Social media policies are not the real issue

Gabe Schneider, Kendra Pierre-Louis, Sisi Wei and Karen K. Ho in a discussion around how newsrooms can work to become anti-racist starting with their social media policies and how they enforce them. Reporters of color being punished and fired for tweets is a symptom of the larger problem that newsrooms need to tackle head on. … Continued

Navigating the pitch

New questions, but plenty of promise Introductions in the time of COVID-19 can be a bit of a sticky wicket.  Faces are masked … or seen through Zoom boxes. Handshakes, if they weren’t already, are relics of the past. Thus, delivering and catching the subtleties and nuances of communication can get sunk or lost on … Continued

How to build data capacity in your newsroom

Introducing DUG, our beta data unit guide Forget the gist of the photo up there—the one reading “data has a better idea.” I don’t buy it. (Lovely photo though, no?) Data rarely has a better idea, because data doesn’t think. People think. Sometimes data can help people think a little better. The problem is that … Continued

We’re building a better system for tracking source diversity

Chalkbeat and the Reynolds Journalism Institute want your help to develop the future of source auditingEvery news organization should be able to answer the question: “Does your journalism accurately reflect the communities you serve?” Historically, we know that disproportionately white newsrooms and the journalism they produce have not been inclusive of Black, Latino, Hispanic, Indigenous … Continued

How to become a ‘harmless linker’ in three easy steps

You’ll probably also become a big fan of the Wayback Machine Mis- and dis-information are spread a number of ways and the thought of trying to free the news ecosystem of misleading, disingenuous and fraudulent news items can be overwhelming and disillusioning. But former RJI Fellow Barrett Golding is advocating one small step for mankind … Continued

Getting a source to ‘yes’

We have to put in the work. The first stage of my project was getting newsrooms on board with making their reporting more reflective of the communities they cover. Next, my media partners and I had to answer that age-old question: “How do I find and-or curate more diverse sources?” With those two things accomplished, … Continued

Descript, overdub: Q&A with Tamar Charney

Innovation in Focus is a series exploring emerging technology and methods of storytelling for newsrooms worldwide. We interview experts, test tools and provide our findings on a different topic each month. For Innovation in Focus this month I spoke with Tamar Charney, managing director for personalization and curation at NPR, about the ethics of redubbing, … Continued