Category: HOMEPAGE FEATURE

Journalists are constantly seeking out ordinary people as news subjects to bring humanity to their news stories and help their audience better connect with the narrative being told. Reading a collection of personal narratives of how people are going to vote, for instance, can be much more meaningful than simply reading the results of the latest poll to see where the candidates stand in the race.

However, there is a host of ethical dilemmas to consider when speaking to ordinary people as news subjects. I spoke with Ruth Palmer, an assistant professor of communications at IE University in Madrid and Segovia and author of Becoming the News, a book that studies how ordinary people make sense of becoming the subjects of news stories.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What responsibility, if any, do journalists have to help potential news subjects weigh the pros and cons of participating in a news story?

I think it’s important to keep in mind that not all news stories are equally risky for participants. It’s also important to keep in mind that not all subjects are the same. In a situation where a journalist is interacting with an ordinary citizen who does not have a lot of experience interacting with journalists, it’s important for the journalist to help the subject be aware of potential negative consequences of speaking out about that topic. I think that that has become more important now that news stories circulate on the internet. Because this material circulates online and audiences are often reading these news stories using the same devices they can use to then comment on them, anybody who speaks to a journalist for a controversial story has to worry about potential online harassment. So it’s important for them to help subjects prepare themselves for potential harassment.

What steps can journalists take to make sure they tell news subjects’ stories accurately?

Ruth Palmer

By virtue of their different positions in the relationship, journalists’ and subjects’ goals for a news story are often at odds. The journalist is looking to produce a particular kind of story whereas subjects have a different set of objectives. They want to communicate a particular thing or educate the public or publicize a particular venture. Subjects tend to dislike it if they feel that journalists are pushing them to say a particular thing. And this is something that actually happens a lot because of the pressures that journalists are under. So, journalists should avoid pushing subjects to say particular things to fit into pre-written stories. I think recording as often as possible is really important. I think another thing that’s really important is for journalists to try to manage subjects’ expectations. I think that they can make it clear to the subject that they, the journalist, will be picking and choosing what aspects of an interview are included in a story. And it’s very easy to prepare subjects for something like that. Subjects are not going to be discouraged or turned off by that.

How should journalists balance various ethical considerations—such as private citizens’ rights to security and privacy—against the public’s right to know the information in question?

The subject’s privacy and wellbeing should play a very big role in a journalist’s consideration. In most situations, journalists need to very seriously consider whether damage to a private citizen’s privacy and integrity is really worth the public good. There are some Scandinavian countries where journalistic norms are that you don’t name ordinary citizens who have been accused of crimes unless the crime is a very public one like an act of terror. I think that more American newspapers should consider that, and more American news outlets should step back and really consider to what degree the public has a right to know about a lot of this. What’s the public benefit? You have to weigh that against the in some cases very long-term negative repercussions on a private citizen’s life. In the U.S., there’s no right to be forgotten the way that there is in Europe, and so those news stories can just come up over and over and over.

You talk about how when subjects see themselves in a news story, they are seeing a version of themselves that is both familiar and unfamiliar to them. What do you mean by this, and how can journalists help news subjects prepare for this experience?

The way I describe it in the book is uncanny. For news subjects it’s weird to see themselves in the news, because they recognize that this is their name, but often they’re seeing a version of themselves that has been at least somewhat distorted by the news production process so that it’s recognizably them, but also just different enough to seem kind of alien. I think to a certain extent it’s just sort of inevitable. It’s not always terribly unpleasant for people. It’s mostly just weird. The one thing that might help is practice. When I spoke to people who had a little bit more experience being quoted and speaking to journalists, they were less weirded out by it.

You talk about reputation being social currency. What responsibility, if any, do journalists have to make sure they don’t sully the reputations of news subjects?

Depending on what the news story is about, it may be appropriate to sully the reputation of a subject. However, I would say that the bar should be set very high. In terms of what journalists can do to avoid damaging reputations, one thing they can avoid doing is quoting subjects out of context and obviously avoid misquoting them in ways that could potentially be interpreted as making them look really bad. Journalists should be very sensitive to that, especially if the story that they’re writing has a lot of moral weight with the audience. That’s when reputations suffer the most damage is when audiences interpret a story in moral terms. This is also where reporters may want to prepare subjects for potential fallout by advising them on how they can protect themselves online.

