This semester, I introduced the topic of disability into my diversity lesson plan in a broadcast journalism course. My goal was to expand students’ understanding of diversity. I hope, as they enter the real world, they apply what they’ve learned. I also recently conducted a workshop at Your News Now (Syracuse) on this topic (See presentation below).

My workshop and lesson plan focus on why it’s important to include disability in diversity discussions, the proper terminology related to disability, the framing of disability stories, and how journalists can include disability in news coverage.

Key takeaways

• Terminology: Use person-first language (notice I’ve been using the phrase “people with disabilities”). You should avoid terms that fail to emphasize people with disabilities as “people first.” The basic idea is to name the person first and the condition second in order to emphasize “they are people first.” I’ve worked for a disability organization the past three years. People with disabilities face unique challenges, just like anyone else. However, disability doesn’t necessarily define who they are. Disability isn’t something they “suffer from.” That’s another phrase to avoid. Also, when describing an individual, don’t reference his or her disability unless it’s clearly pertinent to the story.
• Story Frames: Disability is a way of being, not something a person “has.” Journalists should avoid story frames or angles that center on pity, charity, weakness, suffering, and deficiency, among others.
• News Coverage: There are many ways news organizations can integrate the topic of disability into news coverage.
  *Focus on the issues impacting people with disabilities, especially unemployment and health care.
  *Plan stories around important dates in the disability rights movement , such as the Americans with Disabilities Act anniversary (July 26)
  *Include people with disabilities as sources in non-disability related stories.
  *Launch a recurring segment/feature about disability. Karen Meyer’s Disability Issues segment on Chicago’s ABC-TV affiliate is a wonderful example.

 Additional Resources

• National Center on Disability and Journalism
• Society of Professional Journalists Diversity Toolbox: Covering Disability Issues
• If you’re looking for classroom exercises or lesson plans, email me.

This group exercise helps students determine the credibility of social media information. News professionals can also use these tips. We know misinformation can spread like wildfire on social media. Some journalists have taken the bait, duped into reporting inaccurate information from social media platforms. The “Too Good to Be True?” exercise helps students better understand how to analyze information on social media platforms. The exercise can be easily adapted to include examples from your local media market. Students learn how to both analyze the credibility of online sources and balance the pressure to disseminate with traditional news values.

How the exercise works

1. The instructor selects real and fake photos and information that circulated on social media before being reported by news outlets. I use national/international scenarios (a shark swimming along a flooded street) and at least one from my local media market (Paul McCartney visiting a suburb of my city). View the PowerPoint below to see the examples that I use.
2. Students are divided into groups of 4 to 6. Each group is assigned one scenario, which includes a photo and background information.
3. Part I: the instructor asks each group to discuss how they would verify/determine accuracy of the information in the assigned scenario. After 10 minutes, the groups report back to the class.
4. Part II: students put the steps/tips they brainstormed in Part I into practice. The groups go online to find out the “real deal.” Is the social media information credible and accurate? If the social media information in the scenario is a hoax, which news outlet(s) reported the misinformation? In addition, students research whether the news outlet(s) issued a correction. After 10-15 minutes, the groups report back to class.
5. Part III: collectively students synthesize their group lists, created in Part I, into one master list of 6 to 10 tips for verifying social media information. One student writes these tips on a white board. Finally, the instructor shares his/her best practices for analyzing the credibility of news tips from Twitter and Facebook.

My tips

• If it looks/sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Be skeptical.
• Go old school! Contact the source of the post to ask questions, preferably via phone. If the information was re-tweeted or shared on Facebook via another person, track down the original source—the person who initially posted the information.
• A review of the original source’s social media history can reveal whether the person typically tweets about the topic under scrutiny, the tone/type of previous posts, when the account was created, and the location they normally tweet about, among other items.
• If the source has GPS enabled for Twitter or Facebook, you can check the location of posts to see if it matches the location they are talking about.
• Seek social corroboration by asking tweeps, for example, in the respective location if they can verify the information. Are they seeing/experiencing the same thing?
• Seek official corroboration of the social media information by contacting traditional sources, such as a police agency.
• Use TinEye.com or Google Images to verify amazing images. After uploading a photo, the sites will search for similar images to help determine if a photo was altered.

