahoma
18:39
state thought of it first
18:41
you know all you got to do is think of
18:42
it first staff it
18:45
and hopefully the money will follow but
18:48
that’s what i tell you provost what i
18:49
would tell
18:51
you guys since you asked top three
18:53
skills um
18:57
i think everybody in journalism has a
19:01
little bit of a different answer to this
19:02
i think
19:04
um
19:08
i think data visualization the ability
19:11
to
19:12
collect tabulate and understand data is
19:15
really really huge
19:19
i think increasingly
19:23
i mean if you want to make a million
19:24
bucks here’s what you do you create a
19:26
journalism school that’s built around
19:28
fact-checking
19:28
nobody’s done that because the
19:31
proliferation
19:33
of miss and disinformation is going to
19:35
present a significant challenge to
19:37
democracy in our future
19:39
so we teach several
19:43
we have a certificate program we teach
19:45
several courses
19:46
to different age groups cater to like
19:48
their skill sets you know like you can’t
19:50
teach
19:51
like we actually partner with aarp do
19:53
you know what aarp is
19:54
yeah you do or you don’t i do
19:58
okay so we partner with aarp to teach
20:00
like media wise for seniors
20:02
a name that by the way this people in
20:03
the course hate which we should have
20:05
seen coming
20:06
uh we teach that totally different than
20:08
we teach like my campus correspondents
20:10
who do peer-to-peer training
20:11
who already know not to you know again
20:13
not to belabor the point not to read the
20:15
comments on youtube um so being able to
20:23
not just like like we confuse fact
20:26
checking in journalism with fact
20:27
checking
20:28
in against miss and disinformation fact
20:30
checking in journalism is very much like
20:32
a function of the copy desk
20:34
you know calling people making sure
20:35
their name is spelled right
20:37
fact checking is a little bit more of a
20:40
rigorous process
20:42
of tracing back specific information to
20:45
its source
20:46
so you look at something like politifact
20:48
sorry i just walked by a
20:50
busy street if you look at something
20:51
like politifact which was born
20:54
to call out uh politicians and the lies
20:57
they were telling
20:59
also like fun fact we don’t call it lies
21:02
we call it miss and disinformation
21:04
because lying
21:07
expresses intent whereas miss and
21:10
disinformation just labels it as a fact
21:11
stuff like that
21:13
so having some understanding of the
21:16
emerging art of
21:21
sussing of the practice of
21:24
of debunking i guess is the verb i’m
21:27
looking for
21:29
and for that you can look at these are
21:31
all pointer products
21:32
uh we own politifact we have the media
21:35
wise fact checking program which
21:37
started out as a program for teens and
21:38
college students and expanded to
21:40
basically everybody
21:41
and then we have the international
21:43
fact-checking network which is
21:46
um a consortium of international
21:49
there’s 80 signatories uh all across the
21:53
globe who subscribe to kind of the same
21:56
principles of like
21:57
what good fact checking is how you don’t
21:59
take money from advertisers how you
22:01
you know apply rigor to your debunks
22:03
things like that
22:05
that was two am i like just going way
22:08
too long here
22:09
you’re i’m not fine at all
22:12
i’m yeah i’m really enjoying this
22:13
conversation
22:15
well i do love to hear myself talk um
22:19
what’s the third most valuable thing
22:22
gosh
22:24
i mean
22:31
i i think just a general
22:35
set of like new media skills
22:37
understanding your way
22:38
around platforms that are
22:42
i’ll try to make this sound cool
22:45
someone who is savvy about story
22:47
presentation
22:49
in the sense that they understand that
22:50
stories are no longer stories
22:53
that information exists on a continuum
22:58
that may have sort of a
23:03
a curve graph of um information where
23:06
like the bulk of the work
23:09
is a is a printed story or a or a teleco
23:13
you know like a
23:13
television news package or but then
23:16
there’s going to be follow-ups there’s
23:17
going to be
23:19
social media campaigns around it there
23:21
might be
23:24
i mean to name a couple of examples
23:25
there was a um
23:27
there was a school up here like like a
23:30
reform in florida a reform school
23:32
for wayward boys and it turned out to be
23:35
a very very bad place
23:38
so bad that they had murdered children
23:41
and buried them on the grounds
23:43
and then told their parents that they
23:44
ran away and probably got eaten by
23:46
alligators and swamps
23:47
that place was open up until about 10
23:51
years ago
23:52
i don’t think they were murdering as
