What Gen Z journalists want news leaders to know

This is a series on Better News to a) showcase innovative/experimental ideas that emerge from the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative and b) share replicable tactics that benefit the news industry as a whole. 

This piece features insights from Jamese Branch, a development specialist at the Poynter Institute and a former audience engagement manager at the Fort Worth Report, and Tristan Wood, a senior producer and host at WFSU Public Media, who participated in the API Local News Summit for Table Stakes Alumni focused on fostering belonging and collaboration and whose organizations are alumni of the Poynter Table Stakes Program. It also includes observations from Sonia A. Rao, an Overseas Press Club Foundation fellow at Reuters; Joshua Bay, a contributing writer at The 74; Nika Bartoo-Smith, a reporter at Underscore Native News and ICT; and Alyson Rodriguez, a former multimedia intern at The Dallas Morning News, which is an alum of the 2015-15 Major Market Table Stakes Program.

More from this summit:

• 12 ideas for fostering belonging and collaboration in local news organizations
• 8 ideas for managing generational tensions in your news organization
• 5 frameworks to help improve collaboration in news organizations
• How to build resilience for yourself and your news organization

This piece was one of Better News’ most viewed of 2024. Check out the full top 10 list here.

Every new generation vexes media leaders, and Gen Z is certainly no exception. These teens and 20-somethings, born between 1992 and 2012, have challenged traditional media organizations with their short-form, multi-platform, hyper-social news habits.

But Gen Z journalists have also challenged newsrooms from the inside, where they’ve introduced new philosophies of working, disrupted traditional notions of objectivity and pushed the media industry to grow more equitable, inclusive … and edgy. As one older news leader put it at the API Local News Summit for Table Stakes Alumni in Minneapolis: “My values are challenged just about every day. It illustrates these huge generational divisions.”

Yet many Gen Z journalists — much like millennials, Gen Xers and even boomers before them — argue that their bosses sometimes underestimate them. Their ideas could improve news coverage, they say. And their work could help legacy news organizations reach that evasive Gen Z audience.

“Intergenerational communication is key,” said Jamese Branch, the former community engagement manager at the Fort Worth Report. “We can learn so much from each other.”

Here’s what six Gen Z journalists said they’d like news leaders to better understand about their generation, from their priorities for newsroom culture to their emphasis on boundaries and work-life chemistry.

Workplace culture is a non-negotiable

Younger journalists prize diversity in their newsrooms — and overall, they don’t think the media is doing a good job. A 2022 survey from the Pew Research Center found that 68% of journalists aged 18 to 29 thought their organizations lacked racial and ethnic diversity, while 44% said they lacked socioeconomic diversity. (Those figures were 37% and 22%, respectively, for journalists over 65 years old.)

Sonia Rao

“Something that is really important to me is diversity in newsroom leadership and staff,” said Sonia A. Rao, a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who recently began an Overseas Press Club Foundation fellowship with Reuters. “I have worked in six newsrooms in the U.S., and have only had two editors who were women. One of those women was a person of color. I’ve been really lucky to have great editors, but having editors and people in leadership I can relate to and see myself in does make a difference in newsroom culture, in the stories I am able to pitch and my relationships with them, and the newsroom’s relationships with readers.”

Rao, who just completed an internship with the Tampa Bay Times and is searching for full-time work, said racial, gender and generational diversity are important factors when she considers which newsrooms to apply to. It’s also a priority for Joshua Bay, a contributing writer at The 74. It can be disheartening, Bay said, when layoffs appear to hit younger reporters and reporters of color first.

“There needs to be an emphasis not only on hiring diverse employees, but also cultivating a diverse community,” Bay said. “I see a lot of news organizations getting rid of their young reporters and then using that budget to hire freelancers or more senior staff. It sends the message that we’re not valued in the organization.”

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‘Objectivity’ isn’t the only journalistic value

A 2023 survey of 100 young journalists and journalism students concluded that they’re driven by ideals: 62% said they entered the field to help people make informed decisions, and 58% said they did so to expose injustice. Gen Z reporters say they bring those values to their work, often prioritizing principles like social justice, equity and inclusion.

Nika Bartoo-Smith (Photo by Jarrette Werk/Underscore Native News + Report for America)

That may challenge some older or more traditional news leaders, but it’s also part of a larger reckoning around journalistic “objectivity” and reader trust. A recent analysis of almost 200 articles from three large industry publications found that journalist sentiment has largely soured on the concept.

“Younger generations are acknowledging that no, ‘objectivity’ the way it is taught does not exist,” said Nika Bartoo-Smith, a reporter at Underscore Native News and ICT. “Biases are unavoidable and important to acknowledge. Plus, it’s actually an asset to have people from a community reporting on their community.”