Read the article, “Nonprofit takes a ‘wait and see’ approach to Facebook’s promoted posts”

There are a number of actions mainstream media must take:

First, media companies need to change their theory of business in order to remain competitive in today’s marketplace. As management and leadership pioneer Peter Drucker notes, businesses can collapse if their theory of business—assumptions a business is based on, including customers, competitors, values and behavior, technology, and dynamics—is not revised to keep up with the changing marketplace.

Second, traditional media must engage their audience. News can no longer “lecture.” People want to be part of the conversation, and for those communications professionals who think otherwise, your audience has plenty of other places to turn for information. Average citizens now have the power in their hands to be part of the newsgathering process, for example. The top-down approach is no longer effective.

While journalists may voice their concerns about new media, such as the potential threat to journalistic standards, the partnership with average citizens is actually an opportunity to strengthen journalism. As Dan Gillmor, author of We the Media, notes,  “an audience that participates in the journalistic process is more demanding that passive consumers of news.” Because the web has allowed for a conversation between reporters and their community, it provides a desperately needed vehicle to revive civic journalism.

Third, traditional media must remain vigilant about quality of the product/content. The massive layoffs of newsroom staffers and the closure of numerous media outlets only add to the crisis. While pushing content onto the Internet may be easy, it is much more difficult—not to mention important—to maintain the quality of content. Despite all the tools at our disposal, the fundamentals of journalism must prevail.

Fourth, role convergence must be embraced and managers must how to handle the challenges with rank and file. In newsrooms across the country, new media is dramatically transforming the job responsibilities of media professionals and placing new challenges on the news managers who must implement these changes.  In addition to reporting for traditional on-air newscasts, broadcast journalists, for example, are being asked to assume more day-to-day duties, including shooting video, updating website content, and maintaining blogs. By all estimates, role convergence is here to stay.

In order to develop and implement effective plans, supervisors must first attempt to understand the current and potential impact of the proposed changes on their staffs. For example, news managers must attempt to ascertain how reporters, the “innovation foot soldiers,” will navigate through the process of integrating new media into their traditional job responsibilities. Managers must provide support for their subordinates as they adopt the changes.

Journalism is unlike any other industry, so the plans to improve efficiency must be highly scrutinized as to not undermine journalistic integrity.  Journalistic institutions have the awesome responsibility to act as a watchdog, serve those who are voiceless, and inform the public of important issues that they otherwise might not know about.  It is imperative that supervisors maintain journalistic integrity, or else the public may respond with distrust, ultimately undermining the profession and adding to the current struggles of news organizations.

Conduct a social media audit on yourself

Most hiring managers conduct online searches to scope out a potential candidate’s online presence. You should be doing the very same thing before applying for jobs. A simple Google search of your name can alert you to negative content about you online. Make sure you do a Google image search as well. Simply click “image” on the top of Google’s homepage and enter your name in the search box. Some of my students are surprised by what they find. Oftentimes, images posted to Facebook are not kept private if the proper settings were not selected. This means those private photos can make their way to public search engines. I also recommend opening an account with BrandYourself. It’s a free and easy way to manage your Google ranking and online reputation.

Create and rejuvenate social media profiles

Take the time to update your social media photos and bio information. To create an effective personal brand online, use the same professional photo and short bio for all of your social media platforms. Your social media bios should include key words related to your skills and expertise, and include a link to your LinkedIn page. A LinkedIn account is a must for job seekers! Consider it an online resume. LinkedIn allows you to connect with other people in your industry and create a central location to organize all of your relevant skills, employment history, professional memberships, and more.

Be yourself, keep it conversational – Consider a blog!

Remember, social media is meant to be conversational in nature. Yes, you can keep it informal, yet professional. Many hiring managers think highly of potential employees who are active in sharing expertise and resources about their particular professional field. Creating a basic blog is a great way to show your passion for the industry in which you work. WordPress, an easy-to-use blogging platforms, offers free templates.

