Journalism

Poll-arized

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 21:08:32 +0000

Poll-arized Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/16/2024 - 15:08

By Joe Arney

Deepfakes. Distrust. Data manipulation. Is it any wonder American democracy feels like it has reached such a dangerous tipping point?

As our public squares have emptied of reasoned discussion, and our social media feeds have filled with vitriol, viciousness and villainy, we’ve found ourselves increasingly isolated and unable to escape our echo chambers. And while it’s easy to blame social media, adtech platforms or the news, it’s the way these forces overlap and feed off each other that’s put us in this mess.

It’s an important problem to confront as we close in on a consequential election, but the issue is bigger than just what happens this November, or whether you identify with one party or another. Fortunately, the College of Media, Communication and Information was designed for just these kinds of challenges, where a multidisciplinary approach is needed to frame, address and solve increasingly complex problems.

“Democracy is not just about what happens in this election,” said Nathan Schneider, an assistant professor of media studies and an expert in the design and governance of the internet. “It’s a much longer story, and through all the threats we’ve seen, I’ve taken hope from focusing my attention on advancing democracy, rather than just defending it.”

We spoke to Schneider and other CMCI experts in journalism, information science, media studies, advertising and communication to understand the scope of the challenges. And we asked one big question of each in order to help us make sense of this moment in history, understand how we got here and—maybe—find some faith in the future.

***

Newsrooms have been decimated. The younger generation doesn’t closely follow the news. Attention spans have withered in the TikTok age. Can we count on journalism to serve its Fourth Estate function and deliver fair, accurate coverage of the election?

Mike McDevitt, a former editorial writer and reporter, isn’t convinced the press has learned its lessons from the 2016 cycle, when outlets chased ratings and the appearance of impartiality over a commitment to craft that might have painted more accurate portraits of both candidates. High-quality reporting, he said, may mean less focus on finding scoops and more time sharing resources to chase impactful stories.

How can journalism be better?

“A lot of journalists might disagree with me, but I think news media should be less competitive among each other and find ways to collaborate, especially with the industry gutted. And the news can’t lose sight of what’s important by chasing clickable stories. Covering chaos and conflict is tempting, but journalism’s interests in this respect do not always align with the security of democracy. While threats to democracy are real, amplifying chaos is not how news media should operate during an era of democratic backsliding.”

***

After the 2016 election, Brian C. Keegan was searching for ways to use his interests in the computer and social sciences in service of democracy. That’s driven his expertise in public-interest data science—how to make closed data more accessible to voters, journalists, activists and researchers. He looks at how campaigns can more effectively engage voters, understand important issues and form policies that address community needs.

You’ve called the 2012 election an “end of history” moment. Can you explain that in the context of what’s happening in 2024?

“In 2012, we were coming out of the Arab Spring, and everyone was optimistic about social media. The idea that it could be a tool for bots and state information operations to influence elections would have seemed like science fiction. Twelve years later, we’ve finally learned these platforms are not neutral, have real risk and can be manipulated. And now, two years into the large language model moment, people are saying these are just neutral tools that can only be a force for good. That argument is already falling apart.

The U.S. news media has blood on its hands from 2016. It will go down as one of the worst moments in the history of American journalism.”

Mike McDevitt
Professor, journalism

“You could actually roll the clock back even further, to the 1960s and ’70s, when people were thinking about Silent Spring and Unsafe at Any Speed, and recognizing there are all these environmental, regulatory, economic and social things all connected through this lens of the environment. Like any computing system, when it comes to data, if you have garbage in, you get garbage out. The bias and misinformation we put into these A.I. systems are polluting our information ecosystem in ways that journalists, activists, researchers and others aren’t equipped to handle.”

***

One of Angie Chuang’s last news jobs was covering race and ethnicity for The Oregonian. In the early 2000s, it wasn’t always easy to find answers to questions about race in a mostly white newsroom. Conferences like those put on by the Asian American Journalists Association “were times of revitalization for me,” she said. When this year’s conference of the National Association of Black Journalists was disrupted by racist attacks against Kamala Harris, Chuang’s first thoughts were for the attendees who lost the opportunity to learn from one another and find the support she did as a cub reporter.

“What’s lost in this discussion is the entire event shifted to this focus on Donald Trump and the internal conflict in the organization, and I’m certain that as a result, journalists and students who went lost out on some of that solidarity,” she said. And it fits a larger pattern of outspoken newsmakers inserting themselves into the news to claim the spotlight.

I think 2024 will be the first, and last,
A.I. election.”

Brian C. Keegan
Assistant professor, information science

How can journalism avoid being hijacked by the people it covers?

“It comes down to context. We need to train reporters to take a breath and not just focus on being the first out there. And I know that’s really hard, because the rewards for being first and getting those clicks ahead of the crowd are well established.”

***

Agenda setting—the concept that we take our cues of what’s important from the news—is as old an idea as mass media itself, but Chris Vargo is drawing interesting conclusions from studying the practice in the digital age. Worth watching, he and other CMCI researchers said, are countermedia entities, which undermine the depictions of reality found in the mainstream press through hyper-partisan content and the use of mis- and disinformation.

How did we get into these silos, and how do we get out?

