Category: Opinion

Media outlets need to talk about abortion as self-defense

We need to talk about abortion as self-defense. Terminating a pregnancy as an act of self-defense has been missing from the public conversation, despite media saturation with all manner of news and viewpoints about abortion—from the unprecedented leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion to the striking defeat of an anti-abortion ballot initiative in Kansas…

Journalism educators need to up their game to stay relevant in their own changing industry

For a decade now, I have been teaching journalism without officially having left the business. I keep one foot in journalism because I cannot imagine life without it, which sounds admittedly old-fashioned and also is something I cannot teach. Nor is it necessarily practical. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts journalism jobs will decline by…

New democracy editor position at Associated Press should be model for all newsrooms

The Associated Press recently announced that it was creating a new position for a “democracy editor.” It tapped a long-time AP veteran and state government editor for the position. When Tom Verdin, who is in Sacramento, steps into the new role, he will oversee coverage of stories about voting rights and election processes.  In making…

Book Compares Presidential Press Treatment

Jon Marshall, “CLASH: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis.” Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Potomac Books. 2022. 413 pages. $36.95. Widely acknowledged as one of the leading scholars writing about the intersection of presidential history and American journalism, Jon Marshall of Northwestern University, has made yet another critically important contribution to the…