Media Kit - News Engagement · ! 3! Press Conference Participants Sonya Forte Duhé – Bio Sonya...
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1 Media Kit Contents: Press Release – pg. 2 Press Conference Participants – pgs. 3-4 Poll Data – pgs. 5-8 Fact Sheet – pg. 9 Presidential Column “Is News Engagement Endangered” – pg. 10 Link to Audio of Press Conference – pg. 11 Tuesday, October 7
Transcript of Media Kit - News Engagement · ! 3! Press Conference Participants Sonya Forte Duhé – Bio Sonya...
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Media Kit Contents: Press Release – pg. 2 Press Conference Participants – pgs. 3-4 Poll Data – pgs. 5-8 Fact Sheet – pg. 9 Presidential Column “Is News Engagement Endangered” – pg. 10 Link to Audio of Press Conference – pg. 11
Tuesday, October 7
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For Immediate Release Contact: Paula Poindexter, AEJMC President (512) 695-‐6879
Journalism Educators release poll about trust of the press and public’s grade of news coverage; also announce first-‐ever
National News Engagement Day on October 7 WHAT: Results of AEJMC Poll, including trust of the press, compared to social media, and the public’s grade
of news coverage, will be released along with details of first-‐ever National News Engagement Day to be held Tuesday, October 7.
WHEN: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 at 2 p.m. WHERE: National Press Club
Murrow Room 529 14th St., NW Washington, D.C. (202) 662-‐7500
WHY: Poll identifies public concerns about the press that may be barriers to news engagement; National News Engagement Day seeks to overcome barriers and make news engagement a national priority again.
VISUALS: Data tables from the AEJMC Poll on Public Attitudes Toward the Press
§ Public’s trust of the press compared to Twitter and Facebook § Public’s grade on how well the press covers the news § Public’s attitudes about journalists and the value of news
INTERVIEWS: AEJMC President and Director of AEJMC Poll; Executive Director of API and other journalism leaders;
Director of Fitzwater Center for Communication in New Hampshire; Director of Loyola University New Orleans School of Mass Communications; American University Journalism Division Director; and Howard University and University of Maryland students will be available.
ABOUT AEJMC: The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (www.aejmc.org), the sponsor of the poll and National News Engagement Day, is a nonprofit association of more than 3,700 journalism and communication educators, media professionals and graduate students. The Association’s mission is to promote the highest standards for journalism and communication education, cultivate journalism and communication research, encourage the implementation of a multi-‐cultural society in the classroom, and defend freedom of communication to achieve better professional practice and a better informed public. For more information about National News Engagement Day, an effort to show that being informed is empowering, enjoyable and essential for a healthy democracy, please visit www.newsengagement.org.
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Press Conference Participants
Sonya Forte Duhé – Bio Sonya Forte Duhé serves as Director and Professor in the School of Mass Communication at Loyola University, New Orleans. Duhé began her tenure at Loyola in August 2009 returning to her home state of Louisiana. Since her arrival, she has led the School to two national accreditations, ACEJMC and CEPR, making the school the only Jesuit and only school in Louisiana to hold both accreditations. The former award winning television news reporter and anchor is nationally recognized as a leader in strategic communications training for both the public and private sectors. Duheʹ′ earned her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism in 1983 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and her Master of Science in Journalism in 1984 from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. After working several years in television news as a reporter, anchor and public affairs show host, Duhé received her Ph.D. in Journalism in 1993 from the University of Missouri. Dr. Duhé can be contacted at [email protected]. .
Karen Hansen – Bio Karen Hansen is the Membership and Programs Manager for the Radio Television Digital News Association, the world's largest professional organization exclusively serving the electronic news profession, including news executives, digital news professionals, educators, and students. Since joining RTDNA, Karen has worked extensively with RTDNA's student members, including administering a scholarship program, developing campus chapter resources, and helping to introduce a new Student Murrow Awards Program. RTDNA is encouraging student members, as actively engaged news consumers and producers, to bring the news to their peers on October 7, while professional members likewise have an opportunity to share the news making process with their viewers. Find Karen on Twitter @hansenkarenm or by email at [email protected] and visit www.rtdna.org for more. Kristen D. Nevious –Bio Kristen D. Nevious has served as the director of The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH, since 2004. The Center's students have taken full advantage of its location in the home of the First-‐in-‐the-‐Nation Presidential Primary, engaging in the full presidential election cycle as credentialed media, from the first campaign events in diners and schools, to the primary, each of the national political conventions, the first vote at Dixville Notch, and the Presidential Inauguration. "The informed participation that is essential to the health of our democracy does not just happen. It requires commitment. It requires purposive action. It requires that each of us take the time to engage in the issues, the events, the people of the day. This proposition lies at the core of the Center's mission and, I believe, at the core of National News Engagement Day," said Dr. Nevious who can be reached at [email protected] . Paula Poindexter – Bio Paula Poindexter, the 2013-‐2014 president of AEJMC, the largest association of journalism educators, graduate students, and media and communication professionals in the world, first proposed the idea of a day devoted to engaging with news in her book, Millennials, News, and Social Media: Is News Engagement a Thing of the Past?. After Poindexter became AEJMC president, she developed the idea into National News Engagement Day, which became one of her most important presidential initiatives. The AEJMC Poll on Public Attitudes Toward the Press, which Poindexter conducted for National News Engagement Day, identifies barriers to engaging with news and opportunities for the news media. For more information, please email [email protected] or visit Dr. Poindexter’s faculty page at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism: http://journalism.utexas.edu/faculty/paula-‐poindexter.
