Journalism and Education

The Reporter's Job

The greatest limitations for most reporters are of time and space. Most stories in the general interest media are reported, written, and published or broadcast within one or two days. Reporters often have only hours to familiarize themselves with the issues, gather the relevant facts, and produce a story—consultation with experts and deep analysis of data are often unavailable luxuries.

Even when reporters do have a nuanced understanding of a complex issues, they are often limited by space—either physical space in a publication or airtime in a broadcast. A major-market newspaper story is usually 750 to 1,000 words, although deeper stories (normally printed on weekends) can occasionally run 2,000 words or more. Likewise, radio and television reporters are generally forced to report a story in under one minute, and a story could be squeezed into as little as fifteen seconds.

With few exceptions, reporters in the mainstream media are rarely specialists in the areas they cover. At newspapers or magazines, the topic of education is often assigned to relatively junior reporters, who rarely spend more than a few years on the beat. Television and radio reporters are normally jacks-of-all-trades, covering an election one day, a murder another day, and the annual release of standardized test scores on the day in between.

These challenges tend to become less pronounced at the largest organizations: The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, and National Public Radio are among the outlets that have one or more veteran reporters with years of experience focusing primarily on education. Niche publications such as Education Week and The Chronicle of Higher Education also maintain staffs that are well versed in education trends and terminology.

Coverage Contents

The seasoned journalists are the most likely to engage in complex policy reporting and trend analysis; most other journalists employed by general interest news outlets will focus on the few story types discussed here.

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