RJI news
Editorial boards that look nothing like their cities shouldn’t speak for them
Why do editorial boards look nothing like their communities? For decades, one organization has comprehensively tracked newsroom’s hiring, retention, and diversity efforts. The American Society of News Editors’ annual survey has always painted an occasionally hopeful but dim-in-aggregate picture of American newsrooms. Across the board, newsrooms often reflect the diversity of the country and their … Continued
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
Crime, mugshots and takedown requests: Editors share newsroom approaches April 9
News Leaders Association and RJI to host the webinar inspired by RJI Fellowship project Newsrooms are invited to register for the free online webinar “Crime, mugshots and takedown requests: Addressing the long-tail of digital crime reporting,” happening at 10:30 a.m. CT on April 9. The event is being hosted by the News Leaders Association and … Continued
RJI Fellows reflect on eight month projects, what they’ve learned and how the industry can benefit
Seven fellows at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute who have been working on innovative projects that can benefit the journalism industry, over the past eight months, are wrapping up their projects. Six shared findings and insights from their projects, as well as links to resources during a recent Q&A webinar with the public. We’ve … 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
Collaborative community ‘zine’ wins top news engagement idea at RJI Student Innovation Competition
A student team that partnered with L.A. Taco, a digital-only news source in Los Angeles, to create a collaborative community ‘zine’ (short for magazine) to help with engagement, won the 2020-21 RJI Student Innovation Competition. “Remains to be Zine,” which was made up of Caitlin Hernandez, Astrid Kayembe, Laura Gonzalez and Melody Waintal of the … Continued
RJI’s 2021–2022 fellows named
The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute has awarded eight fellowships for the 2021–22 academic year that address a range of topics, from building collaborations around new kinds of content to inventing newsroom tools to exploring innovative ways to think about ongoing challenges. “These projects are a terrific mix of efforts to solve problems and explore … Continued
How should publishers change their messaging when paywalls aren’t one size fits all?
Optimizing content limits on a user-by-user basis Should publishers communicate content limits to their audiences? The question becomes more pressing as the products that manage paywalls become sophisticated enough to make predictions about who likely subscribers are. We decided to test this idea with the Reynolds Journalism Institute this year in a partnership project where … Continued