“The absence of traditional gatekeepers has helped people create identities around the issues they choose to believe in. Real-world cues do tell us a little about what we find important—a lot of people had to get COVID to know it was bad—but we now choose media in order to form a community. The ability to self-select what you want to listen to and believe in is a terrifying story, because selecting media based on what makes us feel most comfortable, that tells us what we want to hear, flies in the face of actual news reporting and journalistic integrity.”

“I can’t blame the reporters who feel these moments are worth covering, because I feel as conflicted as they do.
Angie Chuang
Associate professor, journalism

“I do worry about our institutions. I don’t like that a majority of Americans don’t trust CNN.
Chris Vargo
Associate professor, advertising,
public relations and media design

***

Her research into deepfakes has validated what Sandra Ristovska has known for a long time: For as long as we’ve had visual technologies, we’ve had the ability to manipulate them. Seeing pornographic images of Taylor Swift on social media or getting robocalls from Joe Biden telling voters to stay home—content created by generative artificial intelligence—is a reminder that the scale of the problem is unprecedented. But Ristovska’s work has found examples of fake photos from the dawn of the 20th century supposedly showing, for example, damage from catastrophic tornadoes that never happened.

Ristovska grew up amid the Yugoslav Wars; her interest in becoming a documentary filmmaker was in part shaped by seeing how photos and videos from the brutal fighting and genocide were manipulated for political and legal means. It taught her to be a skeptic when it comes to what she sees shared online.

“So, you see the Taylor Swift video—it seems out of character for her public persona. Or the president—why would he say something like that?” she said. “Instead of just hitting the share button, we should train ourselves to go online and fact check it—to be more engaged.”

Even when we believe something is fake, if it aligns with our worldview, we are likely to accept it as reality. Knowing that, how do we combat deepfakes?

“We need to go old school. We’ve lost sight of the collective good, and you solve that by building opportunities to come together as communities and have discussions. We’re gentler and more tolerant of each other when we’re face-to-face. This has always been true, but it’s becoming even more true today, because we have more incentives to be isolated than ever.”

***

Early scholarly works waxed poetic on the internet’s potential, through its ability to connect people and share information, to defeat autocracy. But, Nathan Schneider has argued, the internet is actually organized as a series of little autocracies—where users are subject to the whims of moderators and whoever owns the servers—effectively meaning you must work against the defaults to be truly democratic. He suggests living with these systems is contributing to the global rise of authoritarianism. In a new book, Governable Spaces, Schneider calls for redesigning social media with everyday democracy in mind.

If the internet enables autocracy, what can we do to fix it?

“We could design our networks for collective ownership, rather than the assumption that every service is a top-down fiefdom. And we could think about democracy as a tool for solving problems, like conflict among users. Polarizing outcomes, like so-called cancel culture, emerge because people don’t have better options for addressing harm. A democratic society needs public squares designed for democratic processes and practices.”

***

It may be derided as dull, but the public meeting is a bedrock of American democracy. It has also changed drastically as fringe groups have seized these spaces to give misinformation a megaphone, ban books and take up other undemocratic causes. Leah Sprain researches how specific communication practices facilitate and inhibit democratic action. She works as a facilitator with several groups, including the League of Women Voters and Restore the Balance, to ensure events like candidate forums embrace difficult issues while remaining nonpartisan.

What’s a story we’re not telling about voters ahead of the election?

“We should be looking more at college towns, because town-gown divides are real and long-standing. There’s a politics of resentment even in a place like �鶹ӰԺ, where you have people who say, ‘We know so much about these issues, we shouldn’t let students vote on them’—to the point where providing pizza to encourage voter turnout becomes this major controversy. Giving young people access to be involved, making them feel empowered to make a difference and be heard—these are good things.”

***

Toby Hopp studies the news media and digital content providers with an eye to how our interactions with media shape conversations in the public sphere.

Much of that is changing as trust and engagement with mainstream news sources declines. He’s studied whether showing critical-thinking prompts alongside shared posts—requiring users to consider the messages as well as the structure of the platform itself—may be better than relying on top-down content moderation from tech companies.

Ultimately, the existing business model of the big social media companies—packaging users to be sold to advertisers—may be the most limiting feature when it comes to reform. Hopp said he doubts a business the size of Meta can pivot from its model.

How does social media rehabilitate itself to become more trusted? Can it?

“Social media platforms are driven by monopolistic impulses, and there’s not a lot of effort put into changing established strategies when you’re the only business in town. The development of new platforms might offer a wider breadth of platform choice—which might limit the spread of misinformation on a Facebook or Twitter due to the diminished reach of any single platform.”

***

Images have always required us to be more engaged. Now, with the speed of disinformation, we need to do a little more work.”
Sandra Ristovska
Assistant professor, media studies

CU News Corps was created to simulate a real-world newsroom that allows journalism students to do the kind of long-form, investigative pieces that are in such short supply at a time of social media hot takes and pundits trading talking points.

“I thought we should design the course you’d most want to take if you were a journalism major,” said Chuck Plunkett, director of the capstone course and an experienced reporter. Having a mandate to do investigative journalism “means we can challenge our students to dig in and do meaningful work, to expose them to other kinds of people or ideas that aren’t on their radar.”

