How Open Campus suggests you deal with the fire hose of stories now happening at your college

With all eyes on American universities as the new national bellwethers, I wanted to check in with Open Campus about their efforts to fortify reporters covering higher ed.

They recently launched the Higher Ed Under Pressure initiative, designed to provide even more help to professional reporters covering the higher ed landscape. (Open Campus seeds and supports reporters employed fulltime at 17 partner newsrooms across several states to increase resources for higher ed coverage.)

While Open Campus doesn’t provide direct support to student media or journalism schools, managing editor Kayleigh Skinner was enthusiastic about discussing how professors and student newsrooms could use their resources. 

She had great story ideas, some very handy and simple tip sheets, and really powerful words for journalism students. Read my story here.

And just before I hit “schedule” on Friday, a consortium of college journalism heavy hitters issued an unprecedented Student Media Alert. More on that below. 

FYI

Amber Ruffin on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” addressed her unvite to the White House Correspondents dinner. It’s a short video and probably worth watching and discussion in class.

This is probably the best explanation and real human coverage of VOA I’ve seen: Voice of America journalists speak out after Trump administration shuts down network (60 Minutes)

Voice of America wins in court, for now, as judge blocks Trump administration from firing staff (Associated Press)

🔥 I feel sad that I’m keeping a list of places that vow to defend writers: Defending free speech: FIRE and Substack partner to protect writers in America

Newsquest now employing 36 ‘AI-assisted reporters’

👶 A cautionary tale for ambitious broadcast students? I Hid My Child to Keep My Dream Job | To stay competitive as a TV correspondent, Sarah Harman made sure no one knew she was a mother. (Elle)

Final installment of the behind-the-scenes profiles of the Goldsmith Awards finalists:

• How they did it: Wall Street Journal reporters identify $50 billion in Medicare payments made to insurers for diagnoses doctors never treated

• How they did it: San Francisco Chronicle reporters uncover national spate of deadly police chases

Thanks to The Journalist’s Resource for these powerful and helpful profiles. Here are all six finalists and their stories. The winner, Right to Remain Secret, a collaboration between UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program and the San Francisco Chronicle, was announced April 3. 

🤖 Bloomberg Has a Rocky Start With A.I. Summaries | The outlet has issued dozens of corrections to A.I.-generated news summaries since it started using the technology to write them this year. (New York Times)

2 international students detained in MN (KSTP 5 Eyewitness News)

LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey dressed down a student journalist, leading to a very special condemnation by Stephen A. Smith. 

Periodic public service announcement: If you are an educator who cannot afford paywalled material listed in this newsletter, please reach out to see if I can help!

Talk about this

On Friday afternoon, the advising community got an email from the Student Press Law Center with an unprecedented “Student Media Alert.” Some highlights from this open letter:

Asking for money sucks.