Finally, since we are in an election year, what should journalists be aware of as they approach voters for interviews?

As the country becomes increasingly polarized, for voters speaking out about their political views, the risks increase, because they’re entering into a public conversation that the audience feels very strongly about. In that regard, I think that journalists need to judge whether their subject is someone who has a lot of experience speaking to journalists and is therefore prepared for what it means to talk publicly about their vote. Journalists need to seriously consider preparing their subjects for potential negative online feedback. That can mean advising subjects to increase their privacy settings on their social media or hide their contact information. I think that a lot of people who have never interacted with journalists before tend to be very suspicious of their motives, and showing care is one of the best possible ways for them to combat the widespread mistrust.

The Center for Journalism Ethics encourages the highest standards in journalism ethics worldwide. We foster vigorous debate about ethical practices in journalism and provide a resource for producers, consumers and students of journalism. Sign up for our quarterly newsletter here.

It’s not a new trope—the on-screen female journalist uses whatever means necessary, including her body, to get the story, or she doesn’t record an interview (apparently, she can remember it all!), or she floats from source to source without any plan for a final story. While it might make for dramatic TV, it’s an inaccurate depiction of both the ethical code and process of journalism. 

Richard Jewell, a 2019 film directed by Clint Eastwood, is the most recent narrative to fall prey to this trope. In the movie, Olivia Wilde plays the late, real-life reporter Kathy Scruggs, showing her sleeping with a source in exchange for information. Both Eastwood and Wilde have defended the decision to include the plotline, while Kevin Riley, the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution where Scruggs actually worked, stated there was no evidence for the exchange happening that way and expressed his disgust with the film for using a “sexual stereotype to attack the media.”

Sophie Gilbert, staff writer at The Atlantic, wrote about on-screen portrayals in 2018 in an article called “The Lazy Trope of the Unethical Female Journalist.” In a recent interview, she spoke to the Center for Journalism Ethics about Hollywood’s inaccurate take on female journalists and how real-life reporters can and should challenge these depictions.

Do you see a connection between the public’s low trust in the media and TV and movie portrayals such as these?

The low trust in media is a complicated thing that I’d argue is more directly related to things like the decimation of local media, the rise of opinion news platforms, and the 21st century shift to a media landscape where pageviews are a significant factor. That said, I don’t think portrayals of female journalists that show them trading sex for stories help. I’m more concerned about how they affect the ability of women in the field to actually do their job, and whether they put those women at risk because people unused to working with journalists have a false perception in their head of what that process involves.

When did you first notice the disconnect between female reporters in real life and the ones on TV?

That’s a good question. I think it was when “House of Cards” debuted on Netflix. Its portrayals of female journalists were just so ludicrous, and so egregious, even for such a consciously over-the-top show. There was a minor furor at the time, but not nearly at the level that there would be now, at a time where so many journalists are on social media. When I started researching the trope for the story I wrote in 2018, I realized how long it had been going on, and how absurdly prevalent it was.

 Why do you think ‘sleeping with sources’ is such a popular trope onscreen?

I think it’s because Hollywood naturally gravitates to the most sensational kinds of stories for movies and TV, for lots of obvious reasons. And the easiest way to make a story exciting is to add sex or action or violence. I also think it’s kind of a self-affirming thing—the more it happens, the more it’s going to happen, unless it’s called out, because writers and producers also tend to be drawn to the same storytelling elements over and over. 

How do we as journalists help change and challenge this narrative? How do we show people what journalism and its code of ethics really is? How do we present the image you evoke in your article of “visibly tired, multitasking women working relentlessly because they know the stories they’re reporting are stories that need telling”?

