1923-2026

Are all upgrades justified? 

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash.

By John Bowen, MJE

In 1923, a high school journalism student worked on a story about a gasoline engine, a complex and difficult assignment to understand.

“The good reporter was indefatigable,” wrote Leo A. Borah, assistant professor of journalism, in his book, “News Writing for High Schools.” The student had interviewed the inventor to learn what terminology meant so readers could understand how the engine worked and what its value was for the future.

When this interview was finished, Borah wrote, “The reporter’s doing five hours of research enabled readers to know more of what the inventor told him.”

“The story resulted,” Borah wrote, “one of the most brilliant pieces ever done for a western newspaper. It was carried by national newspapers around the country.”

Since 1923, journalism has changed in many ways, some through massive changes, some minor and barely noticeable.

Exercise Part 1: Your students will interview their peers, parents, others in the community to see if they can identify changes in news media. Be sure to get all ages and IDs as might be needed for future publication.

Exercise Part 2: Discuss their findings in class. Look for trends, evaluate changes, note impact on audiences, spot differences of opinions, look for any ah-HA moments.

Let’s start with: What changes in news production and news media are you and those you interviewed aware of?

• Were the changes positives or negative?
• How have news media faced changes?
• What are strengths and weaknesses of the changes?
• Why did change (this or others) occur in news media?
• What are your comments or questions on the topics?

Exercise Part 3: Written assignment – Students can choose the approach – news, feature, opinion, visual representation (infographics).

Exercise Part 4: Discussion/sharing of student assignments – Talk about what students thought was important to include, no matter what format they chose. What did they learn from this assignment, both in content and information?

Is good reporting totally different than it was in 1925?  Or not so much?

This is what Borah wrote then: “There are five requisites for successful reporting: First, a sympathetic and intelligent interest in people and events; second, a knowledge of where stories may be found and a willingness to work hard to find them; third, the ability to distinguish news and drive it out of the covert of the commonplace; fourth, the power to write rapidly, accurately, and interestingly; and fifth, the ability to estimate the relative values of news stories.”

From “News Writing for High Schools,” by Leo A. Borah, assistant professor of journalism in the School of Journalism, University of Washington (1925, Allyn and Bacon, publisher)