Ever wonder who really decides what becomes “news”?
In this episode of Laid Off and Looking, we go inside the assignment desk, the nerve center of every newsroom with Professor Benjamin Davis, award-winning journalist and Chair of Multimedia Journalism at Morgan State University.
Davis has worked at ABC News, MSNBC.com, and NPR, and he’s here to break down the uncomfortable truth:
👉 The stories you see (and the ones you don’t) are shaped by business pressures, predictability, executive preferences, trending topics, and now… AI.
🔍 In This Episode, We Explore:
00:00 - Start
00:37 - Intro
01:46 - “Yellow Journalism” History Lesson
05:56 - Interview Begins
08:14 - Stacking the Rundown
11:12 - Selling a Story
14:02 - How to Know When You’re Show is Bad
16:30 - How to Do Local News
18:04 - Harsh Truths
20:23 - Citizen Journalists
32:51 - Follow the Technology
36:40 - What We’re Missing
40:00 - Oh Lord These People
42:56 - The Risks of Freelancing
46:01 - AI in the Newsroom
51:58 - Why Did You Become a Journalist?
🎧 Professor Benjamin Davis
Professor Davis is a veteran journalist, educator, newsroom leader, and soon-to-be founder of a citizen-journalism app designed to empower the public ethically to tell stories newsrooms can’t or won’t.
💬 Why this episode matters
The public often believes “the media refuses to cover certain stories.”
This conversation explains why newsrooms make the decisions they make, what’s missing, and how journalism must evolve if it wants to survive the era of distrust and digital chaos.
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Ever wonder who really decides what becomes “news”?
In this episode of Laid Off and Looking, we go inside the assignment desk, the nerve center of every newsroom with Professor Benjamin Davis, award-winning journalist and Chair of Multimedia Journalism at Morgan State University.
Davis has worked at ABC News, MSNBC.com, and NPR, and he’s here to break down the uncomfortable truth:
👉 The stories you see (and the ones you don’t) are shaped by business pressures, predictability, executive preferences, trending topics, and now… AI.
🔍 In This Episode, We Explore:
00:00 - Start
00:37 - Intro
01:46 - “Yellow Journalism” History Lesson
05:56 - Interview Begins
08:14 - Stacking the Rundown
11:12 - Selling a Story
14:02 - How to Know When You’re Show is Bad
16:30 - How to Do Local News
18:04 - Harsh Truths
20:23 - Citizen Journalists
32:51 - Follow the Technology
36:40 - What We’re Missing
40:00 - Oh Lord These People
42:56 - The Risks of Freelancing
46:01 - AI in the Newsroom
51:58 - Why Did You Become a Journalist?
🎧 Professor Benjamin Davis
Professor Davis is a veteran journalist, educator, newsroom leader, and soon-to-be founder of a citizen-journalism app designed to empower the public ethically to tell stories newsrooms can’t or won’t.
💬 Why this episode matters
The public often believes “the media refuses to cover certain stories.”
This conversation explains why newsrooms make the decisions they make, what’s missing, and how journalism must evolve if it wants to survive the era of distrust and digital chaos.
The news isn’t just in the hands of reporters anymore. Commentators and influencers cover the news too, and the lines between them get blurrier every day. So who even counts as a journalist today?
For answers, Dom and Jenna sat down with Kelly McBride, senior vice president and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute. Kelly helps newsrooms navigate issues of trust, bias, and how to use generative AI responsibly.
Kelly talks about how to spot real reporting, why it matters to know when something is opinion, and why newsrooms need to make that clear. She also gets into AI and the idea of a “human in the loop,” where a person checks and approves anything AI writes before it goes out.
https://www.poynter.org/the-craig-newmark-center-for-ethics-and-leadership-at-poynter/
https://www.poynter.org/ai-ethics-journalism/
https://www.poynter.org/mediawise/
00:00 - Show Intro
01:41 - Paul Saylor
04:47 - Kelly McBride Interview
16:49 - What Does Accountability Look Like?
20:29 - Story Choices
23:18 - Reporting v Opinion
31:10 - AI Code of Ethics
39:52 - Viral News v Quality News
51:11 - Why Did You Become a Journalist?
Laid Off and Looking
Ever wonder who really decides what becomes “news”?
In this episode of Laid Off and Looking, we go inside the assignment desk, the nerve center of every newsroom with Professor Benjamin Davis, award-winning journalist and Chair of Multimedia Journalism at Morgan State University.
Davis has worked at ABC News, MSNBC.com, and NPR, and he’s here to break down the uncomfortable truth:
👉 The stories you see (and the ones you don’t) are shaped by business pressures, predictability, executive preferences, trending topics, and now… AI.
🔍 In This Episode, We Explore:
00:00 - Start
00:37 - Intro
01:46 - “Yellow Journalism” History Lesson
05:56 - Interview Begins
08:14 - Stacking the Rundown
11:12 - Selling a Story
14:02 - How to Know When You’re Show is Bad
16:30 - How to Do Local News
18:04 - Harsh Truths
20:23 - Citizen Journalists
32:51 - Follow the Technology
36:40 - What We’re Missing
40:00 - Oh Lord These People
42:56 - The Risks of Freelancing
46:01 - AI in the Newsroom
51:58 - Why Did You Become a Journalist?
🎧 Professor Benjamin Davis
Professor Davis is a veteran journalist, educator, newsroom leader, and soon-to-be founder of a citizen-journalism app designed to empower the public ethically to tell stories newsrooms can’t or won’t.
💬 Why this episode matters
The public often believes “the media refuses to cover certain stories.”
This conversation explains why newsrooms make the decisions they make, what’s missing, and how journalism must evolve if it wants to survive the era of distrust and digital chaos.
