I spent years teaching students the fundamentals of journalism so that they could create high-quality newspapers, magazines, and yearbooks. Before that, I was a student journalist myself, writing for my high school and college newspapers, eventually becoming editor-in-chief of the former and an associate editor for the latter. Now, I’m part of a small team developing code and providing digital support for a nationwide network of news websites.
While I’ve mostly used this website (which, I should note, represents only my own personal opinions and not those of my employer) to talk about tech, I think I’ve made it clear that I love participating in and thinking about journalism. So today, I’d like to present the first of what I hope to be a continuing series of Media Deep Dives, where we’ll take a look together at something out there in the news sphere—an article, photograph, etc.—and consider what makes it tick or examine its broader implications for the practice of journalism.
For this inaugural installment, which I’ve decided to split into two parts, I’d like to do both while sharing a story from The Washington Post about police departments that have found ways to skirt local bans on the use of facial recognition technology. While the story initially caught my eye thanks to my interest in AI ethics, I’m going to mostly set those issues aside. Instead, I’d like to start by exploring what this article shows us about the evolving nature of headlines. Then, in part 2, we can take a look at how this story exemplifies some of the debates around objectivity in journalism.