Engage Episcopal: Alumni Journalists Discuss A Changing Media Culture

On Wednesday, Dec. 2, Anne Barr, Hon. moderated the second Engage Episcopal virtual event, a conversation of four EA alumni journalists: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Jay Branegan '68 and Art Carey '68, POLITICO reporter Lara Seligman '07, and Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Erin McCarthy '13.

The four panelists spoke in-depth about their careers and the changes in their field over the last few decades. Owing to the mix of two seasoned former journalists from the class of 1968 and two young female reporters on the panel, participants were able to enjoy a fascinating conversation on the nature of journalism, the economics of news, the impact of social media on the profession, the difficulties of remaining balanced, and what skills young EA alumni might need to make it in the field.

Ann Barr, Hon., who is the advisor of EA's student-run newspaper, the Scholium, started off by asking the panelists about their early careers. Both Lara and Erin thanked Art for helping them get their starts in news while he was at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Lara spent a summer shadowing Art while Erin spent two weeks at the Inquirer for her senior project, which turned into several summer jobs, and later, full-time employment. Art was proud to have recommended Erin and the many journalists EA and the Scholium have produced, sharing, "Erin reported and wrote six byline stories in those two weeks."

And while good writing skills that had been honed at EA helped all four panelists stand out in the early stages of their careers, so much has changed in the field in the last decade. Art and Jay spoke about the reduced focus on writing.

Art advised because writing and reporting have diverged of late, that would-be writers should not necessarily enter journalism. "I don't think writing is valued as much, and I think part of that is just a function of the way the information (the "content") is delivered. The business is engaged in ferocious competition for attention. There are so many sources for information now, and so many outlets for news," said Art.

"You always have to add value," said Lara, "give some additional exclusive or new piece of information." Journalism has evolved into a different profession, she continued. At POLITICO, she aims to keep her articles brief, and "if it can be a tweet, just tweet it," she said.

Art remembered the golden age of journalism, when none of the technological changes that undermined the newsroom had begun to surface yet. "At the Inquirer, we had a nationally famous happy newsroom. People from all over wanted to work at the newsroom because it was so much fun." And, journalists could take a break from their beat reporting for long stretches of time to work on a deeper story.

"Right now, in this current climate, with social media and the competing news sources, it seems impossible to imagine someone to be able to be pulled away from their day-to-day job to not produce content for weeks or months at a time," Erin said.

Journalists also have more demands than in years past. "I understand that not only do you have to write the story, but you have to write the headline, you have to choose photographs and write captions, you have to write a summary for online posts," Art said. "For larger stories, I find it cool to have that level of control over how my story is presented," replied Erin, "for quicker stories it can be burdensome to do that."

With the reduction in news staff, fewer copy editors and fact checkers mean that journalists have to do a lot of the fact checking themselves. Jay remembered the days when teams of fact checking teams had to pour over every word with a red pencil. Now that errors can be corrected quickly online, "we always have a second read, but really the onus is on the reporter to get the facts right," Lara said.

Erin and Lara advised would-be-journalists to get some practice with social media, which has caused some of these tectonic shifts in the field. 'Everyone knows who the number-one writer is on the site at any given time," said Erin. With economy-metrics and story-success being measured by clicks and read time, your following on Twitter has a huge impact on your success.

"You never know what's going to go viral," said Lara. "As soon as you do something, you just have to think about the next thing to keep up your momentum, because you're constantly competing against the 24-hour news cycle."

And that means there is more competition than ever, while journalists and news outlets are simultaneously being attacked for editorializing and lacking multiple viewpoints. "The Age of Trump has really tested journalism," said Lara. "You can have all the fact checkers in the world, but if one side thinks the fact checkers are lying, what good does it do you?"

When Art and Jay were writing, the current practice of live "fact checking" on the news or in parentheses in the newspaper was unheard of. "As a traditionalist, I'm really appalled that analysis and opinion have slipped into all the things we normally think of as news stories, but I understand why they're doing it," Jay said.

Social media can exacerbate this issue, said Erin, with how quickly updates come without context. All of the panelists agreed that the field had not yet figured out the best way to combat misinformation without overly editorializing. "I think it's one of the big problems in journalism in our time," said Lara. "I think it's this constantly evolving thing," said Erin.

"Art and I are going to go out and feed our brontosauruses now," chuckled Jay, reflecting on how much has changed since his days as a journalist.

To hear more of their fascinating conversation, including the most gratifying and thrilling experiences of their careers (Jay once flew over the Berlin wall with the Secretary of Defense in a military helicopter, and Lara was recently on assignment with Green Berets in Mauritania and Senegal), and more about their experiences as journalists during the pandemic, you can watch the program in its entirety here.