Date and Time:
Thursday, March 30, 2023, Noon - 3 p.m.Location:
First Amendment Forum (second floor)
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
555 N Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85004
Join us for Back-to-Back Cronkite Live Events beginning at noon on Thursday, March 30, examining Trust in the Media with an appetizer reception between events.
A Conversation with Wesley Lowery: Truth and Trust in the Media
Noon – 1 p.m.
Please join Dean Battinto L. Batts Jr. of ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication for a conversation with Wesley Lowery, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and on-air correspondent. He currently works as a contributing editor at The Marshall Project and a Journalist in Residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. In nearly a decade as a national correspondent, Lowery has specialized in issues of race, justice and law enforcement.
Lowery led the Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2016 for the creation and analysis of a real-time database to track fatal police shootings in the United States. Another project, “Murder with Impunity,” an unprecedented look at unsolved homicides in major American cities, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2019. His first book, “They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement,” was a New York Times bestseller and awarded the Los Angeles Times-Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose.
You can watch the event here.
Co-sponsored by Recovering Truth: Religion, Journalism and Democracy in a Post-Truth Era, a project of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University.
Catered Reception
1 – 2 p.m.
The Cronkite School will host a catered reception in the First Amendment Forum.
A Conversation with Leonard Downie Jr. and Andrew Heyward, authors of “Beyond Objectivity: Producing Trustworthy News in Today’s Newsrooms”
2 – 3 p.m.
This event will feature Leonard Downie Jr. and Andrew Heyward discussing their report “Beyond Objectivity: Producing Trustworthy News in Today’s Newsrooms.”
This new report and accompanying guidelines serve as a roadmap for restoring trust in journalism built on fair, fact-based reporting — not an easy task in this tumultuous media landscape, but a vital one.
You’ve heard a lot about the forces that have eroded that trust over the years. But there has been far less attention on how the traditional standard of “objectivity” has eroded as well.
Cronkite faculty members Downie and Heyward argue that the concept of objectivity has lost its relevance for a new generation of journalists and news consumers. Instead, they make the case and provide a “playbook” for producing trustworthy news in today’s (and tomorrow’s) changing newsrooms.
With support from The Stanton Foundation and the help of a talented team of Cronkite students, the authors were able to interview more than 75 news leaders and other practitioners and draw insights from the best practices across print, digital and broadcast news organizations.
In their report, you’ll find actionable guidelines to help today’s newsrooms:
· Move beyond accuracy to truth.
· Unlock the real power of diversity, inclusion and identity.
· Create a credible policy for journalists’ social media and political activities.
· Focus on essential original reporting.
· Show the work as an integral part of the journalism process.
· Develop a set of core values.
But the report, while drawing praise from many news leaders, has also been criticized for potentially undermining objectivity as a bedrock principle of journalism. New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens is among the critics, writing an essay called “How To Destroy (What’s Left Of) Mainstream Media’s Credibility.”
Come and decide for yourself. Join us virtually here.