One Size Does NOT Fit All

Online News Association47min

Ashley Alvarado

01:16

Thank you so much for joining us today I'm Ashley Alvarado, a proud new ONA board member and Vice President of Community Engagement and Strategic Initiatives at KPCC LA in Southern California. My pronouns are she/her and I'm what's horribly referred to as a geriatric millennial. We're here today because for the first time in history, there are five generations in the workplace. And, as so many of us have felt, the impact is more pronounced in journalism as resources shrink and organizational hierarchy flattens. What kinds of challenges does this present for today's newsroom? How do generational workforce differences affect our ability to manage people effectively? Today, I'm joined by three awesome journalists. I can say awesome because I'm a millennial, to talk about this and to field your questions. Their bios are sassy, which is how you know I didn't write them. George Stanley is editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, president of the News Leaders Association, formerly ASNE-APME. George is a middle Boomer, which is different from being an early Boomer or late Boomer. OK, Boomer. Beena Raghavendran, whose pronouns are she/her, is engagement reporter at ProPublica, Director of AAJA LA's Yung....AAJA...I'm used to adding the LA in Los Angeles...Yung's professional network and a 2021 ONA MJ Bear fellow, focusing on news accessibility for communities with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She's also an amateur playwright, she wrote and this month starred in a performance of a virtual one-woman play. Bina is a late millennial. Imaeyen Ibanga, whose pronouns are she/her is a fellow geriatric millennial with a skincare routine of Gen Z-er, who taught herself how to hula hoop and do headstands during the ongoing panorama. Yes, that's the word she uses. She's also presenter, documentarian, and senior producer with AJ+ in the process of creating her brand new film documentary show from scratch. It'll debut in autumn of 2021. That's this year, I think. Prior to AJ+, Imaeyen produced tech stories, social media and breaking news video stories during her 10 years at NBC News, CNN and ABC News. We'll do our best to save 15 minutes at the end for questions. As a mom with a first grader, I'm also always okay with shouty outies, they just need to come via the chat function. So to go ahead and just dive into the questions since we only have so much time, George, I wanted to start with you. You've been a working journalist since 1979, you've had an opportunity to work with different generations of journalists. How would you compare and contrast, and what are the behaviors, expectations or needs that need to show up with each?

George Stanley

03:41

Well, I think, you know, all generational talk...it's all generalities, and they don't really apply to any particular individual. You grew up in an environment, and that does create certain expectations and thinking of ways. I think each generation that I've experienced, is, for example, more aware of the failures of the past. And more aware of how far we didn't get. There's a great quote in President Obama's new book from a minister who talks about Obama's generation, which is my generation, being the Joshua generation for Black people in America and his generation, which was the Martin Luther King generation being the Moses generation ... that the Moses generation helped lead the people out of slavery, but the Joshua generation will lead them into the promised land. And I think every generation sees that we still have a ways to go and that's what we're dealing with right now. That we still have a ways to go and sees that we didn't get as far as we thought we did. I think baby boomers thought they got much farther than they thought they did -- my generation and our elders -- much farther than we thought we did. And now we realize we didn't. The past year has really made that crystal clear, the past five years has really made that crystal clear. So I think it's good. I think this is good. It's good to have these discussions because we all learn if we're listening. I'm also a big fan of the millennial generation. I know that that isn't always the most common thing. But I noticed in the early 2000s, our interns just kept getting...that we just got the best interns and that has continued through this whole process with brilliant interns with passion and really feeling of justice and really wanting to make the world a better place. And the other thing that never comes up about the millennial generation that should more often I think, is that they're the ones that have been fighting the war on terror for the last 21 years ever since 9/11. That never comes up for some reason. But I think there's millennial leaders, and there's people out there that have experienced many of things, the so-called "great generation" experienced and the Great Recession, like the Great Depression, these wars that have been fought by young adults in America that really have tested people, and they've come through and I think that I have great optimism in that generation.

Ashley Alvarado

06:27

Thank you. So Beena and Imaeyen, you can answer in whichever order, I mean, you can throw elbows, you can do whatever you want, whichever way you want to go. But so how are you seeing in your work, how are you seeing different generations interacting with each other?

Beena Raghavendran

06:41

Imaeyen, you might want to take it first?

Imaeyen Ibanga

06:45

I was saying do you want to take it first, but I can do it. So I work at an organization, which is a lot different. *crash sound* I'm sorry ... than a lot of other newsrooms in that my organization is very young. And so, you know, I guess technically we do have someone, maybe one or two people who are baby boomers, but you're essentially dealing with Gen Z, majority of people are probably millennial and like a few Gen Xers and zennials, like somewhere in that space. And what I have found, especially working in some of those other places that Ashley so kindly mentioned earlier, is the difference in perspective, not only in what we should cover, but how we should cover and how we begin to discuss those things. And one thing I want to highlight, I love that George said, first of all, shout out for him for loving a generation that has been forged in trauma, which we do not recognize. Okay, thank you. But also just like how within that generation, there are different parts. Us geriatrics, it's very different -- what was required for us, the things we had to go through -- is very different than people who are at the younger end of the generation, I think, align much more in terms of editorial idea and strategy with maybe a Gen Z, because of what was and wasn't allowed, and how you were allowed to dictate your space and self in the world. Imagine being an older millennial, and someone like me, who's a first generation African American woman, as opposed to if I had been born in 2001, which would put me in the workplace. That's not the same life. And I think there needs to be more discussion around that, because I do think both sides have very relevant things to say, which sometimes don't get heard. And I do wonder between all of the generations as part of this, and this is something I've been thinking about for the last two years, I don't have an answer. So maybe y'all will. How much of this tension between generations is: I experienced newsroom trauma when I came in and was young -- the hazing, the staying up all night and doing everything and so I now expect the same of others, instead of trying to make the space better, more functional, more inclusive.

Ashley Alvarado

07:56

Go for it, Beena.

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