Over the course of a semester, the students work under the guidance of reporters and editors at partner media companies to produce long-form multimedia stories that are shared on the News Corps website and, often, are picked up by those same publications, giving the students invaluable clips for their job searches while supporting resource-strapped newsrooms.

With the news business facing such a challenging future, both economically and politically, why should students study journalism?

“Even before the great contraction of news, the figure I had in my mind was five years after students graduate, maybe 25 percent of them were still in professional newsrooms. But journalism is a tremendous major because you learn to think critically, research deeply and efficiently, interact with other people, process enormous amounts of information, and have excellent communication skills. Every profession needs people with those skills.”

Where do we go from here? CMCI experts share their perspectives on journalism, advertising, data science, communication and more in an era of democratic backsliding.

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Finishing college on a high note

Anonymous — Tue, 28 May 2024 22:29:45 +0000

Finishing college on a high note Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/28/2024 - 16:29

By Hannah Stewart (Comm’19)

In high school, Zoey Georgeades was like any other student: She went to class, hung out with friends, was involved in extracurriculars like yearbook and loved jamming out to her favorite tunes. Except, unlike other students, some of her favorite tunes were her own. Georgeades (Jour’24) didn’t just rock out in her room—she was working with a producer and had plans to move to Los Angeles to start her singer-songwriter career.

And then, COVID hit. With travel, and most aspects of life, severely limited because of lockdowns, she shifted gears and decided to give higher education “the good old college try.” Inspired by her love of music in concert with her background in yearbook—which sent her to the Colorado Student Media Association’s annual J-Day event—Georgeades decided to study journalism at the �鶹ӰԺ. That, along with her minor in communication, gave her a fresh perspective on her passion of producing music.

“It’s been a very interesting time learning to be a musician and influencer while getting a degree,” she said. “My studies have pushed me to improve my communication in general, and that’s impacted my songwriting, making me very calculated.”

During her time in �鶹ӰԺ, she served as the Panhellenic vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, and joined student media organizations. As a staff writer, and later arts and entertainment editor, for The Bold, she has written a variety of stories covering the �鶹ӰԺ music scene. Not only has she been able to connect with and interview musicians, she’s become more confident in herself.

“Hearing what they’ve had to say and go through has been really interesting,” Georgeades said. “Networking and getting comfortable to go alone to concerts to cover them has really broken me out of my shell, which is really important in both music and journalism.”

Her experiences in the classroom have been just as fulfilling—she said it’s been fascinating to learn about the rhetorical and philosophical sides of communication, which have pushed her to think more critically about the messages she puts out into the world and what it means to have integrity as both a musician and a journalist.

“As communication people, we should be the best, but often, we’re the worst,” Georgeades said.

“Word choice is everything. CMCI has taught me to be very clear and direct, and very open minded.”
Zoey Georgeades (Jour'24)

Her network has proven invaluable throughout her time in CMCI. She said Keyana Simone, faculty director of student media, and other professors have always been supportive and helpful sounding boards, giving her the confidence to pursue both music and journalism.

For Georgeades, music transcends language and it, like journalism, is ultimately a tool for bringing people together. She hopes as she moves forward in her career—which she plans to start this fall in Los Angeles—she will be able to create a community using these passions.

“Whether it’s through music journalism or music production, I’m excited to put my all into it,” she said.

Zoey Georgeades has blended her love of music with her love of journalism. At CMCI, she learned how these two passions influence each other, ultimately making her a better communicator

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When it comes to field goals, journalism alum has only one: Get the story right

Anonymous — Wed, 15 May 2024 21:13:54 +0000

When it comes to field goals, journalism alum has only one: Get the story right Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/15/2024 - 15:13

By Joe Arney
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18)

Tips for aspiring reporters

When he worked in Lubbock, Texas, covering Texas Tech, Brent Schrotenboer admitted he didn’t appreciate how cool of a college town it was, and all the activities it had for residents.

That sort of thing can be hard to tell with your nose to the grindstone. Schrotenboer said his willingness to work hard is why he’s become a national reporter with USA Today, but admitted his tunnel vision prevented him from enjoying the stops he’s had on the way.

“It’s important to find balance, but you also gotta remember that the only way to get ahead is work really hard,” he said.

He shared a few other tips with students who want to work in journalism:

Network—now. Schrotenboer’s first two jobs in newspapers came from the network he started to build as a student. CU alumni and brothers Tracy and Troy Renck, now a Denver Post sports columnist, gave Schrotenboer leads on his first two jobs that kicked off his career in Louisiana and Yuma, Arizona. “From there, it was off to the races,” he said.
Read. And not just your subject area. Schrotenboer prefers books about history or novels to sports books: “Reading broadens your horizons, and it also makes you a better writer. Things kind of rub off by osmosis.”
Be original. So many news websites today just aggregate content, as opposed to landing actual scoops, “which comes from getting interviews, digging into documents and public records,” Schrotenboer said. “You don’t see enough original reporting out there.”

Any reporter who’s been in news long enough knows the heart-stopping, sweaty-palmed moment when a public figure holds up your story in a press conference and says something to the effect of, “Now, we need to talk about something that was in the paper this morning.”

Earlier this spring, it’s a moment Brent Schrotenboer (Jour’96) endured while watching one of Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders’ press conferences. That week, Schrotenboer, an investigative sports reporter with USA Today, published a piece examining Sanders’ unique recruiting strategy and reporting that the coach had made zero visits to prospective players.

