"The journalism industry is losing future generations — here’s what we can do "
"In my 16 years building the PBS News Student Reporting Labs (SRL), I’ve never been more anxious about the future. Not only is journalism shedding jobs and desperately searching for new business models while press freedoms melt away, but the majority of young people view the news media as “boring,” “biased,” and “bad.” Eighty-four percent of teenage respondents characterized it using those words in a recent report from the News Literacy Project.
This is a flashing red warning signal we can no longer ignore. To build an informed, engaged audience — and workforce — 20 years from now, we need to play the long game and plant the seeds today.
Media organizations and funders should proactively involve young people in journalism. There are some stories best told by young people, and youth media programs can help teenagers recognize themselves as important contributors to the news ecosystem, not simply as content consumers. If we don’t invest in building a community that involves the next generation of news creators and consumers, we can’t act surprised if there isn't one.
Bottom-line pressures and federal funding cuts are dismantling many of the programs that serve to build trust with young people, at the very moment when they are needed the most. In just the past two years, the youth media ecosystem in the United States has been gutted. Conde Nast disbanded Teen Vogue, one of the last national publications that spoke to young people about tough issues without condescension. Seattle public radio station KUOW’s RadioActive program, which offered radio training and programs geared toward young people, was shuttered in 2024, as was YR Media, formerly Youth Radio, a California-based program aimed at BIPOC creators which had successfully trained young storytellers for decades. Channel One, which once reached millions of students with in-school broadcasts, is long gone, as are CNN’s Student Bureaus, which once produced stories from schools across the U.S. until corporate cost-cutting sent it to the chopping block in 2014."
