At J-Day, student enthusiasm overwhelms challenges facing industry

For the nearly 1,300 student journalists who attended J-Day at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information on Wednesday, the sweeping changes hitting the industry—from technology, to geopolitics, to economics—were impossible to ignore, especially as many of them consider majoring in journalism when they get to college.

9News investigative reporter Marshall Zelinger (Jour’02) was not there to sweep those concerns away. But he encouraged students to rise to meet challenges, rather than backing down.  

“Be adaptable,” Zelinger said. “Break habits and adapt to the change that comes with the unexpected.”

Photo by Jack Moody

For Zelinger, the keynote speaker and a presenter, adaptability means more than just learning new skills. It’s about facing the challenges the journalism industry brings head-on. And it’s a lesson he learned as a newly minted CU Boulder graduate pivoting from the sports he covered as a student to the news side of the business.

He quickly found he had a talent for simplifying complex political topics for an audience, a skill he’s used throughout his career. As a political journalist on Next With Kyle Clark, he asks newsmakers hard-hitting questions while providing balanced reporting in a time of heightened polarization and diminishing press freedoms.

Objectivity and journalism ethics were the themes of his breakout session. Truth has become harder to come by, as politicians stoke outrage among increasingly partisan bases and new tools allow for increasingly sophisticated deepfakes. Reporting, he said, is no longer as simple as presenting both sides of an issue and letting the reader decide what’s actually happening.

“When it comes to politics, and political ads, it’s just truth testing,” Zelinger said. “It’s doing what is factual and dissecting what is being said, instead of hearing opposing views with no contextual explanation between them.”

‘Energy and excitement’ from students

Photo by Nathan Thompson

J-Day is an annual celebration of journalism put on by the Colorado Student Media Association. For the second year in a row, CSMA brought its signature event to CU Boulder, giving high-school students an up-close look at the industry through the eyes of reporters, CMDI alumni, faculty and others.

“I understand why people are concerned about the state of journalism, but I would encourage those people to experience an event like J-Day, to see how enthusiastic young people are about news,” said Lori Bergen, founding dean of CMDI and a former journalist. “Talking to the students who attended, and seeing their energy and excitement, gives me great confidence that journalism’s future is brighter than the pessimists believe.”

For student journalists like June Meehan, the chance to hear from Zelinger and others left her inspired to keep pursuing challenging stories. The senior from Fairview High School, in Boulder, has faced administrative roadblocks in reporting on controversial topics, but left Zelinger’s talk ready to handle these challenges.

“Even if I’m interviewing people in power like our principal or our teachers, I’ll make sure to do the right thing and ask tough questions—even if it’s not the most comfortable subject,” she said.

That’s just the takeaway CMDI wanted for the students who attended J-Day.

“I hope students leave the day inspired to continue doing great journalism at their high schools and equipped with a powerful network of peers, alumni, faculty and industry pros who encourage them to pursue journalism as a field of study and career,” said Christi Wade, student recruitment program manager at the college.  

Unsurprisingly, a session on artificial intelligence in journalism attracted a large crowd of students who were curious about the technology’s potential to simplify tedious tasks—like poring through thousands of pages of public records—but also replace or corrupt traditional reporting.

Photo by Nathan Thompson

“We as professionals are taught that journalism is unbiased, but A.I. doesn’t know everything,” said Sean Marcus, an interactive learning designer at MediaWise, the media literacy arm of the prestigious Poynter Institute. 

Poynter partnered with CMDI as a stop on the institute’s 50th anniversary celebration, which includes a traveling exhibition on the history and future of journalism. J-Day students were invited to visit Moments of Truth, which remains open through Oct. 9.

“A.I. companies and products can be inaccurate,” Marcus said. “Other organizations and entities have control over how these technologies are created and implemented, so at its heart, A.I. is problematic.”

Sam Rauscher, a sophomore at Centaurus High School, in Lafayette, and junior editor-in-chief of the newspaper club, recognizes the struggles newsrooms face as A.I. becomes part of the conversation. It’s something he already sees as a student.

“As it makes its way into all of our classes and assignments, it does cause some fear—but there are still going to be some ways that humans can regulate it,” Rauscher said. “We have to be the center of the A.I., instead of running away from it, to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.”

He is eager to take what he learned at J-Day back to the classroom and use it to lead his team next year, when he’ll be editor-in-chief.

“A.I. is a tool that can be used to make our content better, but only if it’s used very strategically and carefully,” he said. “We’re not going to generate articles with it, but we can definitely get ideas and help from it.”