“It’s sort of a moment of truth, when he brings up your story in front of everybody,” Schrotenboer said. “Because if there’s a single inaccurate thing in there, I’m about to hear about it—like, maybe he went on a visit that I couldn’t find a record of, and that the school didn’t even know about. But he didn’t dispute any of it, so it was sort of a sigh of relief.”

Instead, Coach Prime explained his strategy on how he attracts scholarship athletes—a story Schrotenboer said he tried to get for a week before finally publishing.

Chasing what’s new

His coverage of Coach Prime and the Buffs is not critical, he said, but open minded. “There’s nothing wrong with trying new things and zigging while everybody else is zagging. With the recruiting thing—the jury’s out as to whether it will work, but it’s very different, and I like that he’s trying new things and trying to exploit the transfer portal, NIL and so on.”

Last season was like an extended homecoming for Schrotenboer, who said he attended almost all 12 Buffaloes games as he covered a coach who generated as many headlines for his sheer popularity as his willingness to innovate on and off the field.

But landing the “Coach Prime beat” has nothing to do with having attended the �鶹ӰԺ. Instead, he said, it was about working hard and never turning down an opportunity—which is how he got his first job, as the sports editor of a small paper in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

“I was a big baseball fan, and thought I could travel with a team and cover all 162 games a year,” Schrotenboer said. “But my career took a few different turns as I was offered opportunities in college football and more investigative work. A lot of people coming out of college have this fixed idea of what they want to do, some pro team they want to cover, but it almost never works out that way.

“I’m so happy with where my career turned out. But it’s not where I had ever imagined myself, so I think it’s important to always say, yes, and to be open minded.”

Brent Schrotenboer (Jour’96), investigative reporter, USA Today

Leading amid industry challenges

That’s not just advice for starting out, either. As the news industry has contracted, Schrotenboer has had to embrace some storytelling techniques more familiar to a younger generation, like writing an article from viral videos on social media. A feature he wrote on the Prime Time: Public Performance and Leadership class was cobbled together entirely from videos created by Sanders and the influencers on his team; in April, he took a turn delivering a lecture as part of the course.

Being open to new techniques was something Schrotenboer learned in college, as email became a thing—though the only place he could check it was Norlin Library—and he started asking professors for their thoughts on the future of print news in a digital world.

“The current climate—yeah, it’s tough out there. But there are still people doing great work,” he said. “A lot of people are trying hard and fighting the fight for journalism.”

The old dog may have a few new tricks, but above all, Schrotenboer prizes traditional journalism values like fairness, objectivity and accuracy—all of which come into play when he’s covering his alma mater.

“My job is to hold the institution accountable, which in turn makes the institution better,” he said. “When I’m in the press box at a game, I’m not hoping CU scores a touchdown, I’m worrying about getting my story right and writing something people want to read.”

That kind of perspective was something he was happy to share while speaking in the Prime Time course. Although he graduated before CMCI was formed, he called the course “a smart play to take advantage of this cultural moment CU is having” and said a broad education that encompasses journalism, media studies, communication and related disciplines is very valuable for professionals.

In fact, while he had inspirations as a journalism student—including Douglas Looney (Jour’63), formerly of Sports Illustrated, who taught sports writing at CU �鶹ӰԺ—some of the classes that left the deepest impression were in areas like law and anthropology.

“I grew up in a small town in Michigan, a first-generation college student, and it was eye-opening to come to a big university and take classes in things like Black history and culture, nuclear warfare, and stuff like that,” he said. “All this stuff was like forbidden fruit to me. I grew up in a small town, but I never lived there again. CU changed everything for me.”

The way reporters do the job is changing, but the foundational pillars of accuracy, objectivity and fairness never will. It’s why Brent Schrotenboer has been so successful.

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Class of 2024: William W. White Honorees

Anonymous — Wed, 01 May 2024 23:17:34 +0000

Class of 2024: William W. White Honorees Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/01/2024 - 17:17

William W. White Outstanding Seniors are chosen by department faculty to recognize academic merit, professional achievement and service to the college. The Outstanding Graduate award honors the CMCI student with the highest overall GPA in his or her graduating class.

White, a �鶹ӰԺ native, graduated from CU’s School of Journalism in 1933. He was a reporter in �鶹ӰԺ, Denver and New York before becoming the foreign editor of Time from the early 1940s through the mid-1950s, based in London, Brazil and Montreal. At the advice of his friend Edward R. Murrow, who told him “it doesn’t matter what you do, what matters is that you do it where you want to live,” White returned to �鶹ӰԺ, where he started the White and White public relations firm. White and his wife, Connie, established this endowment in 1998.

Meet our graduates and read their stories.

Andrew Schwartz: College of Media, Communication and Information

Andrew's advice to students is to try everything and talk to as many people as you can—especially outside your major. That way, you'll broaden your perspective.

When it comes to impact and being able to make something I’m proud of, a big part of that is being able to make technology for the people to use it, and make things that people enjoy using and improve their lives. Info places a big emphasis on that."

Lisa An: Department of Critical Media Practice

Lisa started her CU career as a computer science major before switching to media production. She said this was one of the best decisions she ever made because through the program, she discovered a passion for photography.

