Stephen Lacy

Stephen Lacy is a professor in the Michigan State University School of Journalism and a former AEJMC president. Read more about Stephen Lacy.

Fact-checking and accountability journalism: Popular, effective — but sometimes misunderstood

Most people who studied journalism or communication at a broad selection of schools across the United States believe that fact-checking journalism — a relatively new form of accountability reporting in politics — is effective at improving political discourse, according to a new survey. About two-thirds of graduates of communication and journalism, or 65 percent, across […]

Who is a ‘journalist’ today, where they work and what they do

Significant numbers of journalism and communication graduates now practice what they consider journalism, even though they don’t work for traditional news organizations, our survey of journalism school graduates found. The survey probed this phenomenon with several questions, including asking people to explain in very granular terms what skills they employ in their work and what […]

How these graduates feel about their work and the state of journalism

One question virtually everyone in media hears at one point or another is whether the world of journalism, with all the possibilities and disruption caused by technology, is getting better or worse. The survey asked a series of questions that probed this. The answers varied significantly depending on where people worked in the media, their […]

Skills, knowledge and comfort levels with job skills

The survey also probed a series of questions about a range of different skill sets and asked people about their knowledge and comfort levels with them. One question in that sequence asked people about some two dozen skills that they might use in whatever their field and asked how important they thought each one was. […]

What journalists encounter in their jobs and careers

The survey also went deeper to look at the experiences of these journalism and communication graduates in their work. That began by asking people (regardless of where they work) what they had personally experienced in their jobs in the last five years. The results might be interpreted as relatively grim, but again age made a […]

Journalism and communication grads’ experiences with school, student media, and internships

The college journalism and communication experience At a time of enormous change, how people learn — and how academic institutions, educators, organizations, student publications and others can help them — is a major issue. The survey asked people a battery of questions about how they learn, what they learned in school and their academic experience […]

How journalists are dealing with changes in the industry and their jobs

Journalists’ views on new trends: sponsored content and aggregation Technology and business disruption have brought about new issues that relate to ethics and economics. The survey probed two of these in particular: the advent of sponsored content or native advertising and the issue of compensation for aggregation and curation. First, the quest for new, more […]

The career paths of people with communication degrees

After graduating, the great majority of these students (89%) did work in media, journalism, public relations or somewhere in communication, at least for some time. Most have had several such jobs. The largest number of people have had two to three jobs in media since graduation, and that doesn’t change much whether someone graduated between […]

Methodology

The survey was conducted online through the lists of alumni of the 22 participating schools and was distributed through partner alumni email lists between April 14 and June 29, 2015, with the dates varying within that time frame among different schools. The survey was executed using the SurveyMonkey survey tool, with consultation from senior SurveyMonkey […]

Facing Change: The needs, attitudes and experiences of people in media

A new study of communication graduates finds that people in many different industries — from commercial brands to government and think tanks — now produce what they consider journalism, and while they are pessimistic about the direction of news in general, most believe their own work in the last five years has gotten better. In […]