23:54
many students
23:56
uh in the 90s and 2000s but it happened
23:59
up through the 70s and 80s
24:02
that’s not one story you know and
24:05
that ends up being
24:09
it’s not a book it could have been that
24:11
ends up being a documentary
24:12
a series a pulitzer finalist
24:16
you know you end up going to speaking
24:18
engagement you know the authors of that
24:19
are on speaking engagements the
24:21
photographers get called all around the
24:22
country you’re like
24:23
you know so understanding that stories
24:27
and that’s that exactly i mean that’s
24:28
kind of always happened with big stories
24:30
but like
24:30
knowing that going into it just knowing
24:33
that stories
24:35
are part of a continuum how’s that
24:38
and i’ll shut up
24:42
okay um so our next question that kind
24:45
of
24:46
goes off just you know for our size of
24:48
our university
24:49
what would you say are kind of like
24:52
resources
24:53
that fdu should be investing in you know
24:56
i mentioned that we really are only
24:58
going to have one full-time faculty member listed
25:00
this fall that is from our campus
25:03
um but what exactly do they need to be
25:07
doing and putting their money towards to
25:09
make this program
25:11
better i mean the number one thing that
25:13
i knew is i need to be a member of the
25:16
ae jmc do you know what that is
25:19
i do not it’s the don’t make me let’s
25:23
see
25:23
it’s the ae american
25:26
educate it’s it’s it’s the um
25:31
what’s it called it’s it’s the governing
25:33
body if you will
25:34
for mass communication programs i would
25:36
not be surprised if you guys remember
25:38
i mean most journalism schools are and
25:42
it’s like
25:43
they they’re responsible for
25:44
accreditation do you know if your
25:46
program is accredited
25:47
i don’t think it is i don’t think it is
25:50
because it’s not specifically a
25:52
journalism program there’s just a
25:53
journal right
25:54
just within it so there’s aejmc
25:58
and if you poke around at ajmc there may
26:00
be a couple other
26:02
auxiliary groups with that um
26:05
but i think that having
26:09
having a um a professor or a dean or
26:13
whoever
26:13
who’s involved in that organization is
26:16
super helpful
26:18
um because it’s got
26:21
the networking possibilities there you
26:24
know meeting other people who run
26:25
journalism programs work in journalism
26:27
programs
26:28
people are very willing to help each
26:31
other out
26:32
like in journalism and in this
26:35
organization
26:36
sorry it’s about to get noisy here for
26:37
just a second
26:40
i’m gonna let these cars pass
26:53
what other resources i’m you know i’m
26:56
not an academic
26:57
so i’m not sure i’m best suited to
27:00
answer this question
27:04
um
27:07
i’m trying to think it’s totally fine if
27:10
you don’t have anything else we do have
27:12
like other people we will be speaking to
27:14
um somebody actually is a
27:17
doctor of communication that works at
27:19
arizona state university just got back
27:21
to us today
27:22
so that’s going to be definitely a lot
27:25
of help i think
27:26
um kind of seeing it from a bigger point
27:28
of view than
27:31
well in arizona state is going to be a
27:34
great person a great group to talk to
27:35
because
27:36
they have such a huge expansive program
27:38
that i know that there’s things that
27:40
they’re sorry that they’re missing on
27:41
because
27:42
they’re too big you know yeah so they
27:45
may have great advice for you like where
27:46
the opportunities are
27:48
for a smaller program so
27:51
our final question kind of is more for
27:55
our students who will be graduating what
27:57
advice do you really have for college
27:59
students who are entering the job market
28:02
within the next like two to three years
28:04
and
28:05
what do you personally think is like the
28:08
future of communications
28:12
oh my gosh um well i have
28:17
i have a bleak answer and i have a
28:19
hopeful answer
28:21
and you guys are the first person to
28:22
hear my hot take on this
28:25
um i think there’s a chance
28:30
if some philanthropists buy
28:34
the chicago tribune are you familiar
28:36
with this happening at all
28:38
um i actually does that what professor
28:40
kenny was talking about today in
28:42
classroom
28:44
he might have been i’m not that is what
28:46
he was talking about
28:48
so like without getting too far into the
28:50
weeds like journalism history like
28:51
journalism in america really started as
28:53
um
28:54
you guys probably already know this it
28:56
kind of went through this
28:57
these phases of ownership and we’re
28:59
coming out of a family ownership phase
29:01
and have moved into a um
29:04