"I learned that keeping your work to yourself because of the fear of not being good enough does no good. If you share your work and receive feedback, you are able to improve your craft and obtain opportunities you otherwise never would have been able to.

Elijah Boykoff: Department of Information Science

Going into college, Elijah's goals for himself were to learn as much as he could and make it to the finish line. He says he's made good on those goals, and this award is an exciting bonus.

Your professors are people just like you. Get to know them—if you are able to resonate with your professors on a deeper level, you will be much more enriched by the knowledge they have to share."

Bianca Perez: Departments of Communication, Media Studies

Bianca is the first CMCI graduate to win outstanding student honors from two different majors. She's now off to a prestigious Ph.D. program.

"What I have is like a wish coming true. You can work very hard and that can still not be enough, and I’ve seen that happen to people around me my whole life.

Sujei Perla Martinez: Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Media Design

For Sujei, a first-generation college student, graduating means she's carving a new path for her family.

My community helped foster a place for self-discovery and encouraged me to be unapologetically myself while helping me grow within my values and beliefs."

Nic Tamayo: Department of Journalism

Nic's CMCI experience in three words: fulfilling, inspired, treasured.

"I will take with me the connections I’ve been able to make with people from so many corners of life. They’ve taught me lessons that I may never have learned without their friendship and mentorship.

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Outstanding senior: Nicolas Tamayo

Anonymous — Wed, 01 May 2024 16:37:42 +0000

Outstanding senior: Nicolas Tamayo Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/01/2024 - 10:37

By Iris Serrano
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18)

Being a first-generation college student means discovering new things and pushing past limits. In their time at the �鶹ӰԺ, Nicolas Tamayo went above and beyond those expectations and didn’t let fear hold them back.

“I'm absolutely a different person than I was four years ago, and I hope to be able to continue growing as time goes on.”
Nicolas Tamayo (Fren,JourSt’24)

As he prepares to graduate, Tamayo will go on their greatest adventure yet: They were accepted to the highly competitive Fulbright U.S. Student Program, and will be teaching English in Montpellier, France.

“It can be daunting to try new things, especially if you’re going in by yourself,” Tamayo said, “But it’s so much more rewarding and fulfilling to say yes to new opportunities, instead of saying no and missing out on what could have been.”

Tamayo will be graduating as the William W. White Outstanding Senior for the Department of Journalism with degrees in both journalism and French. The White awards are chosen by CMCI faculty and honor students for their academic accomplishments, professional achievements and service to the college.

Service, in particular, defined Tamayo at CMCI: They participated as a resident assistant for summer bridge programs, served as president of CMCI student government and were active in multicultural organizations. As they go forward, they’re looking to continue that mindset.

“I want to work with people and help them find success in whatever they choose to set their mind to,” Tamayo said.

Much of that relates to paying forward all the support they received as a Buff.

“I achieved so much more than I ever thought possible. Every person who’s been a part of my life and my network over the past few years has helped me to grow,” they said. “I'm absolutely a different person than I was four years ago, and I hope to be able to continue growing as time goes on.”

Saying yes to opportunities served Nic well as a student—and will help him in a competitive Fulbright program in France.

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Student Work Gallery: Spring 2024

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:26:40 +0000

Student Work Gallery: Spring 2024 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/27/2024 - 14:26

CMCI students from all departments develop their portfolios through classes, competitions, internships and more.

Here we have collected a variety of student work that highlights their personal and professional passions explored during their academic careers at CU �鶹ӰԺ.

View the work

Students across CMCI find ways to bring together their personal interests and academic pursuits. Since the college’s founding, we have showcased this diverse collection of student work.

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Peak performer

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 21:41:53 +0000

Peak performer Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/31/2024 - 14:41

By Joe Arney

As much as she was ready for a new professional challenge, leaving the Front Range where she’d lived her whole life was hard for Keely Walker. So she made a promise to herself—wherever she wound up, she’d still have her view of the mountains.

But not all mountains are created equal, as she learned when she interviewed for a producer position with KOMO, in Seattle.

“The news director asked me how I liked the mountains out there, and I told him they were beautiful,” said Walker (Jour’06), now nightside executive producer at KING 5 Media Group. “Then he told me, ‘Well, what’s better is that ours explode.’

“I was like, no, no, that’s not a selling point!” Walker said, laughing.

Maybe backyard volcanoes aren’t quite her thing, but it’s no question Walker has hit her stride since arriving in the Pacific Northwest. Since joining KING, a Tegna-owned, NBC-affiliated station, the self-described “Colorado girl, through and through” has rapidly climbed the ranks while producing journalism that’s both award winning and thought provoking.

Climbing the ranks

Moving to Seattle, she said, was a chance to challenge herself professionally without sacrificing those mountain views.

“I knew the Denver market inside and out after eight years,” she said. “A lot of people talk about Seattle news being smart news. People don’t want the surface story—you need to really dig into the news, which was a new challenge.”

It meant learning about things like salmon and orcas that don’t typically enter the conversation in Colorado, but what hasn’t changed are the fundamental skills she built studying broadcast journalism at CU and being a trusted leader in the media space.

Don’t touch that dial

Keely Walker is like a lot of journalists, in that when you ask her what her biggest challenge is, it’s that no one is watching. When she visited a CMCI class in the fall, “we asked the students who watches the news, and no hands went up,” Walker said.

