"Words have ALL the power! Verbal and written communication are the cornerstones of society. We’ve seen how words heal, unite, and promote understanding. Conversely, we’ve seen how words can be weaponized and bent to create distrust and spread misinformation." —Alicia Chantal, copy editor, proofreader, and writer, from#ACESchat
"Race coverage must be anintegral part of every beat. It can no longer be treated as a reactive or special interest topic that newsrooms cover as breaking news event occurs. Race is the story, and it intersects and is the undercurrent of everything." — Kat Stafford, national investigative writer & global investigations correspondent at the Associated Press
“It’s crucial that we push back against reflexive stereotyping that locks people in prisons of selective relevance. Consistently, we’ve found in our research at NPR that people of color show up most substantially in stories about race and ethnicity. When those stories were removed from the sample, white sources on NPR’s main shows rose to almost 85 percent. That means people of color are often missing from the stories of everyday life.” — Keith Woods, NPR’s chief diversity officer
On interviewing
“Never go in cold. You need an objective. If you can’t articulate why you’re there, it is difficult to pay attention. Sometimes my goal is simply embracing the challenge to find something interesting.” — Erin Cox, political reporter for the Washington Post
“I’m not doing an interview to get good quotes. And I’m not doing it to confirm something I already thought. I’m really trying to pick people who are going to teach me something new about the situation that’s unfolding. I want to tap into their expertise. But I also want to learn more about their experiences and their emotions.” — Ed Yong, staff writer at The Atlantic, told Nieman Storyboard
Veteran, new, and aspiring leaders alike have long looked to expert Jill Geisler, Bill Plante Chair in Leadership & Media Integrity at Loyola University Chicago and Freedom Forum Fellow in Women’s Leadership, for her guidance on managing people, processes, and coverage.
We thank Jill for sharing her wisdom with us in this newsletter. We also thank newsroom leaders for your hard work during another challenging year. As we say goodbye to 2021, here are 10 lessons to take you and your newsroom into 2022:
This newsletter is written & edited by the National Press Club Journalism Institute staff: Beth Francesco, Holly Butcher Grant, and Julie Moos. Send us your questions and suggestions for topics to cover.
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