where a lot of people like a lot of
29:05
families own papers
29:07
um the new york times washington post
29:17
the sacramento bee is a great example
29:18
because the family owned the sacramento
29:20
bee
29:20
was like this is going great it’s 1985
29:23
and we’re making buckets of money let’s
29:26
buy some more papers
29:28
so they did that and
29:31
usa today was born and gannett said
29:34
let’s buy you know we own usa today
29:36
let’s buy up some more papers
29:37
and so then you ended up with these like
29:39
corporations
29:42
and now what we’re seeing is
29:46
this corporatization of journalism has
29:48
really led to
29:50
i mean this is how crazy it is you okay
29:52
let’s pretend you own the chicago
29:54
tribune like you’re the publisher you’re
29:55
the owner of the charge review
29:57
and business is going really poorly and
29:59
it’s been going really poorly for a
30:01
while
30:02
and you get bought by a hedge fund
30:06
and a hedge fund is simply
30:09
i mean in its simplest terms it’s a it’s
30:13
a
30:14
it’s a entity it’s like a person or a
30:16
thing
30:17
that makes money for the people who
30:20
bought into it
30:22
it’s a it’s a perfectly clear legal and
30:25
effective pyramid scheme
30:26
so you sell the chicago tribune
30:30
to this hedge fund
30:34
and the people who work at the hedge
30:36
fund they do not give a
30:38
about the people who have worked
30:41
hard for you all those years
30:42
they don’t care about journalism they do
30:44
not care about democracy
30:46
and i’m this is not me being hyperbolic
30:49
this is the natural
30:51
offshoot of a capitalist system
30:54
for a lot of people making money
30:58
is the most important thing i too like
31:00
making money
31:01
i use it for things like rent and food
31:04
so i’m not even
31:05
shaming the pursuit of money in the
31:07
current america which we live
31:10
but you can put an extreme side to that
31:12
so when an organization that does not
31:14
care
31:15
about legacy media comes along
31:20
and they do the unthinkable thing where
31:22
they sell your headquarters
31:25
the beautiful downtown building that you
31:28
have been in
31:28
the skyscraper with the with the
31:32
gargoyles and the spires the thing that
31:34
it never even occurred to you to sell
31:36
you would never sell
31:38
that’s the first thing to go and now
31:40
that hedge fund has just made 25 million
31:42
dollars
31:43
on the sale of your building rents
31:46
repeat
31:46
they just they have torn through the
31:48
country buying up property
31:51
laying people off selling buildings
31:54
so that journalism is down to this bare
31:56
bones operation
31:58
okay that’s the bleak outlook it’s hard
32:00
to get a job
32:01
once you do get a job you don’t get paid
32:04
very well
32:04
it’s demoralizing but there’s a super
32:07
interesting thing happening in
32:08
journalism
32:09
where people are starting their own
32:12
publications
32:14
they’re having these little
32:15
entrepreneurial startups there’s god
32:17
there’s one in
32:18
flint michigan you gotta look it up it’s
32:20
this lady
32:22
and her kid was gonna don’t quote me on
32:25
this
32:25
but it was something like her kid or
32:27
somebody she knew or something was
32:28
getting sick from the water
32:29
so she quit her job to start her own
32:31
newspaper with like no formal training
32:34
sound pointer went to a couple pointer
32:36
classes and now she makes a living
32:38
not a great living but she makes enough
32:40
money through memberships
32:42
and subscriptions that she can go out
32:44
and do journalism she doesn’t have to
32:46
print a paper
32:47
she is not under any deadline she can
32:48
like do journalism whenever she wants so
32:50
point being
32:53
number one there’s light on the on the
32:56
horizon
32:57
because the big nasty evil you can quote
33:00
me on that
33:01
hedge fund that was set to buy chicago
33:04
tribune
33:06
is now being challenged
33:09
by some philanthropic buyers who
33:13
if they were able to purchase this i
33:15
think here comes my hot take
33:18
i think this represents a real turn in
33:24
the face of american media
33:25
it says citizens value
33:30
the freedom that a free press brings
33:33
they value the democracy that goes hand
33:35
in hand with the free press
33:36
they value it so much they’re willing to
33:38
fund it and they’re willing to put
33:40
resources into getting
33:42
um people to pay for it you know
33:44
subscriptions memberships that sort of
33:45
thing
33:46
so if you’re a student just coming out
33:47
of school you better know things about
33:49
entrepreneurship you better understand
33:52
how non-profits work
33:54
and you better have a really good feel
33:57
for
33:59