Her dirty little secret? “I don’t have cable, either,” she said.

That’s not unusual for Generation Z—or the Seattle market, where engagement through mobile apps or over-the-top media services like Roku, Hulu or Apple TV is incredibly significant. So, her station typically airs content for TV first before repackaging it for digital distribution. “Our biggest business challenge is, how do you get people to watch when it’s not part of their routine?” she said.

Patrick Ferrucci, associate professor and chair of the journalism department, said curricular refreshes and conversations with his board of advisors are helping guide CMCI students toward new jobs in news.

“Journalism now is less platform dependent,” Ferrucci said. “There are still paths to traditional broadcast jobs, but what we’re increasingly trying to do is embed visual and multimedia journalism into all aspects of our curriculum, so that our students learn how to tell good stories regardless of format.”

“I have such pride in being a CU alumna,” Walker said. “The campus is beautiful and the academics are great, but it’s more than that—it’s like, hey, we have astronauts, we have Nobel Prize winners. There’s a lot to brag about.”

Including, for the first time in a while, the football team. Walker remains a longtime Buffs season-ticket holder whose earliest visits to �鶹ӰԺ involved playing on the turf at Folsom Field during a family weekend game.

More recently, she was on the field in the fall, after the Buffaloes defeated Nebraska in an early-season rivalry game.

“Some of my co-workers have been like, ‘So are you going to rush the field after every game now?’” she said. “You know, it’s been a hard few years, OK? Just let us appreciate this and do what we want to do.”

Hands on with the news

That’s also the motto that’s guided her career in news. In her current role, Walker is responsible for the nightside newscast. Early each day, she works with reporters to identify the most promising stories, coaching them as the news moves from pitch to production. She also leads a team of producers who make each broadcast come together.

“I’m a teacher, when it comes down to it,” Walker said. “I love teaching young producers, sharing my knowledge with them and then watching them succeed.”

Joyce Taylor, an anchor at KING 5 who’s been covering Seattle for decades, said Walker’s enthusiasm and positivity make her a strong mentor, whose hands-on involvement in sourcing and scripting help reporters become better at their craft.

“Keely is a great listener and communicator,” Taylor said. “In a newsroom, you find all different types of personalities. Having someone in a leadership role who can work with all those kinds of personalities is a huge asset for us.”

Walker’s work has been recognized with multiple Emmys, as well as awards from Peabody and Scripps Howard, but more important to her than hardware is impact. She’s extremely proud of a project she worked on as a producer shortly after joining KING 5 that investigated racial inequality, racism and racial privilege, especially in the Seattle metro area.

Facing Race was proposed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the resulting uprising around the country; the 13-part series was impressive for both how it handled sensitive material and the relative skeleton crew that produced it during the pandemic.

“It was hard—I had to find a new comfort zone of talking about race, equity and inclusion, because we hadn’t seen this kind of a discussion on TV before,” said Walker, who produced the show on top of her daily broadcasts; Taylor hosted each edition. “But I look back at these episodes, and it’s like—dang, we really made people think.

“It’s the shining accomplishment of my career, and I think will be until it’s over.”

Following that award-winning series, the station created a dedicated unit—including a reporter, executive producer, photographer and support staff—for Facing Race stories, which Walker said have consistently been supported by leadership. The show ran after the station’s Seahawks coverage ended, giving a controversial topic substantial coverage.

‘Doing the work because she loves the work’

Part of what makes her successful is that, even though there can be hard days in the news business, Walker finds ways to make work fun; her colleagues praised her sense of humor in the face of a demanding job.

“We’re here to seek the truth and solve problems,” Taylor said. “There is no task where Keely can’t find a way to get the job done, get the best information and meet the challenge, whatever it is.

“In these times, journalism has never been more important, and Keely sets a great example as somebody who’s doing the work because she loves the work and really sees the importance of journalism and its role in our democracy.”

Walker said she enjoys the challenge to be a little better every day, and to make the workplace more fun.

“If you talk to anyone in my newsroom, they know my laugh, because I laugh all day—I crack jokes and things like that,” she said. “People work better when they’re having a good time.”

In a recent visit to a CMCI class, she tried to share some of that perspective with a group of students.

“You need to find a way to unplug after those days when it feels like you’ve been hit by a truck,” Walker said. “Do that and the next day, you find you can laugh at work, you can find things to look forward to in the news world.”

She reinforces her own positive attitude by exploring her new home state, kayaking, and through a mix of reading “and really trashy reality TV. That’s how I escape the news,” she said, laughing.

Each fall, though, escape comes from one of her first loves.

“There’s a great alumni group in Seattle that gets together to watch football—and there’s more people showing up this year, which is fun,” she said. “And I usually make it back to Colorado for a couple of games, too. Some of my best memories from CU are just from being on that beautiful campus, and so much comes back to me when I’m walking through the quad or seeing the buildings where I took classes.”

“I’m a teacher, when it comes down to it. I love teaching young producers, sharing my knowledge with them and then watching them succeed.”
Keely Walker (Jour’06)

When an award-winning producer decided to move on from Denver, the one thing she wouldn’t negotiate on was a view of the mountains.