Boundaries, well-being and mental health are key

Bartoo-Smith also said she and her Gen Z peers value, and enforce, their work-life boundaries: “Actually, we shouldn’t be glorifying a 60+ hour work week,” she said. “40 hours is plenty.”

Alyson Rodriguez (right) conducts an interview. (Photo by Azul Sordo/Dallas Morning News)

It’s a sentiment echoed by other young journalists, including Alyson Rodriguez, who recently wrapped up a multimedia internship at The Dallas Morning News. Having first watched their parents work long hours — often with little reward — and then living through the stress and the strain of a global pandemic, Gen Z journalists understand the importance of prioritizing rest, well-being and mental health, Rodriguez said.

“I’m Mexican-American, and in my culture, the older generations really don’t believe in the value of mental health,” Rodriguez said. “So I think our generation learned from our parents’ mistakes, and decided we didn’t want to be like that.”

Read more: Journalists and mental health: An API resource guide

No one can afford to ‘pay their dues’

Similarly, Gen Z journalists expect to be paid competitively for their time and work. After all, they grew up in an era when unpaid internships fell out of favor, pay transparency became the norm and a new wave of unionization swept the media. But many news managers started their careers when young journalists were routinely and systematically underpaid, and some may still believe that entry-level staff need to “pay their dues” or “cut their teeth” before asking for more money.

Joshua Bay

“I’ve observed a lot of generational differences around pay and the idea of advocating for yourself,” Bay said. “There are some conversations that just don’t translate — because it seems like people are shocked, or they think you are crazy, if you even begin to bring the issue up with them.”

Rao points out that compensation is also an equity issue: Low pay prevents some young journalists from staying in the field or forces them to take second jobs. It also may require them to job-hop for raises early in their careers, a subject of consternation for some news leaders.

“I don’t think characterizing younger journalists as ‘disloyal’ is fair — I think that the economic state of the industry makes it harder and harder to have a stable career,” she said. “I want stability! But I also want to be paid enough to pay my bills and not go into debt. I think it’s becoming increasingly impossible to have that without jumping around a little bit between jobs.”

Mentorship and training can be retention strategies

Generations of journalists honed their craft on the job, eavesdropping on the phone calls of veteran reporters or teaming up on assignments. In today’s remote or hybrid work environment, however, many Gen Z journalists never get that chance.

Tristan Wood (left) chats with a fellow participant at the API Local News Summit in Minneapolis in July 2024.

“It’s more difficult to form successful mentor-mentee relationships,” said Tristan Wood, a senior producer and host for WFSU Public Media in Tallahassee. “There are less opportunities for the friendly interactions and exchanges that are necessary to form those types of bonds, and that leads to situations where the only time younger journalists regularly interact with potential mentors is larger team meetings.”

For other Gen Z journalists, the structure or culture of their news organization makes it difficult to find avenues for upskilling or growth. Successive rounds of budget cuts and layoffs have hollowed out the generational middle at some media outlets, leaving entry-level staff, senior managers — and very few people to bridge the gap in the middle. These sorts of rigid hierarchies can also marginalize Gen Z workers, who want to engage in strategy, decision-making and other organizational initiatives but aren’t given the opportunity to do so.

Put Gen Z’s tech savvy to work in your newsroom

No discussion of generational differences in newsrooms would be complete without tech. Yes, Gen Z uses it differently. And yes, you could probably learn something from them.

“I’ve noticed that older journalists tend to prioritize traditional reporting methods and are sometimes hesitant to adopt newer digital tools or approaches,” Branch said. “But younger staff members, including myself, are eager to experiment with multimedia storytelling, social media strategies and other innovative approaches to engage our audiences.”

For news organizations, this innovation is critical: It reflects how future viewers, listeners and readers will consume their work. Compared to older generations, Gen Z consumers are more likely to encounter news incidentally on social media and to favor information from online personalities and influencers. Gen Z journalists can help their organizations adapt to those changes … but only if news leaders are open to their suggestions.

“We’re really good at social media, and we bring a younger perspective,” Rodriguez said.

Gen Z reporters also noted that their older colleagues seem less eager to hang out casually in virtual settings, like company Slack channels or group chats, and more willing to send emails or texts at all hours.

“She would send me a text at random hours of the night, then follow up with another text clarifying that she just didn’t want to forget and we could chat tomorrow,” one reporter said of a former senior editor.

The reporter did eventually grow used to those late-night texts. But it’s easy to imagine another, better outcome, where both parties talked through their communication preferences and landed on a compromise — scheduled messages, for example.

After all, that’s the ultimate strength and promise of multigenerational newsrooms, no matter which generations are in the mix: that younger and older reporters will collaborate, learn from each other and grow through exposure to different perspectives.