On one side of the debate was Executive Director of the Hechinger Institute for Education and the Media Richard Colvin, who argued that foundations are funding the kind of in-depth, explanatory journalism that education beat reporters have neither the time nor the financial means to tackle without such support. On Monday, Colvin launched the Hechinger Report, a new education reporting venture he hopes will dramatically expand reporters' access to foundation funding for investigative reporting projects. Colvin encouraged EWA members to follow his lead and start doing education journalism differently. "Stop doing what you're doing," Colvin told the luncheon audience. "Editors who tell reporters they must go to every school board meeting should stop ... We have to start adding value and authority to our stories."
Inside Higher Ed Editor Scott Jaschik disagreed with Colvin's advice and warned that journalists may have been too quick to embrace Colvin's model. Jaschik says he has great respect for foundation journalism and the likes of NPR, Education Week and the Hechinger Report, but worries that their narrow focus on producing excellent features negates the good reporting that comes from following a beat. "The best pieces come from beat reporting," Jaschik says. "I think you figure out the wonderful features because you have gone to those school board meetings."
Whether it be through hard-hitting investigations or day-to-day beat reporting, panelist Steve Barr, president of Green Dot Schools, told EWA members to focus on storytelling. "The technicality of education reform is so boring. That's why publishers always say how people aren't interested in education news," Barr says. "But on Friday afternoons, when I sit with the parents of my kids' preschool acquaintances, our kids sit and play and we talk about education. Ad nauseam. They are talking because they are obsessed with it, which is why we need more great storytelling to draw people into these issues."
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