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Preparing student-athletes for the Prime of their lives

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 23:05:30 +0000

Preparing student-athletes for the Prime of their lives Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/29/2024 - 16:05

By Joe Arney

Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders saw the value of an athlete’s public persona long before his football or baseball contemporaries.

Now, as the �鶹ӰԺ takes the wraps off a NIL-themed course on sports media, management and culture, it’s hard to imagine a better model.

Athletes are media celebrities whose identity gives them access to commerce, reputation, fame, all these kinds of things. But the person who puts on the helmet has to become another person in front of the cameras.”
Rick Stevens, associate dean

“Coach Prime recognized this model before there was a model,” said Rick Stevens, associate dean of undergraduate education and an associate professor of media studies at the College of Media, Communication and Information. “He understood how to perform an identity that allowed him to accomplish the business, social justice, performance and celebrity goals needed in our media system.”

College sports have undergone tremendous upheaval following the NCAA’s adoption of a “right to publicity” that gave athletes control over their name, image and likeness—NIL for short. But those changes have rippled throughout the landscape, meaning media professionals need a new set of skills and perspectives.

The new course—called, fittingly, Prime Time: Public Performance and Leadership—is about teaching student-athletes how to create those personas, while preparing aspiring media professionals to tell stories effectively in an age where what college athletes say as students can affect their potential earnings and influence.

“The course will teach student athletes to tell their stories strategically, in ways that help them be who they want to be, and will help journalists learn how to enable, challenge and help the stories they’re telling evolve,” Stevens said. “We have to rethink those relationships and dynamics between media icons and the media who cover them.”

A prime time to create impact

Few people anticipated the new age of college sports like Sanders, who demonstrated the value of an athlete’s personal brand as a two-sport phenom in the 1990s. As head coach of the Buffaloes football team, Sanders’ personality and social-media impact have driven incredible returns to the university and city.

Coach Prime has already delivered a lecture on managing social media to the class, but Stevens said the name of the course is more about the prime time personas each athlete has the opportunity to create in a limited window.

“Athletes are media celebrities whose identity gives them access to commerce, reputation, fame, all these kinds of things,” Stevens said. “But the person who puts on the helmet has to become another person in front of the cameras. The class is trying to build a particular kind of media literacy, so that those who need to develop a prime-time narrative can think about what the pieces are and how they fit together, and make the right choices accordingly.”

A deep bench of experts

In addition to an ambitious set of topics—everything from athlete personas and sports betting to confronting racism and how to empower others—classroom lectures will be enhanced through regular appearances by athletes, sportswriters and other media professionals.

Confirmed guest lecturers include Sanders; Kordell Stewart (Comm’18), former NFL star and media analyst; journalists Brent Schrotenboer (Jour’96) and Michael Lyle; analyst Joel Klatt (Econ’05); Tom Garfinkel (Comm’91), president of the Miami Dolphins; and Abbey Shea, assistant athletic director for NIL at CU.

Those choices might include which products to endorse, what organizations to follow on social media and what causes to align with. Case studies that the students will examine will follow the career arcs of athletes like Colin Kaepernick, Ricky Williams and Richard Sherman, whose prime times coincided with controversy. The final project will ask teams of students to consider the best possible paths for athletes entering their prime times, both theoretical opportunities for historic cases as well as—especially as the course becomes established—CU athletes exploring their social media identities or what endorsements represent the brands they want to build.

A range of perspectives

Invited lectures, which will feature athletes, media personalities and experts from CU's athletics department, will take place one day each week. The other course day will feature a rotating cast of faculty representing CMCI’s thought leadership expertise in media studies, information science, journalism, communication, advertising and public relations.

One of those professors is Jamie Skerski, associate chair for undergraduate studies and an expert in communication and culture. She sees the course as an opportunity to look at the individual components that make up sports culture to better understand how it’s created.

“We have this opportunity to pull apart the different elements—the representation, the producers, the consumers, the regulations, the identities—that go into this new athletics landscape,” Skerski said. “When you do that, you get a more nuanced, leveled view of the way the pieces of the culture interact and become normalized.”

That is especially interesting to her from a gender standpoint. Could a more nuanced understanding of the way we consume sports change how NIL deals are executed—say, if a male athlete gets a certain amount of sponsorship, an equal amount must go to a woman?

“Because it’s basically the wild west right now, it’s a good time to question the status quo,” she said.

Stevens said the new perspectives of faculty invited to participate in the course have helped him think differently about pop culture, sports and media influence. It’s a feature of CMCI, which was formed about a decade ago to solve the kinds of complex, future-oriented problems coming out of media-related disciplines that are increasingly interconnected in the real world.

“This course is very in keeping with our college’s spirit,” Stevens said. “You have this new condition of NIL, resulting in a new arrangement among media, athletes, institutions and systems, and none of our departments are precisely positioned to answer the questions that are arising. But most of our departments have a piece of the puzzle, so by involving this many faculty, we’re able to get a more complete picture of all the dynamics involved.”

NIL has changed the relationship between athletes and the media. As it happens, one NFL athlete was 30 years ahead of the curve.

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A minor for major-league sports

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 22:18:26 +0000

A minor for major-league sports Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/29/2024 - 15:18

By Hannah Stewart (Comm’19)
Photos by Jack Moody

The Olympics. The Super Bowl. The Final Four. The Stanley Cup Final.

