Here are some of the profiles of journalists who write about education The Grade has published over the years:
‘We could have been a lot louder,’ says NPR’s Anya Kamenetz
Longtime NPR education correspondent Kamenetz did some standout work covering schools during the pandemic.
Star reporter Jenny Abamu explains why she left journalism — and ways to fix education news
Abamu describes the frustrations of being a daily news reporter, her misgivings about the journalism industry today, as well as her belief that it can hold the powerful accountable and is key to bringing about change.
What makes the New York Times’ education reporter Erica Green so good?
The universally-admired Green gives humanity and specificity to her education stories, which helps them stand out.
How Bethany Barnes became a star education reporter
The former Oregonian education reporter has produced some amazing investigative pieces, often taking unusual angles and going deeper than others.
Behind the scenes of the 10-part documentary series, ‘America to Me’ (Kevin Shaw)
Shaw speaks about how the team of filmmakers went about building trust with skeptical families, how they addressed concerns that series would be depicted through a “lens of whiteness,” and how making a documentary about a high school was in some ways more challenging than other documentaries he’d worked on.
Why reading went under the radar for so long – & what Emily Hanford is aiming to do about it
With annual longform audio documentaries and a steady drumbeat of updates, Hanford has nearly single-handedly reinvigorated coverage of reading and literacy efforts.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Beyoncé of education journalism
Though she’s moved on to bigger topics lately, Hannah-Jones played an enormous role in refocusing education journalists on systemic racism and school segregation.
How New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv tells education stories
Aviv’s reporting is set apart by her in-depth interviews and her observations from more than 100 hours of classrooms surveillance videos.
Widening the lens: What makes Casey Parks’ New Yorker story so good
The writing is lovely. Parks seems to empathize deeply with her characters. She’s clearly done an enormous amount of reporting.
Chana Joffe-Walt, nice white journalist
Joffe-Walt describes some of the thinking that went into the series, how it was reported and produced, and the rationale for putting white parents at the center of a story about the longstanding inadequacies of the education provided to Black and Latino communities.
How ProPublica immigration Hannah Dreier reporter profiled a Long Island high school student trying to get out of MS-13
Dreier describes what it was like to report on a teenager in such a vulnerable position, what education journalists might learn from her experience, and how the luxury of time and her own persistent reporting reversed her initial assumptions about the school’s culpability for Henry’s fate.
For more reading, check out our series of reporters’ first-person reflections on being an education journalist.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexander Russo
Alexander Russo is founder and editor of The Grade, an award-winning effort to help improve media coverage of education issues. He’s also a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship winner and a book author. You can reach him at @alexanderrusso.
Visit their website at: https://the-grade.org/