like the flexibility of jumping around
34:01
from place to place like
34:03
i’m gonna pitch in here i’m gonna pitch
34:04
in there there’s no company loyalty
34:06
there’s no
34:07
i’m gonna go get a job in 20 years from
34:09
now i’m going to be the editor i’m sorry
34:10
i went really long on that because i
34:13
hate alden that’s the evil hedge fund
34:16
that’s totally okay um i personally like
34:20
i’ve been feeling this frustration
34:22
because i felt like i was throwing
34:24
resumes into a black hole this spring
34:26
applying for summer internships and
34:30
i feel like it’s because like they don’t
34:33
care like it doesn’t matter what
34:34
experience you have it’s about
34:36
who you know not what you know for a lot
34:38
of companies
34:40
and it’s like it’s frustrating as a
34:43
student to try and get an internship
34:46
you’re here’s what i think you should do
34:49
go get this is gonna separate bananas
34:52
here’s what i think would be exciting go
34:54
get a part-time job at starbucks
34:56
enough and get a roommate don’t get
34:58
married tell all your readers don’t get
35:00
married
35:01
uh you’re too young damn it um
35:04
go get a part-time job at starbucks or
35:06
you know wherever i like starbucks
35:07
because they’ll help pay for school
35:09
and um i think that employer like loan
35:11
givers are more attractive
35:13
and then go get go strong go start your
35:16
own thing
35:17
go find something i mean we always talk
35:19
about this like oh the cool thing about
35:20
journalism is you can go wherever you
35:21
want you can
35:22
there’s journalism everywhere yeah there
35:24
is so if i’m in st petersburg florida
35:26
right now
35:27
and i really care about the ocean
35:30
let’s say for some dumb reason i’m going
35:33
to
35:35
find a way to do some reporting on my
35:37
own about a water issue here
35:40
and then i’m going to put it on the
35:41
internet and i’m going to ask people for
35:42
some donations for reading it
35:44
and a few people are gonna give me a few
35:45
hundred bucks and i’m gonna turn that
35:47
around i’m gonna buy a camera
35:48
right and now i can write stories and i
35:51
can take pictures
35:52
so i would really encourage students
35:54
right now
35:55
for the next two or three years to think
35:58
about
35:59
entrepreneurism as being more important
36:03
than polishing your resume
36:06
and getting that big internship do the
36:08
exact opposite
36:09
go do reporting that you really care
36:11
about teach yourself
36:13
get a little bit of business sense and
36:15
you’ll either get snatched up by
36:17
somebody who recognizes your genius
36:19
or you’ll be able to make it on your own
36:21
writing about the things that you really
36:22
care about
36:23
how’s that sound does that sound insane
36:25
that probably sounds crazy
36:27
um my mom literally said to me she was
36:30
like
36:30
this summer you need to make it what you
36:32
want it to be not worry about
36:36
like filing into the system that we live
36:38
in in america she’s always been very
36:40
like go after your dreams and do
36:42
happy she is a smart lady
36:45
even you know i i mean i i’m just one
36:49
person there may be other people who say
36:50
are you insane or that’s unfair you know
36:52
people have to support their
36:53
parents or they have children or
36:54
something like that so i do recognize
36:57
that doing that takes privilege
36:58
but if you’re a college student right
37:01
now
37:02
and you have access to things like
37:04
student media you know the cameras and
37:05
things like that take advantage and go
37:07
build out
37:08
and go do the reporting that you care
37:10
about and that you love right now
37:13
and have it ready to go when somebody
37:14
wants to see it or when you want to make
37:16
a case for a small business loan
37:19
to get yourself set up yeah 100
37:23
because as l said my mom is also the
37:25
same way about going towards your dreams
37:27
because
37:27
as you said before i’m going into a
37:29
field that’s predominantly male
37:31
1 and i just want to hit the door
37:33
running and
37:34
because a lot of these because i see how
37:36
the way like
37:38
sports is run a little bit and it needs
37:40
to be changed especially like
37:41
with recent like events with like the
37:43
ncaa and how they value females in the
37:45
sports industry
37:48
yeah so go right on that don’t even
37:50
don’t even wait for somebody to give you
37:51
an assignment go pick up a camera and a
37:53
pen
37:53
and go figure out a story around that
37:55
thing that you’re interested in
37:58
so our um final question of course is do
38:01
you have anyone else that you think that
38:03
we should talk to to help us further our
38:05
research
38:07