Alumni from the �鶹ӰԺ have made their mark reporting on and working in the sports world. Many are award winners—including National Sportswriter of the Year—and many more have seen their love of the game reach millions of fans worldwide.

That track record of excellence led the College of Media, Communication and Information to develop its sports media minor, which prepares students for careers in sports, whether behind the scenes or in front of the camera. Students take classes covering traditional topics, such as writing and broadcasting, but also courses that look at sports from academic and business perspectives.

And while a signature feature of the program is the opportunity to connect with the world-class alumni network in sports, there’s much more to the minor.

“Networking is just one of the components,” said Marina Dmukhovskaya, associate director of the sports media minor. “It’s also about finding their niche. By having a variety of classes, both conceptual and skills heavy, it can offer them a great choice.”

Interested in this minor?

If you are a CMCI major, you may discuss and declare the minor with your CMCI advisor. You can also declare by filling out a minor form online.

For students outside of CMCI, the minor can only be declared once you’re enrolled in CMCI 2001: Intro to Sports Media Practices.

Senior Kennedy Pickering credited the minor with helping her discover her niche. She came to CU �鶹ӰԺ because she was interested in the relationship between people and social media. Thanks to the minor, she has had the opportunity to create replay packages for a CU volleyball game; develop technical skills, like working a camera; and network with media professionals when CU Athletics hosted Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff pregame show.

“With the sports media minor, I’ve been able to take classes that gave me more hands-on experience, like Sports Writing and Sport Broadcasting,” Pickering said. “One of my professors is in charge of BuffVision, and through him I’ve been able to work with the camera. At first, I wanted to be a sideline reporter, but then I realized that being on the screen was not for me.” Her goal now is to work in social media for the NFL or Nike.

Community through sport

More than 200 CU �鶹ӰԺ students are currently enrolled in the minor. Not all are athletes, but most aspire to work in the industry, like Eli Grimm, a lifelong figure skater who wants to get into the sports communications field. Beyond their own interests in athletics, Grimm said they see sports as a way to create impact because so many people engage with sports. Even less-mainstream events like Formula 1 races have become more popular thanks, in part, to the Netflix series Drive to Survive.

“Sports are a platform for mass communication. In the Sports Writing class, I got to write about the events I was already watching,” said Grimm, a senior majoring in strategic communication who learned about the program after arriving at CU �鶹ӰԺ as a transfer student. “It was nice to feel like the experience was personalized around my interests.”

“With the sports media minor, I’ve been able to take classes that gave me more hands-on experience.”
Kennedy Pickering, senior

Jacob Dilling, a junior studying communication and a member of the CU ski team, chose the sports media minor as a way to develop a fuller perspective of the industry.

“I still plan on skiing professionally after school. But I think this will help me build connections within my sport and other sports, so that once I’m finished, I have something to fall back on,” Dilling said.

Both students said one thing they enjoy most about the program is the challenge to explore new perspectives on sports and topics they are passionate about. Dmukhovskaya said that enthusiasm is a good indicator of their success after graduation. She herself has worked in the sports media world for years—in addition to covering the Olympics four times, she has been a media manager for the Russian Skating Union, worked with the International Biathlon Union and wrote for the International Paralympics Committee.

“Our students feel equipped, competent and confident as they are entering the job market,” she said. Just as important to their success, though, is the students’ enthusiasm for the course material—key for aspiring professionals looking to enter a highly competitive field.

Those aspiring professionals also benefit from the extensive network of media experts, who offer mentorship and exposure to career opportunities. Winter graduate Cassidy Davis (StratComm’23) said she found professional guidance from alumnus Mike Davies (Jour’94), an executive vice president for Fox Sports based in Los Angeles.

“The best part of my time at CU has been getting such broad experience, including public relations, sports media and graphic design,” Davis said. “Being able to study all of my little niches and learning how to put them together has made me confident about applying what I’ve learned at work.”

Students in CMCI’s sports media minor regularly have opportunities to network and get hands-on experience while completing the program.

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Student Work Gallery: Fall 2023

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 20:22:36 +0000

Student Work Gallery: Fall 2023 Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/01/2023 - 14:22

What's the catch?

There’s no getting back the one that got away, but a prototype app designed by a group of recent graduates could help anglers identify the fish they do catch.

COAI (for Colorado A.I.; pronounced “koi”) Fish, designed by Kendall Fronabarger, Ken Vue and Emerson Swan (all InfoSci’23), is especially aimed at those new to the sport who are curious about the fish they’re catching in Colorado’s waters. The app uses a modified machine learning tool that matches photos uploaded by users to a registry of Colorado species built by the students.

Art as activism

CMCI students are encouraged to use their creativity in building projects that allow them to interpret or reflect upon the challenges facing society. Mixed-media work in the last year has focused on topics such as the climate crisis, the plight of refugees and the struggle for gender equality.

Sharing student perspectives

Students across CMCI find ways to bring together their personal interests and academic pursuits. Since the college’s founding, we have regularly showcased this diverse collection of student work.

See more student projects or submit your work for gallery consideration →

Students across CMCI find ways to bring together their personal interests and academic pursuits. Since the college’s founding, we have showcased this diverse collection of student work.

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