Engaged Journalism and Education Reporting: Understanding the Benefits and Pitfalls of Newsroom Engagement

Abstract

In the past 20 years, engaged journalism has risen to prominence in American newsrooms. To engage with students --one of the most underrepresented groups in scholastic communities-- journalists at the Seattle Times Ed Lab created an engagement journalism endeavor called the Student Voices project. Using a qualitative interview research design involving semi-structured conversations, this thesis explores the extent to which the Student Voices project aligns with engagement journalism practices, as well as the benefits and challenges the project encounters. This study finds that the project faces structural and practical challenges that, in some ways, prevent it from increasing –and maintaining– the degree to which young people are considered in education reporting. Still, this research highlights the benefits this project brings to the Education Lab’s coverage in the form of more diverse and representative stories. More broadly, it highlights the value that engaged journalism can bring to the contemporary education beat and expands upon the growing scholarly knowledge around approaches to engagement journalism in today’s education beat coverage.