Take me back to the Oral History landing page.

Charles Whitaker - Civics Education

Charles Whitaker, as Dean at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, discusses media literacy and the challenges of preparing future journalists. He does so from his own experiences as a journalist for many years, as well as his work at Ebony Magazine where he served as senior editor. He discusses journalism's changing economic model, the decline of local media/newspapers, the omission of stories, vetting issues, diversity, and the rise of social media. Whitaker also discusses the effort at Northwestern to have journalism majors take classes in the humanities and in science. Finally, he reviewed the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic posed to journalists, not least of which were the many news stories that occurred that year.