Education journalism in 2023

More than a dozen coverage trends, industry challenges, and funding and personnel changes that will take place over the next 12 months.

By Alexander Russo

So what’s 2023 going to be like for education journalism? Nobody really knows, and I’m generally opposed to lazy speculation.

But predictions can be informative even if they’re not likely to be accurate, because they reveal our hopes and fears. And so, inspired in part by Nieman’s annual list of journalism predictions, here are my predictions for education journalism in 2023.

As you’ll see, I predict that education journalism will evolve but I don’t see any dramatic changes on the horizon, much as I would like to see them. And it seems likely that the beat may face some economic and readership challenges.

In the meantime, the news will keep coming fast and furious and education journalists will struggle to keep up. As one longtime education reporter told me, 2023 is going to be just like 2022, “but perhaps worse.”

Just like 2022, “but perhaps worse.”

My predictions:

➤ Education coverage will continue to focus on hot-button controversies like school culture wars and distracting novelties like artificial intelligence. Bad news will attract an inordinate amount of reporters’ time and attention. Most stories will be told from the point of view of the school system.

➤ While other beats like crime and climate are beginning to respond to coverage concerns, the dominant approach to story selection, reporting, and presentation by education teams and outlets will remain traditional.

➤ One possible exception: More outlets will find ways to avoid giving students’ full legal names, an approach to protecting vulnerable sources that found a home in a recent NYT story. Another possible exception: Long-maligned “service” journalism — focused on what readers need and what they can do about the current situation — will get a small but noticeable bump.

➤ The new education reporter for the Boston Globe replacing Bianca Vázquez Toness will be former Courier Journal reporter Mandy McClaren, who wrote the standout Between the Lines series last year. Or at least it should be.

Check out The Grade’s weekly columns, first-person essays, and reported stories about education journalists and their work.

Bad news will attract an inordinate amount of reporters’ time and attention. Most stories will be told from the point of view of the school system.

➤ Literacy and reading instruction will be as big or bigger a topic of coverage in 2023 as it was last year — and I will still clamor for more. This is the area where education journalism could make a real difference. Pour it on.

➤ School gun violence and safety issues are going to remain prominent in media coverage in the new year, even if incidents level off and the overwhelming percentage of kids shot or killed are at home or in their communities.

➤ Racial diversity among mostly white education journalists will continue to improve, albeit very slowly. By comparison, racial diversity among the new team hired to run the Education Writers Association will be dramatically increased (as it should be).

➤ The Ed Lab model — featuring foundation-funded ed teams spun up mostly inside commercial news outlets and usually with a solutions focus — will continue to flourish. The most recent addition I know of is going to be at the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press but I can imagine ed labs turning up at the SF Chronicle, Miami Herald, or any other legacy paper. I predict two new education labs in the next year.

➤ Twitter isn’t going anywhere — and neither are most of us who are on it. (You can follow The Grade here.) Journalist-produced education newsletters? Some of those might be deemed not be worth the additional time they take away from reporting and writing stories.

Twitter isn’t going anywhere — and neither are most of us who are on it.

➤ After years of steady growth and expansion that has somewhat protected education journalism from cuts and layoffs, nonprofit foundation-funded education newsrooms like Chalkbeat and the Hechinger Report may be forced to hold off on expanding or even retrench. Ditto for the Washington Post’s gargantuan (by-today’s standards) education team.

➤ Once highly unusual and considered somewhat suspect, collaborations among different newsrooms and teams will grow. (In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s already an informal collaborative up and running, featuring local ed labs, trade outlets, and national ed teams.)

➤ After last years’ big launch and a foundation-fueled hiring spree, the AP education team will struggle to distinguish itself from USA Today and other national outlets with education teams and networked reporters. Collaborations will help, maybe?

➤ The remaining non-union education trade outlets will face increasing pressures to improve working conditions and/or bargain with staff.

➤ An education-related story that’s not even an EWA awards finalist will win a major journalism award like a Pulitzer or Peabody. (Not much of a prediction, since it’s happened in the past. Time to fix the EWA awards!)

An education-related story that’s not even an EWA awards finalist will win a major journalism award like a Pulitzer or Peabody. Again.

“Education journalists will, as always, be there to hold [everyone] accountable, follow the money, expose the corrupt, and point out the idiocy,” predicts an education reporter who doesn’t anticipate much change from last year to this one. “Readers will then note all that is behind a paywall and they aren’t going to pay for it.”

Happy New Year, everyone. Hold on tight.

Previously

The 9 most memorable K-12 education stories of 2022

The Grade’s most popular pieces of 2022