I think we call it out, every time we see it. We make a fuss, and we let writers, directors, and actors know that this is a toxic trope in storytelling that bears no similarity whatsoever to the reality of the job. One problem is that journalists shouldn’t be, and shouldn’t want to be, part of the story. Most people get into this job because they want to tell other people’s stories, not their own. And that creates a paradox where the reality of the job isn’t then communicated to people outside the industry. That said, whenever real stories about the process of journalism are told onscreen (I’m thinking of Spotlight or in book form “She Said”) they tend to be thrilling and propulsive, so I’m hopeful they can make a small difference.

The Center for Journalism Ethics encourages the highest standards in journalism ethics worldwide. We foster vigorous debate about ethical practices in journalism and provide a resource for producers, consumers and students of journalism. Sign up for our quarterly newsletter here.

Mariana Palau

Mariana Palau is a Colombian-American journalist based in Bogota, Colombia, who has covered the aftermath of a peace deal signed between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla group. With support from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, Palau has dug into stories on the guerrilla groups that still exist in Colombia, causes of continued violence and the complications of bringing justice to those who committed war crimes. 

During a recent visit to the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus, we spoke with Palau about her experiences working with victims of trauma or violence and the ethical obligations she has to sources who may be fearful or skeptical of how their information will be used. 

What ethical boundaries do you consider when you work with vulnerable people? 

I spend a lot of time thinking about them, mainly because I don’t want to hurt them again. I don’t want to victimize them in any way. And so I make sure to know what my questions are and that the wording of them will not hurt them. I do however make it clear that they do not have to answer my questions if they feel really uncomfortable.

I give them that space to be comfortable and assure them that they’re not forced to do anything. I engage in conversation with them from the beginning. By getting just a little bit of trust, you put their worries at ease, at least for the moment. For someone who has been displaced, you aim to understand this phenomenon without pressuring them.

Has there been a time when you were interviewing someone and you felt like it was a bigger challenge than you expected?  

This happened in a very specific case in which I was going to interview a victim of sexual abuse. She had been abused through this hallucinogenic brew. They were placed in a psychiatric hospital at some point. But that was a while ago, and I was expecting to talk to somebody who was “completely sane.” I did find that they were a little off but in that circumstance the questions that I prepared were basically useless. The person wasn’t going to answer the questions, at least not in the way that I had expected. 

In that circumstance, I just engaged in conversation with this person. I also took everything that this person told me and double checked afterwards. But in those moments, things change and you have to improvise while still taking into account that you can’t leave this person simply because they throw you off.

Have there been any similarities in the people that you interview? 

They drastically change. I interview a lot of business people, people in the Army or in Colombia’s armed forces and for each, it’s a different experience. I’m always careful that they’re not going to spin me or tell me something that’s wrong. I always ask ‘how do you know?’ That is something very important to me. It ultimately depends on the source. Victims of trauma or violence aren’t looking to spin me so I hope to take their stories as they are. But of course, with some skepticism.

How do you adjust your ethical framework and how does it translate in different places? 

In a broader context, the ethics of journalism are changing with journalists. And somehow, I get the feeling that journalists don’t value publishing the truth as the first priority anymore. For myself, it translates with the sources that I have. Much of the time, my journalistic approach is challenged because of the media landscape. The power of social media is a power everyone does not consciously exercise and it’s very easy to spread lies. In this environment where everyone’s competing for everyone’s attention, I think it’s more likely that journalists are going to publish something that’s not true. You don’t have to be a public figure to have an impact, which can be good and dangerous. And I think that’s something we need to watch out for.

How do you deal with the difficulties of your own reporting at news organizations that you work for? Do you feel like they do enough to facilitate self-care given the often difficult work that you do? 

I’m very fortunate to work for a publication that covers me everywhere I go. Even in places that are considered safe, they have ways of following me around. In that sense, I feel completely backed up by my publication. When I do run into troubles and some people, usually politicians, do not agree with what I’ve published they begin to call my editors and throw a fit. My editors really do value and protect my work as a journalist, and I think that’s very important because with any reporting, especially international reporting, you can easily be bullied or intimidated.

What are the important ethical issues young reporters should consider when pursuing international reporting?

