Connecting Media and Campus Community
Dedicated to creating a continuous dialogue with media students and local citizens, the Institute partners with local and national media experts to address current and important topics.
On March 24, 2025, Visiting Media Scholar Sara Bauknecht will discuss generative AI policies and the ethical concerns of this technology for media practitioners and businesses. The free event will take place at 6 p.m. in College Hall and is open to the public.
In spring 2023, support from the Institute helped two Media Department faculty members develop courses that focused on community news coverage. One group of students covered a wide range of stories in the region’s Black community and produced content for the New Pittsburgh Courier and the TribLive website. Another group examined population shifts in the Hazelwood neighborhood, once home to the city of Pittsburgh's last operating steel mill, and developed a website to showcase student work.
Additionally, the Institute has worked with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review to place Duquesne University multiplatform journalism students into fall internships.
The Institute's fellows are occasionally sought for their perspectives on media ethics. Managing Fellow Tara Bradley-Steck spoke to a group of journalists from India, who were in Pittsburgh as part of a visit arranged by the U.S. State Department, about the state of journalism in the United States and the challenges of ethical reporting in a polarized climate.
Ethically Speaking Podcast
Produced by our students, the Ethically Speaking Podcast tackles some of the biggest issues facing modern journalism and media ethics. Expect conversations on topics such as the impact of social media on journalistic integrity, navigating bias in reporting, the role of fact checking in the era of "fake news," balancing privacy rights with the public's right to know, and more.
A Transformational Experience
Ethically Speaking has given me the chance to learn from experts while also exploring how social media can connect more people to important ethical discussions. I love being part of the team that brings these conversations to life.
Professional Speaker Series
"Will local news ever be trustworthy again?"
That's the question Kelly McBride posed to a group of print, broadcast and digital journalists at the Institute's inaugural town hall event. An ethics adviser to newsrooms around the world and National Public Radio's Public Editor, Kelly moderated a lively discussion with five panelists and fielded questions from the audience about the importance of what she called a natural, but delicate, journalism ecosystem.
"When it's mostly healthy, the stronger parts can compensate for the weaker areas. But disease and rot can spread," Kelly told an in-person crowd of more than 150 students, faculty, staff and members of the general public who gathered in the Power Center ballroom. "We may have more information, but because of the way it is delivered to us, many of us struggle to know what's true, what's a distortion and what's completely made up."
She suggests the answer to this problem is to strengthen local news, which includes changing the business model, convincing people to subscribe to a reliable media, encouraging collaboration rather than competition among media outlets, and having local news organizations do more outreach to understand the community’s needs and interests.
Missed the event? Watch the video.
Tom Rosenstiel, one of the country’s most recognized thinkers on the intersection of media and politics and the future of journalism, spoke to Media Department students following a semester-long “big read” of the book he co-authored with Bill Kovach titled the “Elements of Journalism,” which has been translated into more than 25 languages. Rosenstiel challenged students to consider whether the responsibilities of journalists have changed and whether they are continuing to change.
Missed the event? Watch the video.
The open public record system has been the mainstay of the U.S. democracy and economy since the earliest colonial days—as essential to our infrastructure as roads, telephone lines and airports. Now, at a time when facts can easily become obscured by bias and watchdog media resources continue to decline, access to public records has never been more essential. Yet the task of obtaining public records is often more onerous and expensive than it should be.
To commemorate the annual Sunshine Week, the Institute held a day-long symposium on open records featuring the executive director of Pennsylvania’s Open Records Office and a panel of experts. Participants searched for records during a hands-on workshop following the formal program.
Missed the event? Watch the video.
Research, writing and reporting often include ethical dilemmas related to telling stories. What happens when source materials such as documents, diaries, photographs or oral histories conflict? How do trauma and time affect memories, interviewing techniques and the stories we tell?
Rachael Cerrotti confronted those questions while retracing her Jewish grandmother's travels across Europe during World War II, which led to a best-selling book, "We Share the Same Sky: A Memoir of Memory & Migration."
In an intimate gathering for media students, Cerrotti said that, though it is important to report facts, it is also important to honor the person whose story is being told. She said that citing historical documents can allow the storyteller to compare and contrast details without impugning the subject or the source material.
Community Engagement
The Institute also hosts occasional professional speakers as guest presenters in specific classes in majors across the Media Department, including:
- Katie Strang, investigative reporter for The Athletic.
- Rob Wells, former business reporter and associate professor at the University of Maryland
- Shay Charles, NYC-based designer and brand strategist
- Mike Wereschagin, investigations and data reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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