My Principles of Journalism students were charged to create a podcast that focused on news literacy while critically engaging with journalism’s foundations and the journalism industry. The students created 60 episodes in the first year focused on 12 specialty or alternative presses. The podcast is now expanding to also have interviews with professionals about their work and the role of news literacy within it.
See below to listen to Ink and Airwaves, their incredible podcast.
What Local News Means to Us: Albany Times Union – Ink and Airwaves
In this episode of Ink & Airwaves, the team builds on its reporting about Albany's Times Union to examine what local journalism looks like in practice and what it means for the public. Through concrete examples and on-mic analysis, they trace how newsroom constraints, platform realities, and audience expectations shape which stories reach people, how those stories are framed, and what gets left out. The episode connects these observations back to news literacy by showing how readers can recognize journalistic choices in real time and make more intentional decisions about what they consume, trust, and share.
Patrick R. Johnson, Ph.D., MJE 