Professor of practice Elaine Monaghan moderates the Fake News panel in the Beckley Studio. Panelists (left to right) D’Angelo King, Jamie Zega and Justice Eiden discuss the challenges of the business of media in today’s environment of mistrust. (Emma Knutson | The Media School)
For the first time since IU opened its doors in 1820, every major student media organization is housed under the same roof in Franklin Hall.
To commemorate the occasion, they threw themselves a party.
The sun filtered lightly through the large sunroof in the Franklin Hall commons Thursday, and Dean Jim Shanahan’s opening remarks were softened by the low murmur of students in the Beckley Studio. Student journalists dressed to the nines bustled quickly around the area, adjusting sound levels, rearranging podiums and working with Franklin Hall staff to get the last-minute logistics of live-streaming finalized.
“Welcome to the best media school in the nation,” said junior D’Angelo King, WIUX Pure Student Radio news director, during his opening remarks. King also serves as treasurer for IU’s chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.
D’Angelo King, co-news director of WIUX, kicks off Voices of IU with opening remarks.
WIUX collaborated with other student media groups to host Voices of IU, a hybrid concert, seminar and media group involvement fair rolled into one eclectic event in the commons. King and senior Justice Eiden, news directors at WIUX, want this event to precipitate future collaborations among the groups and foster a tight-knit media community.
Junior Matt Hamilton, WIUX public relations director, described the event as a way of “getting to know the faces around us.”
Hamilton noted that although the program is mainly for freshmen to see what media organizations are available on campus, its purpose is to draw students from each class.
“We want this conference to be expansive enough that any student may come and learn about the organizations,” he said. “I know many upperclassmen that aren’t even familiar with the media organizations that IU has to offer, sadly.”
The night consisted of breakout workshops and five panel discussions: Fake News, Women in the Media, Sports Media, People of Color in the Media and LGBTQ+ in the Media.
Fake News panel
The current mistrust of media makes it difficult to reach audiences, said members of the Fake News panel, moderated by professor of practice Elaine Monaghan.
“That’s not how journalists want to be perceived, as fake news,” said Carley Lanich, Indiana Daily Student investigations editor.
The panelists discussed how their particular media outlets are combating the stigma of fake news, and what their organizations do when they publish incorrect information.
“If someone makes a big mistake, or falsely reports something, we go out of our way to make sure the mistake is corrected,” Eiden said. “We make sure the journalist is reprimanded in some way.”
“At the IDS, we want to get the correction up as soon as possible,” added IDS editor-in-chief Jamie Zega. “We make sure to say ‘The IDS regrets this mistake.'”
The panelists agreed that one way to increase readers’ trust in the media is to be more transparent. Eiden and Lanich both referenced a new style of story that is gaining popularity: the newsgathering process, explained.
“I think the best thing that we can do as journalists is be as transparent as possible during the newsgathering process,” said Lanich. “I think it really comes down to letting our readers and audiences know where our facts come from.”
Women in the Media panel
Women face unique challenges in the media industry, according to the Women in Media panelists, moderated by junior Lydia Knoll.
“The representation (for women) is there, but the respect isn’t,” said Emily Abshire, a junior who serves as the art director for WIUX and the newspaper managing editor at the IDS.
Tierra Brown, a senior journalism student, shared a personal story from a past internship. Brown said she was assigned to cover a story about a murdered child, and she was in the courtroom getting ready to film when someone approached her.
“They said to me, are you sure you can handle this?” Brown said. “I said, ‘Yes, I can do this. I’m in a professional setting.”’ Brown also manages, and created, the campus mentorship program Black Girl Affairs and is the director of special affairs for NABJ.
Sophomore Sarah Verschoor proposed a stepping stone to gender equality in the workplace.
“I think supporting other women is one of the best ways we can break through these stereotypes,” said Verschoor, the IDS news life editor.
Jessica Tompkins, a doctoral student, shared some solutions that the gaming industry has implemented.
“There are a lot of efforts to create special interest groups for women and other minorities so they can communicate and support each other,” she said.
Tompkins is studying video games and their social and psychological effects. She also leads the campus Women in Game Design organization.
Altogether, the panel approached the disadvantages of women in the media as a challenging barrier that they were ready to break.
