Where Do We Go From Here?

The pandemic and other events from 2020 brought many new challenges to the industry. Through its Where Do We Go From Here webinar series, the Hubbard School hosted many industry experts to discuss the year’s impact on different areas of media.

TV & RADIO

In October, Director Cohen welcomed Ginny Morris, Dan Seeman and Kirk Varner, all from Hubbard Broadcasting, to discuss the organization’s response to the pandemic. The group also covered how KSTP covered the social unrest of summer 2020 and what changes the pandemic may bring to workplace culture and the organization’s coverage.

“We’ve seen our streaming numbers go up as people are at home working. So much radial listening typically takes place in the car, so that’s kind of a point of vulnerability that we knew we were going to encounter, and we have, but we've seen our streaming numbers go up pretty considerably.”

—Ginny Morris, Hubbard Broadcasting “We were really adopters with streaming on laptops and on desktops, and we were very early adopters on smart speakers like Alexa. And it’s really paid off. Listening patterns are completely disrupted. We don’t get mom in the car bringing her kids to school every day anymore, or we don't get some of those folks that are driving to work every day. So these digital platforms have been really important.”

—Dan Seeman, Hubbard Radio “I don’t think anybody had on their bingo card for 2020 a pandemic, social unrest, and then, you know, all of the day-to-day normal things you have in terms of running a news operation. And, let’s put in an election, which depending on which candidate you want to listen to, the one thing they seem[ed] to agree on is that it [was] the most important election of our time.”

—Kirk Varner, KTSP

NONPROFIT NEWS ORGANIZATIONS

In November, Assistant Professor Valerie Belair-Gagnon welcomed several leaders from nonprofit news organizations to talk about the funding and future of their entities. Tanner Curl of MinnPost, Meg Martin of MPR News and Sylvia Strobel of TPT talked about challenges, changes and bright spots brought on by the pandemic.

“We’ve seen an increase in philanthropic support from all sources—grant funders individual donors and within individual donors at all levels—which I think again just shows the resonance and the importance of the work directly impacting people's lives.” “It’s really critical that when we’re telling stories of joy and innovation and of change and of science and of solutions, that we're telling those stories from people in communities all across the state.”

—Meg Martin, MPR News

—Tanner Curl, MinnPost “We've had a better reaction from our [event] audience who’ve been able to engage with us during this period who might not have come to a live event. I think that'll be something we're talking about when we can do live events in person again. How do we keep that element of digital connection to be able to have that reach?”

—Sylvia Strobel, TPT

NEWSROOMS IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

In December, Director Cohen talked to Rene Sanchez of the Star Tribune, Lisa Hills of the Minnesota Newspapers Association and Matt McMillian of Press Publications about where newsrooms are headed in the next five years and how the pandemic changed the way newsrooms work.

“I think our challenge has been to cover these enormous stories relentlessly, but to keep up staff morale at a time when people were also sacrificing some of their income and also taking personal safety risks. It’s just been extraordinary to see the commitment to journalism from the staff despite the enormity of those challenges.”

—Rene Sanchez, Star Tribune “Immediately we started to work behind the scenes to make sure that newspapers were declared essential services before Governor Walz issued the stay at home order. We've done a lot of lobbying on the federal level to make sure that local journalism issues or local journalism is supported.”

—Lisa Hills, MNA “It’s just amazing how, as people are at home, more have valued this local content and this local journalism and telling the story through local people’s voices. So [the pandemic] has definitely brought us closer to our readers and it's brought us closer to our marketing partners.”

—Matt McMillian, Press Publications

DON’T MISS THESE UPCOMING EVENTS

POLITICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

April 15, 3:30 p.m.

The University of Minnesota Spotlight Series is a collaborative partnership between the Institute for Advanced Study, Northrop, and the University Honors Program to present lectures, panel discussions, exhibits, and other events throughout the academic year around timely topics of interest. This final event of the six-part series features Assistant Professor Colin Agur.

SCHOLARSHIP SHOWCASE

April 2021

Watch for the Hubbard School’s first-ever virtual Scholarship Showcase. We’ll highlight the 2020-2021 undergraduate and graduate scholarship recipients and scholarship donors. We’ll share remarks, special projects, and anecdotes from School leadership, students and donors as well.

RACE AND MEDIA IN THE TWIN CITIES

In February, new Hubbard School professor of journalism, diversity and equality Danielle Kilgo brought her research on race and media to a conversation with Omar Jimenez of CNN (Jimenez was arrested in Minneapolis during the unrest of summer 2020) and Kyndell Harkness, assistant managing editor of diversity and community at the Star Tribune. Along with Director Cohen, the group talked about the challenges and experiences of reporting on race and racism in Minneapolis and beyond, and how media organizations can reckon with and build upon lessons from 2020.

“What I think has to happen is that, this attention to police violence, this attention to police presence, in certain communities and lack of presence in other communities has to be regularly covered before it becomes an event again.”

—Danielle Kilgo, Hubbard School

COMMENCEMENT

May 2021

“In the room where we're looking at images and deciding on headlines and picking things out, there were some tough conversations about images we should show. The photographers were talking about making sure that they weren't being stereotypical in the images that they were producing and we were really being fairly conscious about that when we were talking about putting things in print.”

After a successful 2020 virtual Commencement, the Hubbard School plans to honor its 2021 graduates again this spring. Watch for speeches, videos and slideshows celebrating the Class of 2021 to appear on hsjmc.umn.edu in early May.

— Kyndell Harkness,Star Tribune, talking about the George Floyd events “Conceptually I think there's this idea of what bias is… Honestly there's not a single reporter out there that does not have bias, and I think finally coming to terms with that realization is something that I think all of us need to get on the same page with. It's just acknowledging the fact that I come from a certain set of backgrounds, I come from a certain set of circumstances that are going to make me inherently view a story in a different lens than someone else.”

—Omar Jimenez, CNN

Videos from the Where Do We Go From Here series can be found at hsjmc.umn.edu/where-do-we-go-here