The Platinum Award recognizes the magazine as one of the most outstanding entries in the competition. Platinum Winners are recognized for their excellence in terms of quality, creativity, and resourcefulness. About 18 percent of entries won this award.

The Burton Blatt Institute’s new website, launched in July, received an honorable mention. I led the yearlong redesign process. Kudos to my colleagues! The website redesign was a collaborative effort between BBI, SU Advancement & External Affairs-Technical Systems and Services, and designer Maribeth Rayfield.

MarCom Awards is a creative competition for professionals involved in the concept, writing, and design of print, visual, audio, and web materials and programs.

Check out my award-winning entries!

>> View Snapshots of Impact

>> View the new website

Richard Gingras, director of news and social products at Google, summed it up this way during his keynote at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC): “I often sense that people believe that the challenges facing journalism are all about the business model, and more importantly, that somehow the foundation of the prior journalistic era, the newspaper business model, was somehow etched on tablets brought down from the mount. This is not the case.” Read the full text of his speech here.

Some journalists lament the dying of this “old way.” Indeed, digital media has been disruptive to the work routines of reporters. My research, presented at the conference, suggests reporters’ daily job responsibilities are evolving in three areas as a result of digital media: newsgathering, dissemination, and the relationship with the audience. This disruption, however, is not necessarily negative.

The emerging tasks do not render traditional journalistic values obsolete. It is quite the opposite; they are needed now more than ever. There are encouraging findings from my research and other studies presented at the conference: the public still views journalists as an authoritative source. While the results are not generalizable, my case study found that the public is turning to reporters  to make sense of the sea of “noise.”

In terms of journalism education, there are a number of takeaways:

>>  Just as reporters must step out of their entrenched routines to be successful in a digital environment, journalism curricula must be flexible enough to prepare budding journalists for the real-world scenarios they will encounter. Of course, an emphasis on traditional journalistic values as well as multimedia newsgathering and dissemination skills are critical. The two-way flow of information between journalists and an active audience is perhaps the most significant change in journalism that educators need to address. Managing online relationships with the audience, sometimes non-journalistic in nature, is an important area in which budding journalists need training.

>>  Interdisciplinary courses related to technology and society,  as well as computer-mediated communication, would be beneficial in helping journalism students understand the “open” system and how people use technology.

>>  Infusing new media into lesson plans goes far beyond teaching students how to create multimedia stories and disseminate content over multiple platforms. A more holistic approach is to use social media tools such as Twitter or Pinterest, for example, to create virtual learning environments that augment the classroom experience. This recommended method requires that journalism instructors experiment with the tools their students will be expected to use when entering the job market.

>>  Innovation should be encouraged, if not rewarded!

Indeed, mass communications has always been influenced by technology, and this is an exciting time to teach and study the topic. The case study that I’ll present at the AEJMC conference in Chicago is based on research I conducted as part of my graduate thesis. The results of the study have significant practical implications–for journalism educators and news professionals. They also add to a growing body of scholarly research on the topic of new media and journalism.

Stay tuned for future blog posts about my research findings. In the meantime, here’s the abstract of my work.

A Digital Juggling Act: New Media’s Impact on the Responsibilities of Local Television Reporters
This case study explores the dramatic transformation new media—from a station’s website to social networking platforms—is having on local television journalists’ job responsibilities. Through in-depth interviews with reporters and participant observation at a television station in the northeast US, this research details how reporters’ tasks are evolving in three areas: dissemination, newsgathering, and the relationship with the public. Lessons learned from this research are helpful to others in the industry and journalism educators.

The study confirms conventional thinking in regard to social media: it has become a platform for people to vent and seek out support and encouragement. “I know that I see a lot of Facebook posts from new mothers talking about how their child wouldn’t sleep, or how their second child was harder than their first,” says one of the researchers.

This study is ripe with future research possibilities. According to the research, mothers who were frequent visitors to their Facebook accounts and who managed their accounts more frequently reported higher levels of parenting stress. It is not clear whether the frequent visits to Facebook caused the mothers’ stress. Perhaps mothers who were more stressed out turned to Facebook for support? Future research should clarify the correlation.