Sports Media panel
Jack of all trades, and master of all: That’s the requirement for contemporary reporters, according to the Sports Media panelists. Assistant professor Lauren Smith moderated the panel.
Brad Davis, co-sports director at WIUX and member of Big Ten Network Student U, explained this phenomenon.
“I think in the past, journalism and TV writers were kind of in their own silos, and as time has gone on, it’s calling for a more diversified skill set,” Davis said. “It’s getting to where if you’re going to have success in the industry, you’re going to be able to do a slew of things.”
Eddie Cotton, the other WIUX co-sports director and a member of BTN Student U, said the demand for the “backpack” reporter, as the future of journalism, does not scare him.
“This school has so many things you can do with sports media, and I started to realize this could be a reasonable career path,” he said. “And that’s thanks to the opportunities here at IU.”
Courtney Robb, president of IU’s chapter of the Association of Women in Sports Media, a member of BTN Student U and a part-time sports reporter at the Bloomington Herald-Times newspaper, emphasized the importance of knowing how to work behind the scenes.
“People who work in production work twice as long as on-air talent, and you need to have a certain level of appreciation for those people,” she said. “When you get your first job, you’re not going to have people following you around recording your stand-ups and highlights for you; you’re going to be doing that on your own.”
Andrew Hussey, co-sports editor of the IDS, said the demands apply to print as well.
“What you have to do as writer is continue to be able to cross over into all of those different platforms and be just as good at writing, at podcasting, at video, because right after the game you have to fire up the video, and people want to hear what to you have to say,” he said.
People of Color in the Media panel
The fourth panel discussed people of color in the media and the representational challenges they face. Associate professor Andrew Weaver moderated the panel. The group emphasized the need for more diverse representation in the media.
“Just in general, the word I would use to describe how the media portrays people of color is ‘incomplete,’” said junior Kathryn de la Rosa. De la Rosa is the executive producer of American Student Radio.
Her comment was echoed in kind by her peers.
“We need to get more diversity not only into the media (business), but also how we’re portraying them in media, because it’s clearly a problem,” said Brown.
King agreed, and added his own personal take.
“(Due to the current representations in the media, people think) the black man is very angry, very uneducated, not involved in our families,” King said. “A lot of people have that ‘Oh’ moment, when they meet someone like us. They think, ‘Oh, they’re just like me. They’re not what I saw in that movie, or that TV show, or what my grandpa said.’”
The panelists discussed other false, negative stereotypes.
“I agree that the more that we skate over these conversations, the more it’s not going to change,” said junior Toni Pringley, vice president of NABJ. She also talked about typical negative stereotypes of black women in the media and why it is damaging to prospective professional and personal relationships.
“I think that when we are in the media offices, people don’t take us as seriously, or they think we’re acting very stand-offish, when we’re really just acting like everyone else,” she said.
The group ended their discussion with a challenge to the IU community: have more uncomfortable conversations.
LGBTQ+ in the Media panel
The final panel of the night, moderated by Director of Student Media Ron Johnson, addressed LGBTQ+ individuals and what challenges they face working in and consuming media. All of the student journalists agreed that although their orientation was a part of them, it did not define them as media professionals.
“The instructor asked us to write down our identity. I didn’t put LGBTQ down. It’s definitely something I am, but when I think of myself as a journalist, I don’t put that qualifier on it,” said junior Emily Miles. Miles reports for WFHB radio, works with American Student Radio and is a member of IU’s chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Johnson is the group’s advisor.
“Being LGBTQ+ isn’t something that you can see and identify. So for me, I identify more as a person of color, because that’s what people see and what influences how people treat me,” said junior Sheila Raghavendran, who reports for WFHB radio and works with American Student Radio. “(My background) influences the insights that I bring to journalism.”
The panel echoed the sentiment of the people of color panel: Diversity breeds accurate representation in the media.
Johnson steered the conversation toward gender identities, especially in reference to deciding what pronouns to use in attributions.
De la Rosa said journalists shouldn’t see the responsibility of being accurate in identification as a burden; instead, they should see it as a way to educate the general public.
“I think it can be a learning experience for readers, to be shown possible ways that people might identify,” she said.