When you go to countries like Colombia, you have to be very strong in order to not fall under the charm that politicians will use in order to befriend a reporter. Once this line is crossed, you have an ethical problem because you feel an obligation to write something nice about them, which may not always be the truth. But in the U.S. and Europe, you’re under stricter rules because you want objective reporting, and I think that’s something that young journalists need to remember. If you want to pursue international journalism, stay strong in your position of unbiased journalism and look for the truth.

The Center for Journalism Ethics encourages the highest standards in journalism ethics worldwide. We foster vigorous debate about ethical practices in journalism and provide a resource for producers, consumers and students of journalism. Sign up for our quarterly newsletter here.

Photo by Cindy Tang on Unsplash

1. Get trained.

Crime and courts coverage is often assigned to early-career reporters, but rookie and veteran reporters alike need specific training to tackle the complexities of these beats. 

“Most of the new reporters — and I would count myself when I started out — they don’t know anything unless they took some course in college or (have) family members in the criminal justice system working in it,” says Ted Gest, the Washington bureau chief for The Crime Report and president of Criminal Justice Journalists, the nation’s only association of criminal justice reporters.

Gest recommends reporters new to these beats dedicate several hours of their first weeks or months on job to informational meetings that aren’t about any particular story. Investing the time to sit down with police, parole officers, judges, prosecuting and defense attorneys, victims’ rights advocates and criminologists can help the reporter learn more about how the system works, enabling them to provide more context to readers or recognize new stories. 

“I think a lot of reporters probably are reluctant to do that,” Gest acknowledges. “Either they think they can just learn as they go along or they don’t have time or whatever.” But he argues that it would be worth the time they put in. 

Keri Blakinger, a reporter for the nonprofit criminal justice news outlet the Marshall Project, agrees. “The greater a reporter’s working knowledge of the broader criminal justice issues, the easier it is to … at least be cognizant of what questions you should be asking yourself,” Blakinger says. “There’s really no substitute for that. You have to do your homework.”

Other sources of information include the Criminal Justice Journalists association; fellowships from the Center for Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College; Crime and Justice News, the newsletter Ted Gest writes each weekday for The Crime Report; the Crime & Justice Research Alliance’s database of experts and research; the Justice Research and Statistics Association’s state-specific data analyses; and research from organizations such as the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, the Vera Institute of Justice, the Brennan Center and various research centers.

Still, says Gary Fields, who spent more than two decades covering crime and criminal justice for the Washington Post and USA Today, there’s no substitute for the guidance that an experienced editor can provide. “I’m not averse to having somebody relatively new get on the beat because it’s a fantastic way to actually become a better reporter, but you make sure that the people that are with them and overseeing them are really good,” Fields says. He adds that editors should assign the more complex stories — such as unexplained jailhouse deaths — to more experienced reporters or to teams combining experienced and rookie reporters. “If you’re not going to guide them, then I’ve got a problem with it,” Fields says.

2. Dive deep.

Pamela Colloff, who built her career reporting on character-driven narratives about the criminal justice system, notes that some crime and courts topics demand a deeper sort of training. She recalls covering cases where bloodstain pattern analysis — an unproven tool — was used to convict a person, but even on her longer magazine deadlines, she didn’t have the time or resources to explain to readers why they should view that specific forensic method with skepticism.

Now a senior reporter at ProPublica and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, Colloff recently found herself reporting on bloodstain pattern analysis again, this time with the goal of explaining how the questionable “science” has led to questionable convictions. In one case she was writing about, the expert who testified about the bloodstains had received 40 hours of training — which Colloff describes as “laughably small for something where someone’s life hinges upon it” — so Colloff decided to take the same course. “I wasn’t a police officer for 20 some odd years like he was … but I had the same training in bloodstain pattern analysis that he did, and that allowed me to look at this case in an entirely new way.”

3. Question everyone.

Without sufficient training, Gest says, reporters find themselves relying exclusively on police or district attorneys’ explanations. “They tend to learn everything from the vantage point of the police,” Gest says. That in turn shapes their stories. “I’m hesitant to give a percentage, but a large percent of stories you see are told totally, 100 percent from the police viewpoint.” 