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Tom Rosenstiel – Bio Tom Rosenstiel, Executive Director, American Press Institute, is one of the nation’s most recognized thinkers on the future of media and the author or co-‐author of seven books, including The Elements of Journalism: What News People Should Know and the Public Should Expect. Before joining the American Press Institute in January 2013, Rosenstiel was founder and for 16 years director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. He also co-‐founded and served as vice chair of the Committee of Concerned Journalists. During his journalism career he worked as media writer for the Los Angeles Times for a decade, chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek, and press critic for MSNBC. For more information, email Tom at [email protected] or follow him @tbr1. Jessica Schram – Bio Jessica Schram is a senior communication major on the public relations track with a minor in leadership studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the Vice President of her campus chapter of PRSSA and is also the Director of Public Relations for the only student-‐run education nonprofit, Student Voice, which is putting students at the forefront of their educations around the world. Jessica is interested in learning how students get their news and would like to collaborate with other students, teachers and administrators on how to incorporate current events into all levels of the American curriculum as supplements to class discussion. For more information, email Jessica at [email protected] or [email protected]. John C. Watson – Bio John C. Watson is the director of the Journalism Division at the American University School of Communication in Washington, D.C. He is convinced that gaming has proved to be an effective and painless means of learning and exercising the brain. So he is leading a team of AU faculty and staff to stage news competitions, “The News Games,” that pit teams of students from every academic major against their peers. The competition will culminate in a campus-‐wide TV game show championship on Oct. 7 in the School of Communication’s state-‐of-‐the art media lab. More information about the competition is available at http://www.american.edu/soc/journalism/the-‐news-‐games.cfm. Dr. Watson can be reached at [email protected]. Leticia Williams – Bio Leticia Williams is currently a doctoral student at Howard University in the Communication, Culture, and Media Studies program. Her news engagement began at the University of Southern California where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. As Leticia learned how the news informed and influenced society she was inspired to research how meaning is produced through news media. For example, Leticia conducted a study to examine how First Lady Michelle Obama’s identity was constructed and negotiated in the news. In addition to her research, Leticia is an instructor at Howard University where she is able to facilitate her students’ news engagement to emphasize the importance of being an informed citizen. Leticia can be contacted at [email protected].
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AEJMC Poll on Public Attitudes Toward the Press
Data Sheet Poll released Tuesday,
September 23 Public’s Engagement with News
% of Public Getting News 7 Days Per Week 57% % of Public Purposely Seeking News 7 Days Per Week 44%
Platform Public Usually Uses to Access News
TV 41% Laptop 23% Smartphone 13% Print Paper 8% Tablet 7% Other 5% Radio 3%
The Public Grades the Press
Grade News Coverage Coverage of Most Important Problem A 13% 11% B 36% 28% C 33% 32% D 12% 15% F 6% 13%
Public’s Trust of Different Sources for News
% Saying “A Lot”
Local TV News 42% Local Newspaper 34% Network TV News 30%
Family & Friends
28% Cable News 27% National Newspaper 26%
22% Journalists 17% Facebook 14%
Government Websites
13% Twitter 9% Bloggers 9%
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Public’s Attitudes about Journalism and News in their Lives
% Strongly Agreeing
News on Internet should be free 45% Duty to keep informed 37% Enjoy keeping up with news 36% Raised to believe being informed is important 35% Important for news media to be watchdog 30%
News organizations more concerned about being first than right
28% Mobile devices make it easy to keep up with news 27% Most news is biased News organizations should be helpful and caring
like good neighbors
24%
22% People important to you value keeping up with news 20%
News media care little about people like you
19% Being informed makes you feel empowered 19% Depend on news to help with daily life 16% News is often inaccurate 16% Poor job providing context 14%
News media protect democracy more than hurt it
14% Press has too much freedom 13% Depend on social media to help with daily life 12% News projects accurate representation of constituent 10%
News organizations willing to admit mistakes
10% Keeping up with news is a waste of time 7%
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Types of News the Public Pays Attention to Often
Local News 69% Weather 66% Breaking News 58% National News 57%
International News
42% Natural Disasters 38% Crime News 34% Government 32%
Politics
31% Sports 30% Election News 27% Accidents 27%
Technology
