Reporting

It’s a dilemma that almost every general-assignment reporter, producer or editor faces: A new, complex topic and a fast-approaching deadline. As specialty beats are cut back, it’s a situation that is more and more common in newsrooms today.

Throughout the academic year, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center hosts a weekly speaker series. Over the spring semester in 2014, these events featured a wide variety of journalists and media thinkers, from Julia Angwin and Andrew Revkin to Demorah Amos and Brian McGrory. We’ve rounded up discussions of interest for journalists and media members of all kinds; topics of conversation range from media coverage of Syria to the struggle to maintain privacy in a world of omnipresent surveillance.

Throughout the academic year, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center hosts a weekly Speaker Series. Over the fall 2014 semester, these events have featured a wide variety of journalists and media thinkers, from Charles M. Blow of The New York Times to Miriam Elder of BuzzFeed. The topics of conversation have ranged from the rise of citizen journalism to the need to reform the U.S. presidential election system to promote greater democracy.

Just a decade or so ago, most of the fruits of academia were relegated to library shelves and narrow circles of specialists — journals and the studies within them were placed a long way away from the immediate reach of the public and the media.

In December 2014 the Knight Foundation and Carnegie Corporation announced continued funding for an effort to reform journalism education. Below, John Wihbey of Journalist’s Resource reflects on the progress of the initiative in the context of wider media trends.

Journalists are often thought of as being “word people,” and however true that may or may not be, even the most diligent reporter can blanche when faced with a thicket of figures. But sidestepping or downplaying numbers can be perilous.

Appropriately and accurately used, they can be the very foundation of a story — a project is over or under budget; students’ graduation rates are above or below average; prices are collapsing or spiking. It can even tell you when something is fact or folly.