Michael Donahue: The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University has selected Dr. Elizabeth Toohey, Assistant Professor of English at Queensborough Community College as a 2020 night visiting Nieman fellow. Congratulations. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Thank you. Michael Donahue: The Nieman Foundation describes you as a media innovator. Would you define yourself as a media innovator? Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Oh my goodness. That makes me sound so glamorous somehow. It's not how I would have defined myself, but I'll take it. I think the innovation for me, comes with marrying media studies and pedagogy, and that's where my project differs from a lot of the other fellows at Neiman. Michael Donahue: Let's talk about your project. What do you want to do while you're there? Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: The project that we'll be doing at Neiman is to design an immersive journalism curriculum, but it's with the idea of not just teaching it at Queensborough, but making it accessible to community college faculty all over the country, with a rationale that accompanies it, that explains how our journalism course works here, and why I think it's so valuable. Why I think it's something that community colleges anywhere in the country should consider making a core part of their curriculum. Michael Donahue: What makes the community college different from, let's say a four-year college or a postgraduate degree in journalism? Why get people at that age, stage, place in their lives involved in journalism? Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: I mean, I think there are a few reasons. One is, I mean certainly in Queensborough and throughout CUNY, the diversity of our students racially, in terms of her religion, in terms of socioeconomic class, all across the spectrum of brings a lot to journalism, and I think means that they're looking at the media with a critical eye. That's one asset. But just that phrase that we don't always think about, that rolls off our tongue, community college is really, I mean, dovetails nicely with what journalism should be doing, which is representing the community, giving a voice to a community or amplifying the voices there. That's in a nutshell, what makes it feel like such a good fit or something that's all community colleges regardless of where they are, should consider adopting. Michael Donahue: I know here at Queensborough you moderate new buys for the school newspaper that the students write. You have a very strong advocacy for student voices. Queensborough, one of the most diverse colleges, in one of the most diverse counties in the country. What is it about Queensborough students that they can bring to tomorrow's newsrooms and to tomorrow's media organizations? Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Overall, they have an unbelievable work ethic and they're bright. But I mean, I think in terms of really differentiating ourselves from a lot of other pools of students, again, I come back to the diversity and the fact that- Michael Donahue: Not just the racial diversity, It's a lot more- Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Right. Socioeconomic. I mean, international in terms of where their families come from or where they come from. But yeah, I think class is something that isn't talked about enough in terms of who's coming into newsrooms, and me having said that, there's been much reported by the Nieman Lab, by Pew or Poyntner or other think tanks, nonpartisan think tanks that do statistical studies of all sorts of aspects of the media, about how women are underrepresented in newsrooms, racial minorities and all sorts of marginalized peoples are underrepresented. It's still primarily a white, male, middle upper class profession, and journalism really needs more diversity of voices. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: But your question was about the students. I started teaching journalism here at Queensborough. In the past I had worked at another college where I had advised the student newspaper, so I had some experience in that. But teaching journalism here was just, it was just a revelation to me because our students are, they're so insightful about the media when they look at it. They have so much to say about so many important issues where they're coming from a more informed place about say, DACA or issues around immigration. Michael Donahue: Personal experience for a lot of them. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Yeah, yeah. Around, when there's reporting being done on black lives matters, say, or just simply issues about education or employment. Again, as you said, I mean it doesn't all relate to racial diversity. It's all sorts of issues. Yeah. I think, the mainstream media or the larger media landscape needs their voices. They're not going to all go on to become journalists. But I mean, I think the ones who do, who are willing to take that road have so much to give, but the ones who aren't still has so much to give in terms of just what we produce in the campus newspaper. Sometimes there's resistance early on, not to the journalism course, but just to reading the news or experiencing the news regularly. Michael Donahue: How are they doing that?How are they experiencing- Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: I mean, most of them are accessing news on their smart phones. I mean, they fit with the larger trend that way. We didn't think that in and enough of itself is entirely a problem. The issue is working with them on how to navigate a smart phone media landscape in a savvy way. This is another aspect of my project that I proposed that I'll be doing at the Nieman Lab at Harvard, is really centering research in a different kind of way than I think is traditionally taught in English composition and literature courses, and I think likely across the humanities. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: I wouldn't want to say for sure. I can just speak to my own area. I think that, and then there's been stuff written about this, that colleges are still stuck in this mode of saying to students, go through the library search engine or find your information in peer-reviewed academic journals, and some of that is fine. More than fine necessary. But I really think what we should be centering for students is how to research when it isn't made safe for you or vetted for you by a college library. As wonderful as the work the library does is or by an academic peer-review journal, which let's face it, how many of them are going to be, how many of us, any of us are going to look at those once we've left the college or university. Michael Donahue: And if you look at them, how accessible are they [crosstalk 00:07:02]. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Accessible, exactly and how relevant are they? Part of what I want to propose and again, I mean this is, this is for me part of a larger book project I'm envisioning, and hoping I'll have the time to work on next year, is to propose that an introductory journalism course be part of a core curriculum or something that students are introduced to maybe as a mandatory course, but something that is at least much more foregrounded in their first year of college. What comes with that is a research component that's about media literacy, which will serve them throughout their whole lifetimes. By media literacy, I mean that's a term that I think many people are familiar with, but just to be clear, what that means is getting on Google and being able to go to any website that looks like news and or even, that looks like a research site because it's got medical research on it or information. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: I get a lot of students who are interested in writing articles on, on health. That they are able to themselves that intel, what's reliable and what's not. I think, I learned a real lesson a few years ago when I think a student wrote at the end of the term on a student evaluations tipped me off to the fact that they were, they had this dichotomy where there's either fake news or completely reliable source. Michael Donahue: Right. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Versus a whole gamut of understanding of what does the term slant mean? Like reliable, but with a slant, bias, on down the line to fake news. My hope is that not only did they acquire this knowledge that stays with them for a lifetime, but it will be useful for anyone who's a citizen of this country, of ever opening a smartphone, whatever their professional path ends up being, but that maybe they'll even go home and be teaching their mom or their grandmother or their uncle some of these skills. It raises, it elevates the media literacy of the whole country. Michael Donahue: Well, this generation that's coming out through, perhaps they will have something to do with reestablishing the trust, I think that's been lost over the last decade between the consumer and the media organization. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think that's the opportunity here. That's what I'm hopeful about. So often I see our students being savvy about detecting a media bias, pushed to the margins are overlooked. That is just so smart and insightful. Six weeks to six months later, I'll hear some mainstream news- Michael Donahue: Pick up on it. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Pickup on it when I'm like, our students broke that story. I've seen our students, there was an app a few years ago where I was so excited because I had never heard about it. But we have a tech section, and I mean our newspaper is really student-driven. I am not telling them what to write on. I mean, occasionally I'll throw out ideas to them. I'll have the occasional student who says, "I don't really know what direction to go in." I'll make suggestions. But on the whole, it's student-driven and part of what I just, I have the best job. Part of what I love about my job is that I'm learning so much from the students. I had a student a few years ago bring in a story idea about an app that was fascinating, and it ran in the print edition of the newspaper. Again, forgive me. Of course, I can't remember the name of the app right now, but it was a sort of thing where six months later, nine months later, I saw the New York Times writing about this app and it was like, Hey, we broke that story, man. Michael Donahue: It was us. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Queensborough Community College Communicate wrote this story on this app. I love that. I see that in little forms all the time. I mean, part of what's cool is it's not just me educating to students, they educate each other. I always have some students who come in very savvy or they come in very savvy as media consumers about a certain area. Someone who say, is really interested in issues around criminal justice and racial bias or black lives matter comes in and says, "Well, I read The Root." Then we're talking about The Root in class, and other students are keying into that. I mean, I think, in terms of my project, there are two prongs here. One is this placement of our students in the media landscape, but another is just, well, I've spoken little about our students as news consumers, as researchers, but also as writers. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: I find, just in comparison to the other English classes I teach, which I also love, that it's the students in journalism where something really sparks in them as writers. They are really, they really care about their own writing. They're meticulous about it in a way that I think is more true for more students in journalism. Michael Donahue: Is that because they're writing about someone else's life? Do they take more, are they more empathetic? Do they take more responsibility for the subject matter? Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: I think in some cases it's that. I think it's also the [inaudible 00:12:05] of having an authentic leadership. I think it works almost more like a sport's team or something. It's more of a collaborative than a competitive model, and while I think a lot of us try and foster that kind of community in our other classes, there's a way it just happens off and on, day one in journalism, where they feel like a team. They know they're not competing against each other. I mean, I hammer that idea the first few weeks. I say to them ... We usually have the good fortune to be in a computer lab where they're able to really be working on their stories in a substantive way, both the research and writing drafts and all during class time, and I'll say to them, Talk to your classmates. This is, you're all writing on different things." Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: This is not one where I'm worried about anyone stealing ideas from anyone else. The subjects are really student-driven. They are coming up with ideas all the time that I never would have come up with myself but are terrific ideas about what you're report on on campus. Michael Donahue: And if they want to put a product out they need to work together. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Right? Exactly, exactly. In their thinking, I encourage them to think a lot about balance, not just in terms of balanced, certainly balanced within their own news stories where they're representing different voices or perspectives, but also balance in terms of this newspaper we're putting out where we're not all reporting in one section or from one angle, but there is a balance in perspectives on subject. I think because of all that, it just, it feels very authentic to them and they are so excited when their news, their articles make it into the print edition. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: I mean, it's funny because we started this conversation by talking about how print is a bit defunct or on it's way out, but what's fascinating to me is how much they care about seeing their articles and their names and print. I think another thing that's been discussed a lot within English as a field or composition studies, is this question of how to get students to invest, by using the knowledge they already have as a springboard to more research and produce an essay. There are lots of ways to do that. But again, I think it just happens more quickly and organically in news reporting, because not always, but often they're coming up with story ideas because it's an issue they have some involvement- Michael Donahue: Write about what you know. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: Right. But I think the problem can happen in a more traditional composition course, is students never move beyond that or have difficulty moving beyond that, especially if they start with something like a personal narrative. Whereas here, it's start with what you know, but also de-center yourself. I think journalism has moved into interesting directions with saying you don't have to totally take yourself out of the story, create this pretense where we can be robots, where we don't bring in some point of view. Again, I think the problem sometimes with how writing is traditionally taught, is we start students with completely centering their own experience, and then we talk about moving them on from that. But the moving them on is to a thesis paper, where maybe they're not centering their experience, but they're centering their opinion on a short story or [inaudible 00:15:16] . It's still their ... I mean, maybe they're very-informed opinion because they've done research, but it's at the center. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: I just look at our country and culture and I think, "Oh my gosh, is this really what we want to be using as a starting point in college?" I don't care whether it's a community college or the most elite private college or a public four-year college. I just think if we started with journalism, we'd be starting with curiosity about multiple points of view instead, and de-centering one's own opinion. Michael Donahue: We're going to explore this in [crosstalk 00:15:55]. Dr. Elizabeth Toohey: We're going to explore this is in [inaudible 00:15:55] I'm super excited about that. Michael Donahue: [inaudible].