23% Health News 22% Celebrity and Entertainment News 21% Environment 20%
Consumer and Personal Finance
19% Business News 19% Opinion about the News 15% Art and Culture 13%
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About the AEJMC Poll The poll was conducted July, 2014 under the direction of Dr. Paula Poindexter, 2013- 2014 AEJMC president. Poindexter, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, commissioned the Office of Survey Research (OSR) at the University of Texas at Austin to handle the fieldwork. The sample of online respondents, 18 years and older, was acquired through Survey Sampling International, an internationally respected survey sampling firm. The source of the online sample was an actively managed panel. Since the panel sample was non-probability rather than random, it was requested that the sample match U.S. demographic statistics. Of the 1,505 respondents who completed the questionnaire, 52% were female. An analysis of the sample’s race and ethnicity found 61% were white, 18% were Latino/Hispanic, 13% were African American, 5% were Asian American, and 1% were Native American. 29% of survey participants were between the ages 18 to 31. This age group is also known as the Millennial generation. 31% of respondents were ages 32 to 49. This age group is also known as Generation X. 34% were between the ages of 50 and 68 which is the age group for Baby Boomers. 6% of respondents were 69 years or older which would make them pre-Baby Boomers. An analysis of education found 21% had a high school degree or less; 31% had some college or technical school degree; 30% had a college degree and the remaining had some graduate education or more. Approximately half of the survey sample had a household income of $40,000 or more. 48% had a landline and a cellphone or smartphone and 44% had a cell or smartphone only. Note: 1) For information on online panels and evaluating non-probability Internet panels, please see Callegaro & Disogra (2008) and AAPOR’s Standard Definitions (2011, p. 38).
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Some Facts about National News Engagement Day
National News Engagement Day was created to: Raise awareness about the importance of being informed. Encourage everyone to engage with news from reading and watching to tweeting and discussing. Help people of all ages discover the benefits of news. Educate the public about the principles and process of journalism. Ensure news engagement does not die out.
Tuesday, October 7 was selected as National News Engagement Day because:
The first Tuesday in October is one month before Election Day, which falls the first Tuesday in November except when the first day in November is a Tuesday. Early October provides flexibility for K-‐12 and college classrooms to integrate National News Engagement Day activities into the curriculum.
It’s easy to remember the first Tuesday in October. The idea for National News Engagement Day originated from:
Paula Poindexter, the 2013-‐2014 president of AEJMC (Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication). A journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Poindexter first proposed setting aside a day every year to “revitalize the public’s engagement with news, regardless of generation” in her book Millennials, News, and Social Media: Is News Engagement a Thing of the Past? (New York: Peter Lang, 2012, pp. 131-‐132). As president of AEJMC, Poindexter made National News Engagement Day one of her most important presidential initiatives.
Website and Pinterest:
newsengagement.org; pinterest.com/aejmc Hashtag:
#newsengagementday Logo Designed by:
Amy Zerba, an editor at the New York Times who received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.
National News Engagement Activity:
National News Engagement Day events will be taking place in the overwhelming majority of states, the District of Columbia, and six countries (newsengagement.org). These events will be sponsored by journalism and communication programs, news associations and communication organizations, local and national media, civic organizations and foundations, and primary and secondary teachers.
About the Sponsor:
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (www.aejmc.org), the sponsor of National News Engagement Day, is a nonprofit association of more than 3,700 journalism and communication educators, media professionals and graduate students. The Association’s mission is to promote the highest standards for journalism and communication education, cultivate journalism and communication research, encourage the implementation of a multi-‐cultural society in the classroom, and defend freedom of communication to achieve better professional practice and a better informed public. A committee of AEJMC members chaired by Paula Poindexter and the AEJMC executive director Jennifer McGill and her staff have organized the first-‐ever National News Engagement Day.
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Press Conference – The National Press Club Washington, D.C. Tuesday, September 23 To listen to the audio file from the National News Engagement Day Press Conference held on Tuesday, September 23, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., please click the link below: http://youtu.be/U5gaEEHjBMs
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