| Skill | Graduated 1980 or earlier | Graduated 1981-95 | Graduated 1996-2005 | Graduated 2006-15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Media ethics | 50.0% | 54.8% | 55.7% | 53.8% |
| Media law | 41.5% | 49.2% | 47.6% | 48.0% |
| General education subject matters | 33.1% | 32.0% | 27.2% | 26.8% |
| Marketing, advertising and PR | 21.0% | 25.1% | 21.0% | 20.8% |
| Continuous learning skills | 20.5% | 20.1% | 18.0% | 18.3% |
| Fluency with the business of news | 13.6% | 16.0% | 15.3% | 17.9% |
| Career skills | 6.2% | 8.0% | 13.9% | 19% |
| Understanding audience research | 2.8% | 3.4% | 3.7% | 5.2% |
| Social media | 2.7% | 1.8% | 2.2% | 15.4% |
| Graphics and web design | 2.2% | 4.1% | 7.1% | 8.8% |
| Entrepreneurship | 3.4% | 3.2% | 4.0% | 6.0% |
| Audience data and metrics | 2.8% | 3.4% | 3.7% | 5.2% |
| Theory of web and computer science | 0.6% | 1.0% | 3.0% | 3.8% |
| HTML | 0.5% | 0.2% | 2.9% | 4.3% |
| Other computer languages | 0.6% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 2.4% |
JOURNO49a: Effectiveness of skills taught by grad year
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About the Author: Kevin Loker
Senior Director, Program Operations and Partnerships
Kevin Loker serves as director of strategic partnerships and research for the American Press Institute. He helps API collaborate with and complement the work of other organizations that want to improve journalism and its business. In addition, he leads research initiatives and projects on emerging challenges in journalism that advance API’s core program areas.
Kevin’s work in partnerships spans several types of work. He has helped API secure and develop grant-funded programs that support news transformation, including a Community Listening Fellowship for journalists and a Listening & Sustainability Lab for publishers of color. He has overseen programs that have distributed to local news organizations more than $300,000 in funding to experiment with audience-centered journalism. He has organized nearly a dozen invite-only summits on other emerging challenges in journalism, such as reimagining opinion sections and developing reader revenue.
Kevin has also served on research teams since API’s reinvention as an applied think tank. He’s contributed to more than a dozen national studies on news audiences with the Media Insight Project, API’s joint research initiative with Associated Press NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, as well as research into the ethics of philanthropic funding of journalism. In 2020, he served as a research assistant for the fourth edition of The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (2021).
Before API, Kevin worked in digital and membership services for the Online News Association. He is a former contributor to 10,000 Words, a media industry blog. Together with his wife Laura, he received a 2017 Catholic Press Association Award for an email newsletter for Catholics.
Email Kevin at kevin.loker@pressinstitute.org or follow him @kevinloker.
