Gen Zers Giovanni Burch, 17, and Selah Jacoway, 22, are passionate about making music and telling stories through their art. What they didn’t know is that the same passion they had for music would lend itself to a passion for journalism.
“I’m a storyteller before anything else,” Burch said.
Both Burch and Jacoway grew up in the St. Paul area, pursuing music in their youth. Jacoway started rapping at the age of 3 and produced her first song, “Don’t bully,” at 10. She’s performed across Minnesota for more than 40 venues, including schools and community events. Burch said he got his start in high school, recording music on his iPad with the $50 microphone his grandparents gifted him. For both, music has been an outlet to express their thoughts about the things most important to them.
In July, Burch and Jacoway were presented with an opportunity to pursue their storytelling in a new way.
“I knew I wanted to do this but didn’t know journalism was the word for it,” Burch said.
The Center for Broadcast Journalism, an educational media organization that aims to “transform media by empowering storytellers with diverse backgrounds,” launched its first youth-focused intensive program in July and the two were accepted as a part of the cohort. In four weeks the aspiring journalists would learn with support from the St. Paul News Network, the art of writing journalistically and formatting stories into audio and video format, along with job readiness skills and networking. They received a $1,200 stipend for their work funded in partnership with Ramsey County Workforce Solutions.
“This was really a community effort of multiple different organizations coming in and investing in the development of a workforce pipeline for journalists,” Center for Broadcast Journalism president and intensive director Georgia Fort said.
During the first week, each program member received their own personal camera, microphone and recording equipment that they’d get to keep even after the program finished. They met journalists like MinnPost managing editor Harry Colbert and sat in on a Sahan Journal editorial meeting, which Jacoway said was life changing because it allowed her to see herself in a similar space in the future.
“All I knew was that journalists wrote stories, I didn’t really know what that looked like,” Jacoway said.
Becoming journalists
Members of the inaugural Summer Journalism Intensive, a collaboration between the Center for Broadcast Journalism and SPNN, with funding support from Ramsey County Workforce Solutions, are from left: Selah Jacoway, Rachel Ashley Littles, Ciara Brooks, Angeline Patrick Pacheco, Gloria Ngwa, Tyshawn Spearman and Giovanni Burch. The intensive taught journalism, job readiness and networking skills. (Connor Anderson / Center for Broadcast Journalism
Center for Broadcast Journalism chair and intensive director Marianne Combs said she loves working with young, talented people and helping them discover the storyteller within themselves.
“This is really part of the core work of the Center for Broadcast Journalism,” said Combs, who also is managing news director for the center. “We are a radio station, we are a newsroom and we are an education wing, and our whole goal is to transform media to better reflect the increasingly diverse communities we serve.”
She said the young journalists were hungry and blew away her expectations. She recalled nights when cohort members like Burch and Jocaway texted her asking for advice on stories they were working on long after their work day had ended. Combs said the intensive proved what she’d suspected: that there is a lot of local journalistic talent in Minnesota from diverse and marginalized communities. She said all they need is the opportunity, the access to training and the resources to do the work, learn and thrive.
“I want to see these young people transform Twin Cities newsrooms in the years to come,” Combs said. “With this group I have no doubt that’s going to happen.”
The Pioneer Press interviewed Burch and Jacoway about their experiences as young journalists and what they imagine the future of journalism to be. Here’s what they said.
How Gen Z stays informed
Burch and Jacoway said people their age often get their news from social media apps like Tik Tok and Instagram reels. It’s short form content that’s easily digestible. But Burch and Jacoway don’t think this necessarily is a positive thing.
“I think that when you start getting to a point where all the information you’re consuming is in 30-second clips, then you start looking at life in 30-second clips and you don’t start building any longevity for yourself or your future,” Burch said.
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Jacoway said that the danger of short form content is that it’s not always fact checked and people become quick to believe anything they hear or read without questioning it. She believes this is the case because people, especially her age and younger, aren’t being taught how to find credible sources. Though she feels there’s value in reading long form news, she said the US doesn’t provide people the opportunity to live slowly, so short form content might be the best option for most.
They also expressed concern that digital algorithms feed into people’s personal biases and don’t allow for nuanced perspectives. Instead, news consumers are stuck in a bubble of their device’s making. Burch said it’s like when someone grows up in a household with specific religious or political beliefs that they naturally adopt as a part of their identity.
“It’s kind of blissful ignorance,” Burch said. “You don’t have to face the real world until you have to face it.”
General distrust in news
A challenge they’ve encountered is the public’s distrust of journalists. Burch said it makes sense that people find it hard to trust others when times are uncertain in politics, finances, healthcare and more. Jacoway said she thinks the country is the most divided it’s been since the Civil War.
Giovanni Burch, right, interviews James Garrett Jr., co-founder of 4RM+ULA architectural design firm, on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in St. Paul. (Tyshawn Spearman / Center for Broadcast Journalism)
“I don’t know if I’d tell anybody to trust journalism,” Burch said. “I think I’d tell everybody that you need to hear everybody out.”
Burch said the public often believes individual journalists have an agenda because of their personal beliefs. People have a hard time separating the job of a journalist from who they are, he explained. Because it’s difficult to speak directly to the wealthy or those with positional status, journalists become easy targets to place blame.
“I think you shouldn’t shoot the messenger, but we have,” Burch said.
Jacoway said journalism is a form of democracy and is still the best way to receive the most adequate information. She suggests that people research different news outlets and journalists to do so, then subscribe to the ones they like and trust.
“For most journalists, our entire motto is to just tell the truth,” Jacoway said. “That’s what we’re here to do, and expose the things that may need to be exposed.”
Fort said she believes it’s essential to invest in the future of journalism, especially in programs that will cultivate BIPOC storytellers. She said if news is to reflect the communities newsrooms serve, the workforce must be diversified.
“The need for news and information is never going to go away but how it’s delivered and how it’s consumed will continue to evolve,” Fort said. “I think that this group of young people will be at the forefront of creating those formats in which their peers and younger generations will ultimately use to consume news.”
Applying their learning
During the intensive, Burch said he discovered his news voice, developed patience and learned to keep going even when challenges present themselves. As a young Black journalist beginning to explore his career, Burch said he wants to focus on covering stories in the Black community. Through this experience he was connected to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, and is now a reporting intern.
“I feel like we tell the same stories over and over and over again, so if there’s anything I can do in the journalism field, it’s telling stories that people aren’t hearing,” Burch said.
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Jacoway is pursuing broadcast journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead and wants to tell the stories of diverse communities while covering a multitude of topics. She’s especially excited to lean into investigative journalism; she said that as a Black, multicultural person she’s seen first-hand the injustices her family and communities have faced. She is now interning for the Center for Broadcast Journalism’s radio station, POWER 104.7.
“My dream is to just be able to impact our world in a positive way and to expose institutions and systems who have gotten away with abusing their power for so long,” Jacoway said.
The two thanked Fort, Combs, director of workforce solutions for Ramsey County Ling Becker and everyone who gave them the opportunity to pursue journalism. Burch said the experience was a breath of fresh air.
“I think every student needs an opportunity to experience that in some capacity,” Jacoway said. “I think it was the most beneficial opportunity to me in my life.”
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