well i don’t know somebody who talks
38:11
less than me
38:12
um
38:16
hmc i mean it depends like if you want
38:20
advice for students going out into the
38:22
world then
38:23
yeah if you want advice or how to
38:25
rebuild your journalism program that’s
38:26
kind of two different things
38:28
um who would i have you talk to
38:34
i don’t know there’s this guy named
38:36
lawrence cunningham at the university or
38:38
at iowa state university who has kind of
38:41
built kind of a student media empire i
38:43
always talk to him about stuff
38:47
he’s found ways to
38:50
create revenue within his student media
38:53
department
38:55
to keep the campus newspaper going and
38:57
to give other students other
38:58
communication students
39:00
like pr and marketing experience
39:03
with a creative agency i think they do
39:06
like a photo booth rental
39:09
they do like client work pr agency work
39:14
who else there’s a really nice guy
39:18
there’s a really nice guy at the
39:19
university of carolina
39:21
unc university of north carolina who is
39:24
his name is deb and his last name is
39:27
akeet i think it’s a-i-k-e-t
39:29
anyway he’s the incoming president for
39:31
ajmc so if you don’t know
39:35
anybody at age amc i i would i would
39:39
start with him
39:40
um he’s really great he’s
39:43
he’s he’s he may be a little bit of a
39:45
character but
39:47
um he’s really great
39:50
i’m trying to think of some non-white
39:51
people also deb is indian
39:54
um i’m saying he’s indian
39:57
that is a little presumptuous on my part
40:00
he could be he could be from a number of
40:03
places i took him to be
40:05
um indian um
40:09
who else
40:12
uh you know find somebody at the
40:16
columbia school of journalism graduate
40:18
school
40:20
i think it’s the is that the craig
40:23
newmark
40:24
either columbia or cuny has the craig
40:25
newmark
40:27
uh graduate school i would talk to them
40:30
just say like you know
40:35
same questions
40:39
okay um yeah so
40:42
our like whole mission here is kind of
40:44
like you know
40:46
what is valuable to students and how
40:48
does that like apply
40:49
to our program and how does the program
40:51
need to be changed to fix that
40:53
yeah i see so thank you so much for your
40:57
time today
40:58
um i definitely thought that was very
41:01
insightful
41:02
and
41:06
about where i’m going um no
41:09
no no you know i you asked me what’s the
41:13
most important thing and honestly even
41:14
though i don’t love this the most
41:16
important thing is that you stay hungry
41:18
this is not a job for the meek and even
41:21
though we’re making strides in social
41:23
justice
41:24
it is still a hard job you have to be
41:26
hungry
41:27
you know i can’t teach people to work
41:29
hard i can only ask them to work hard if
41:32
you’re a hard worker you’re going to be
41:33
fine
41:36
how’s that that’s a good answer i like
41:39
that
41:41
you guys strike me as hard workers so
41:44
you just keep doing what you’re doing
41:45
and you’ll be good thanks
41:48
um last summer we actually did our first
41:51
ever
41:51
like summer of reporting for our student
41:54
newspaper the equinox
41:57
we actually used the free pointer
41:59
courses that they were offering the
42:01
discount code for
42:02
um to like help our staff build more
42:05
skills so i was already familiar with
42:07
pointer
42:08
and our professor was like well reach
42:10
out to someone from there like you
42:12
might as well like the worst they can
42:14
say is no
42:16
no i i mean we’re really dedicated to i
42:18
mean you guys are the future of the
42:19
industry
42:20
you know we’re really dedicated to
42:21
trying to build something that’ll help
42:23
you guys
42:23
what course did you take do you remember
42:26
um
42:27
i think i took one about cleaning your
42:29
copy um that i
42:31
ended up like teaching a lot of ap style
42:33
stuff to our staff that a lot of people
42:35
didn’t know
42:36
yeah we’ve been trying to have more of a
42:38
focus on like being technically correct
42:40
as well as like being factual
42:43
on things so well we’ve got that
42:46
um i built out an open records course
42:49
that’ll be really helpful if you ever
42:50
need to request records at the state
42:52
level
42:53
and that’s free forever and uh this
42:55
title 9 course should be interesting
42:57
once
42:58
once it’s done it should be
43:02
any day now i’m waiting
43:06
we don’t want to keep you um but thank
43:08
you so much
43:09
we definitely will be in touch if we
43:11
have any follow-up questions um
43:13
okay yes thank you so much for your time
43:16
oh thank you guys for letting me ramble
43:18
all night i appreciate it
43:21
you guys have a good night
43:28
i love that woman
