RJI news
Redefining local journalism: What is news?
Since the advent of the Internet, many people have increasingly wondered: What is “news” in a universe of infinite information? What is a journalist’s role when anyone can publish a story and report the “Truth”? David Caswell, Executive Product Manager of BBC News Labs, asks the most urgent question of all: “Does society still need news publishers … Continued
5 lessons from creating my first AMP story
Caroline Watkins is the RJI Student Innovation Fellow at the Chatham News + Record in North Carolina. This summer our student fellows will be sharing dispatches from their fellowships in newsrooms across the country as a part of Innovation in Focus. As part of my RJI Student Innovation Fellowship, I created my first-ever AMP story for The Chatham News + Record. I … Continued
RJI Fellowship to help newsrooms handle unpublishing requests ethically and practically
Fellow pursued doctorate in pledge to help news organizations, including one she once worked for, tackle issues related to unpublishing
Social enterprise leader urges local media to embrace the role of educator, anchor institution
Maurice Jones says running the Virginian-Pilot was one of the most fun jobs he’s ever had. That was years before the newspaper was sold to TRONC which was sold to Tribune Publishing which barely thwarted a takeover by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, known for buying and pillaging local newspapers. Jones left the Pilot … Continued
How racism and discrimination affect Latino journalists
As human rights activists and journalists, we have worked for several decades to defend freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Latin American countries experiencing authoritarian regimes. We have struggled to overcome these challenges and gain fundamental rights and freedoms. Our RJI fellowship, an institutional fellowship with our organization, Fundamedios, in Washington D.C. … Continued
Free micro-course by RJI Fellow: Learn to write news for mobile audiences in five-minute lessons
A free mobile-microlearning course — The 5 C’s of Writing News for Mobile Audiences — has launched on a mobile learning app, EdApp. Think Babbel or Duolingo for digital journalism. I created the course as part of my nonresidential Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship in 2017-18. Thirty-five journalists tested the course, and all said … Continued
We’re meeting our audience where they are. Now what?
Early on in our existence we realized we were facing a challenge. Our reporting was about city, state and federal immigration related policies and how they were failing the New York residents they were aiming to serve. However, our metrics told us our stories were not always reaching the people the stories were about. I … Continued
Credibility and trust: A project to prove value of strong photojournalism
Every day, you swim through a sea of visual junk on the internet — selfies and mug shots and stock photos that could easily be interchangeable. Then, you come across a photo that resonates. It’s a moment captured with rare perspective. Maybe it’s a video explaining something you didn’t know about your community—or a photo … Continued
Fellowship investigates discrimination against Latino journalists in the U.S.
The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute awarded seven fellowships for the 2020–21 academic year for projects that address the increasing challenges in covering climate change, unpublishing, harassment of marginalized journalists and more. A team from Fundamedios wants to gain a better understanding of the challenges and threats facing Latino journalists living in the U.S. in … Continued
The promise of environmental data journalism
Over the course of this RJI fellowship, I’m working with the nonprofit environmental magazine Grist to think through what it’d mean to build out a national environmental data-journalism unit—and, in turn, to take what we learn at Grist and translate these lessons into guides for other small or nonprofit newsrooms that might find themselves interested in similar work.