When reporting breaking crime news, reporters may need to rely heavily on police accounts and should attribute that information. But Fields says reporters should be careful about how they use the information law enforcement provides, always asking themselves why law enforcement provided that information and what they stand to gain from sharing it. 

Reporters should be especially careful if charges have not yet been filed, Fields says. Police could be using the media to apply pressure to a suspect, and reporters may face lawsuits or credibility crises if they publish false allegations. He recalls the man who was identified in the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta but was never arrested or charged. “The first question you should have asked is, ‘So why are you guys giving me his name if you don’t have enough to actually charge? What’s in it for you? How are you trying to use me?’” Fields says. 

Fields prefers to rely on the “vetted” information that authorities publicly share on their own social media accounts. He’ll also contact the prosecutor, ATF, FBI or emergency services. Publishing additional information that law enforcement might dangle could mean beating the competition, but he says he’d rather be right than first.

4. Seek balance.

Once a suspect has been charged, the story shifts from crime reporting to courts reporting, where the importance of balance continues.

“This is very difficult reporting to do,” says Carroll Bogert, president of the Marshall Project. “Criminal justice inevitably involves people with at least two conflicting views of what happened. Think about a courtroom: One side is arguing that this happened. The other side is arguing that happened. So who’s right?”

She recommends reporters hold a “fundamental skepticism” about any press conference held by police or prosecutors. “Ask yourself, ‘Is the defense in this picture? What is the defense saying? Why aren’t they in this picture?’” Bogert advises.

But balanced courts reporting is easier said than done, Blakinger says. “You can talk to the defense and talk to the prosecution and just get such a different framings of the same thing. It can be really hard to figure out how to … present things in a way that is both fair and as close to truthful as you’re able to tell.” 

And, she says, “sometimes one side is not being straight with you,” which poses an added dilemma. “Though it’s your responsibility to give space to both sides, it’s not your responsibility to make someone who’s lying look as credible as someone who’s not,” Blakinger says.

5. Diversify your sources. 

Defense attorneys aren’t the only ones left out of crime and courts reporting: Gest notes that many other types of people employed in the criminal justice system are seldom cited. “The police chief is not necessarily the only expert on this,” Gest says, adding that including sources such as judges, drug treatment staff and probation officers could change the content of some stories.

6. Look for trends. 

There’s always room for more stories focused on trends in the criminal justice system, Gest says. Such stories can help readers make meaning out of the scattershot crime stories they see, but he acknowledges that many reporters don’t have the time or resources to uncover these stories on their own. 

To those reporters, he offers a shortcut: Look for ideas in the roughly 60 mini-stories that he distributes each week in the Crime and Justice News newsletter. Many of those stories highlight emerging trends, and reporters can explore how those trends are playing out locally. 

That said, he offers a caution to any reporter seeking to analyze trends: take the long view, looking for trends over an extended period rather than zooming in on the change from one year to the next.

7. Consider the accountability angle.

For Bogert, criminal justice stories are inherently accountability stories. “This is a huge portion of government expenditure,” Bogert says. “We’re spending billions and billions of dollars on the criminal justice system. What are we getting out of that?”

But it’s not just the fiscal side that deserves investigation. “The criminal justice system is just inextricably intertwined with issues of racism,” she says, calling for more reporting “that elucidates that pernicious and persistent connection and brings to the fore ways in which … we are systematically biased against people of color.”

8. Expose under-covered effects of the criminal justice system.

Good reporting on the criminal justice system should explore the experience of all people involved in the system — including victims, defendants, prisoners, guards and police officers — Bogert says. 

“It actually affects the lives of so many,” she says, noting that reporters should beware of oversimplifying the racial dynamics. “Lots of people who work in the criminal justice system are black, and lots of people who pass through the system are white.”

Bogert says reporters should cover the realities of criminal justice employment. “We’ve all seen the suicide and alcoholism rates, right? These are not happy professions. So I think we have to be direct in saying … the system spreads a lot of its suffering around.”

She’d like to see more reporting on the “human experience” of the various people connected to the system. There’s a reason these stories have become staples of TV and movies. “There’s an inherent drama to it. But a lot of that is kind of sloppy and categorical, like ‘Cops are good,’ or ‘Cops are bad.’ I mean, cops are neither good nor bad. They’re complicated humans,” she says, as are people who’ve been labeled as criminals.

