CollegeJournalism.org

Giving to young journalists pays off over decades — not overnight

By Mike Canan

If I’ve learned anything during the last five years, it is that today’s journalism students are worth investing in.

But there is a specific challenge I’ve learned as the senior director of journalism strategies with the Scripps Howard Fund/Foundation, which supports journalism education programs for college students. 

Students in programs we fund — like the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University and the University of Maryland, the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center at the University of Southern Mississippi and the open-source investigative reporting programs at the University of Southern California and University of Memphis – are producing incredible work and collaborating with some of the biggest organizations in the industry. Here are just a few examples:

• USC Annenberg’s open-source story on street takeovers, where young people illegally block off roads to rev engines, screech tires, do donuts and more. The student reporters mapped where these takeovers have occurred in Los Angeles and laid out the injuries and deaths from these dangerous gatherings.
• In “Lethal Restraint,” the Howard centers collaborated with the Associated Press and Frontline to examine deaths in police custody when less-lethal force – like stun guns, chokeholds and sedatives – were used.
• The Roy Howard Community Journalism Center used community trust and relationships to earn the first interview with one of the early patients to receive a Neuralink brain implant, which allows the person using it to control technology by thinking.
• The Howard Center at the University of Maryland’s “Printing Hate” used technology to scan decades’ worth of newspapers and show how white-owned newspapers stoked racial violence.

Students in other programs across the country are also learning by doing and producing important journalism. 

These students produce stories that matter and get incredible learning experiences.

But student journalists and their professors need support. 

University budgets these days are not a place of hope. Journalism programs often can’t rely on the administration to provide what students need to succeed.

Students need technology at their fingertips. They need classes that allow them to produce real journalism for publication. They need an updated curriculum that focuses on new ways to gather information, tell stories and connect with the audience. They need to be armed with skills to combat burnout and handle trauma. They need meaningful, paid internships. 

And for that to become a reality, philanthropy must invest. 

Major donors, foundations, donor-advised funds and others are stepping up and supporting newsrooms of all shapes and sizes, stabilizing public media, tackling infrastructure challenges and more.

But these are mostly investments focused on the next one to five years.

We need investments that are designed to flourish 10 to 40 years down the road.

Investing in today’s college journalism students prepares the storytellers, innovators and leaders of tomorrow. It makes sure they have the skills for what is to come. 

The next generation of journalists is passionate, smart and tech-savvy. These journalists understand what our audiences need now and what they will need in the future.

But the future of the news business holds uncertainty, and the talent in universities needs to be nurtured, prepared and set up for success.

Some schools are doing a pretty good job of preparing future journalists. But few are preparing students for the pace of a newsroom, the relentlessness of news, the instant deadlines. That’s often not how journalism classes are set up. Even student media doesn’t always teach those lessons.

It’s also where we risk losing journalists early in their careers if they aren’t properly prepared.

I think the moment I first truly understood what a journalism career would be like was around 3 a.m. on Sept. 12, 2001. I was a few weeks into my time as editor of The Post, the student-run newspaper at Ohio University, when 9/11 took place. 

I’d spent the day mobilizing student journalists. We put together an incredible paper with nearly all local reporting. Twenty-five years later I still look back on that day with pride. 

But it was a long, exhausting, emotional day.

I returned to my apartment in the middle of the night, and as I was getting ready for bed it hit me: 

Tomorrow (today really by this point), we have to do it all again. There will be more news. There will be follow-ups. The story is nowhere near put to bed just because we put to bed that one newspaper that will hang in the hallway of The Post for decades.

Those are the lessons students must learn.

And they only learn them by doing real work. That’s why at the Scripps Howard Fund/Foundation we have invested heavily in paid internships and programs where students learn by doing.

This generation has the talent and passion. They care. 

I’ve spoken to students and faculty members across the country. My message is the same whether I’m at a powerhouse journalism program or a school with just a few journalism classes:

These are turbulent times in the industry. If you want stability, this isn’t the path. But with uncertainty comes opportunity. Opportunity to shape the future of journalism. Opportunity to rebuild a crucial profession. Opportunity to make your community a better place, to make the world a better place by exposing the wrongs and rights. At the end of the day, you are going to be the ones who figure this out. You are going to be the ones who lead journalism’s future. My generation is simply trying to keep journalism alive.

We need to stabilize journalism and seek to grow it today. But just as importantly, we need to invest in tomorrow. 

The future of journalism is bright if we invest in the next generation.

Mike Canan served as the Senior Director of Journalism Strategies for the Scripps Howard Fund/Foundation since September 2021. He returns to the newsroom this month as chief content officer with nonprofit newsroom Signal Ohio.