By Selma Khenissi
member of DC Pro Chapter board of directors
Society of Professional Journalists Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter President Randy Showstack invited national SPJ President Matt Hall to lead a virtual town hall meeting of the chapter and colleagues on Jan. 26, 2021. It was billed as a chat about all things journalism, and it delivered.
The Q&A session, moderated by Showstack, revolved around SPJ in modern times. About 6,000 members strong, the organization is continuing to truck on. Cognizant of the issues surrounding many journalists as a new years begins, Hall covered a wide spectrum of topics – trust in the media, the way recent presidential administrations have treated the media, the attempts at politicizing Voice Of America, the spread of disinformation, the existence of two Americas, to name a few.
“This is an existential moment for journalism,” he said.
Trust in the media has been low since the early 2000s. However, Hall pointed out that trust in the media is currently higher than trust in former President Donald Trump and trust in Congress.
Compared to the 20th century, when the choices for news consumption were very limited, the amount of information from the media has grown exponentially, thanks to the online delivery. With the availability of online media also, unfortunately, comes the creation and promotion of “fake news and disinformation,” especially through social media.
For Hall, a lasting memory of the coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is an image of graffiti carved into the paint on a Capitol door: “Murder the media.”
“What’s happening in this country is unnerving,” Hall said.
He said he sees two Americas – a reality that he strongly encourages journalists to contend with. He encourages journalists to talk to the people who are likely to be Trump supporters because they tend to feel “left out” and “left behind” in American society. “We need to do a better job of listening,” he said.
DC Pro Chapter President Randy Showstack, left, kept the conversation going and the questions coming at national SPJ President Matt Hall during the chapter’s Jan. 26, 2021, “Town Hall with Matt Hall” to discuss all things journalism.
One way for journalists to become better listeners is to “read across the spectrum,” because it is easy to be stuck within our own bubbles. Being more open-minded with our news consumption leads to not only developing a “broader, deeper understanding of the world,” but also the production of journalism work that is smart, ethical and accurate.
“It requires a little bit of work,” Hall said, but it is worthwhile work, given that Trump’s words and actions are, in Hall’s estimation, a symptom of a larger problem in American society.
Strengthening community journalism is another way to improve trust in the media. DC Pro board member Denise Dunbar, editor of the Alexandria Times, asked about community publications. Hall suggested a community advisory board that truly represents the community across all categories, including gender, race and political affiliation. These community advisory boards would serve as “eyes and ears of the community,” he said, which would serve to the strengthen the community and provide ways to develop sustainable business models for community publications.
Another way to improve trust in the media is reaching out to universities where students of color are present in large numbers, including historically black colleges and universities, HBCUs. Hall has a lot of faith in the younger generations, who he believes will be able to solve some of the issues that appear to be intractable for current generations.
However, Hall believes that at this moment in time, advocacy is an essential part of what SPJ does. “We have done advances in the past,” he said, referring to DC Pro board member Kathryn Foxhall’s efforts in turn back the “Censorship by PIO” practices in government agencies, whereby public information officers are used to either block reporters’ access to key agency staff or severely restrict what is said by them through monitoring interviews.
The most important takeaway from the evening’s discussion, however, is the need for journalists to do their work in ways that honor the press freedoms that the Founding Fathers had in mind. “You can’t arrest journalists for doing their job,” he said.
Immediate Past Chapter President Jonathan Make live-tweeted during the Zoom town hall. Here are some of his tweets, and more tweets.
Other tweets by Make during the town hall: on the topic of growing SPJ membership and diversity; on SPJ Fellow Marty Baron retiring from executive editor role at the Washington Post; on Trump as disease or symptom of the fake news rampant in American politics and social media.
The town hall is viewable on YouTube here.