It’s the job of reporters, Bogert says, to show this complexity in the lives of all players. “So how can reportage just help people see the humanity … where they’ve just seen categories?” Bogert asks. She cites the journalists’ directive to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. “People who are ground down by the criminal justice system are among the most afflicted in our country,” she says, noting that they often don’t feel well-served by the news media.

9. Keep reporting after the verdict. 

Blakinger, who spent 21 months behind bars following a 2010 drug arrest, points to her own incarceration as the reason she covers an aspect of criminal justice many outlets ignore: prison conditions. A combination of public records requests and conversations with inmates’ families, defense attorneys and legislators led her to uncovering, while reporting for the Houston Chronicle, how Texas inmates are being denied dentures and new efforts to address the shortage with 3D-printing. 

Too often, she says, outlets focus on how people end up in prison but ignore what happens to them once they’re there. “That is one place that I consistently see that a lot of outlets sort of draw the line there, or are not interested,” Blakinger says.

There are logistical reasons for that, she says. Prisoners are locked out of view, so “it’s very difficult to write about what goes on in a prison until it comes up in a lawsuit.” But she thinks it’s in part about editorial choices. “This can be a hard sell to editors,” Blakinger says. “I think a lot of editors don’t believe that readers are going to care about like ‘Are prisoners getting dentures? Are prisoners baking to death in 100 degree heat?’”

Blakinger notes another reason editors don’t prioritize prison coverage: “In a lot of states, it’s never a local issue to anyone,” as inmates are often sent to prisons outside of their own communities. The outlet covering the area that the prisoners are from may not prioritize covering a non-local prison, and the outlet covering the small town where the prison is located — if such an outlet exists — may not prioritize covering the conditions the non-locals confined there face.

10. Help your audience understand how the system works — or doesn’t. 

The legal system is complex, and many readers have learned about it primarily through TV and movies. Reporters can aid their readers by explaining lesser-known or commonly-misunderstood aspects of the legal system, such as specific types of forensic science. This sort of reporting is Colloff’s speciality, weaving together a single dramatic case with explanation of the practice in question. Her recent reporting has explored the ways that bloodstain pattern analysis and testimony by criminal informants might be unreliable evidence for convictions.

But Colloff isn’t the only journalist taking this approach. Colloff herself admires the way the  podcast “In the Dark” weaves key context within a compelling narrative. In Season Two, producer Madeleine Baran recounts the story of Curtis Flowers, who has been tried six times for the same crime. Throughout the story, she critically examines each step in the case, including inviting an expert to explain why the bullet comparison process used to match Flowers’ gun to bullets found at the scene of the quadruple homicide should raise doubts. 

With this approach, reporters can harness the interest-factor of a single case to educate the public about issues that extend far beyond an individual case, such as the prevalence of false confessions or the striking of black jurors.

11. Weigh what not to do.

Ethical crime and courts reporting is also about what an outlet doesn’t do. Reporters must choose which coverage will best use the limited time and resources available, and more time spent covering low-level crime may mean less time available to reveal trends. 

And Blakinger argues that more crime coverage isn’t always better. “One of the dangers of crime reporting is if you deeply report on every crime, there’s some concern that maybe that stokes fear of a crime wave or of crime increasing when it’s not,” Blakinger says, which can in turn lead to expensive or problematic policies.

And, of course, that coverage has negative repercussions for the person who’s been charged, which should be weighed against the news value of the story. Blakinger would like to see newsrooms having more conversations considering under what circumstances they’ll cover low-level crime or show mugshots, so that individual reporters don’t have to make these choices on their own

Meanwhile, Fields believes that any journalist who names someone in an arrest is responsible for tracking the story and reporting on its resolution, since an unfinished story could lead to stigma or employment consequences for the person named. “I feel like you owe them that much,” he says.

The Center for Journalism Ethics encourages the highest standards in journalism ethics worldwide. We foster vigorous debate about ethical practices in journalism and provide a resource for producers, consumers and students of journalism. Sign up for our quarterly newsletter here.

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash. Mural of late Chicago photographer Vivian Maier by the Brazilian street artist Eduardo Kobra found in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago.

When newsroom budgets shrink, arts and culture reporters are often the first to go. Gone are the stories about the theater troupe or the big show coming to town, the books local people are writing or the latest movie to draw lines of fans. 

But what exactly do we stand to lose when our local and national news organizations neglect to cover the arts and culture of our day? And, in times of media downsizing, what’s the best way to mitigate those losses or ensure continued coverage? 

According to Tom Huang, assistant managing editor for Journalism Initiatives at the Dallas Morning News, “arts and culture are incredibly important for the health of the city, both for the economy and the city’s life. Those things need to flourish, and the ability to cover them and everything that they do, that’s important too, because they need that spotlight.”   

Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that in 2018, the arts contributed over $763 billion dollars to the U.S economy. Arts coverage is a part of this equation, driving attention to the arts and boosting the profits of art organizations often operating on tight budgets.

But it’s not all about the numbers. Cat Capellaro, the arts and culture editor at Isthmus Magazine, points to what she sees as the essential work of artists in society. “Artists are a part of our society, a really important part of it, because they have the ability to comment on something in a different way that might really open your eyes,” she says. “Art can make a difference in the public conscience.”

In the face of declining coverage, people like Huang are looking for ways to keep cultural reporting alive. He asks, “As arts journalism staffs are decreasing, how do we make sure that other kinds of journalists are still covering the most important aspects of the arts?”

In Dallas, he’s working on adapting journalism’s business model to the new online landscape. “As we become a digital first newsroom, it’s become really important for these stories to do well digitally,” he says. In May 2019, Huang held a workshop at the Poynter Institute titled “How to Cover Arts on Any Beat,” which promised to “give resource-strapped reporters and editors creative and sustainable approaches to incorporating arts coverage in business, government, education, features and breaking news stories.” Journalists from across the country attended, including Alejandra Salazar, an assistant producer at WNYC. 

“My arts muscle hadn’t been getting a lot of practice lately, I wanted to be able to market (the arts) for different pitches and stories and outlets, to find ways to incorporate arts coverage in other kinds of news,” she says.

The workshop allowed her to think in more detail about what arts and culture reporting really consists of, and how to take the heart of it and transfer it to different beats. “The goal is to try to highlight something in arts or culture that isn’t just a regurgitation of something,” Salazar says. “That’s often going to involve other things. I can’t imagine an effective arts piece that doesn’t include elements outside of talking about an artistic process.” 

For Samuel Freedman, author and journalism professor at Columbia University, initiatives like Huang’s are welcome but insufficient.

“If there is a culture angle to a crime or politics or sports story, I think it’s great to incorporate it, but that by itself doesn’t make up for the lack of more specialized coverage of the arts or the world of intellectual ideas,” he says.

For Freedman, it’s imperative that national and international news organizations first become stable from online revenue, to hold steady with the arts coverage they have currently and, eventually, to increase it in the future. 

Freedman is also a proponent of the boutique model of reporting. 

“The boutique model in journalism is to create websites that aren’t organized like a department store. We’re going to use the internet to project our coverage to the whole world who’s interested in this special area, whatever that area happens to be,” Freedman says, citing the investigative reporting site ProPublica and the sports site The Athletic as examples.  

Without a quick and obvious cure-all to the current cuts in journalism, it’s unlikely we’ll be returning to the days of fully staffed art reporting anytime soon. At the same time, cultural coverage isn’t ancient history and many news consumers still care about it. For Freedman, the future of arts reporting is guaranteed.

“Someone will come up with a sustainable model that will be about arts coverage…and it will be successful,” he says.

To continue the discussion about local journalism, attend the Center for Journalism Ethics conference: Journalism Ethics and the Crisis in Local News, on April 24th, 2020.

The Center for Journalism Ethics encourages the highest standards in journalism ethics worldwide. We foster vigorous debate about ethical practices in journalism and provide a resource for producers, consumers and students of journalism. Sign up for our quarterly newsletter here.