Engaging Gen Z in the Era of Algorithmic News Consumption

Lessons from a Knight-Wallace Fellow

Over time, I’ve become increasingly enthralled by how news reaches people. As the media landscape has changed, so have the ways people engage with news. Rather than fight a losing battle to keep news consumers where they were, I’ve followed their transition from print to digital, from static images to short-form videos. These shifts dictated my path from photographer to photo editor, to social media director at National Geographic, and, recently, to Knight-Wallace Fellow.

While working at TIME and National Geographic, I noticed a problem. We knew which content performed well on social media but didn’t fully understand what brought the content through the platforms’ algorithms and into users’ feeds. The issue wasn’t just who liked our content but who never got to see it. This disproportionately affected younger generations, who are the future of social media and the future of journalism.

They receive most of their news from social media platforms, which are served to them algorithmically by individual creators — not traditional news sources. Younger audiences no longer actively choose their news; instead, algorithms largely choose it for them.

What better place to try to tackle this issue than a campus full of Gen Z students? Early on, the Wallace House staff connected me with professors at the University of Michigan School of Information: Sarita Schoenebeck, Cliff Lampe and Paul Resnick. I started with general coursework but soon focused on marketing and leadership at the Ross School of Business. This helped me better understand the intersection between business and tech within the media landscape.

When I wasn’t taking business classes or attending Wallace House seminars, I collaborated with Professor Resnick to study students’ social media habits. Rather than asking students about their social media usage, we had them share news-related videos from their feeds. What I found surprised me — in ways both discouraging and hopeful.

Josh Raab with fellow students at the University of Michigan School of Information.

Time and again, I’d been told that young people don’t care about news, that social media is rife with misinformation, and that little can be done about it. While some of that is true, here are a few of the findings that changed my thinking:

  • Young people care about the news and are getting more of it than ever on social media platforms. Seventy-five percent of the news stories students saw were new to them.
  • While misinformation and bias exist, Michigan students had a good barometer for bullshit. Trustworthiness scores for news videos rated by students and journalists were within 10% similarity on average.
  • Individual creators have surpassed traditional media accounts. Fifty-four percent of the news videos weren’t from traditional sources — and students tended to trust creators more.
  • Seventeen percent of the news-related videos covered local news — making algorithmic social media a potential resource as traditional local news outlets face sharp declines.
  • The vast majority of news videos came from accounts that students did not follow. Students said they wanted more news on social media but were unsure who to follow for reliable content.

This all presents an interesting opportunity. Younger demographics are consuming more news than ever, and it’s increasingly coming from social news creators like Dylan Page, Jessica Burbank or Weather With Peyton. These creators are effective but often lack the journalistic support of traditional newsrooms.

The stimulation of my fellowship year and the quiet calm of Ann Arbor have been replaced by a new job at Google and the cacophony of New York City sirens. Still, the fellowship year and my findings continue to inform my thinking. I remain grateful for the experience — and just a little jealous of the current fellows floating around Ann Arbor, looking forward to their next seminar or planning a group outing to a football game or expedition to Detroit. In the future, I hope to launch a platform to connect news creators with journalists, provide fact-based news, combat misinformation and better reach social media consumers.

Josh Raab is a senior manager at Google, where he heads social strategy for Android, Google Chrome and Google Play.

This article appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of the Wallace House Journal.

The Eisendrath Symposium: Press Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe in the Age of Putin

Wallace House Presents a WCEE Panel and Eisendrath Symposium Event

With Baktygul Chynybaeva, Holger Roonemaa and Joseph Sywenkyj
Moderated by Geneviève Zubrzycki

4:30 PM | Thursday, February 13, 2025
Rackham Amphitheater, Fourth Floor

Reception following the discussion

Free and open to the public.
This is a non-ticketed event.

Press Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe in the Age of Putin

In the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has taken extraordinary steps to try to silence independent media through bans, censorship and repressive labels like “foreign agents.” This crackdown has spread to Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where some governments are mirroring not only Putin’s laws but also his actions — arresting and even killing journalists to suppress free speech. 

How can journalists safeguard access to accurate information and combat disinformation in the face of these escalating threats?

Join our panel of journalists from the region, featuring Knight-Wallace Fellows Baktygul Chynybaeva of Kyrgyzstan and Holger Roonemaa of Estonia, and Joseph Sywenkyj of Ukraine and the U.S., WCEE Distinguished Fellow and Knight-Wallace Fellow. Moderated by Geneviève Zubrzycki, Director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia, the group will discuss these critical issues and why their work matters to us all.

The Eisendrath Symposium honors Charles R. Eisendrath, former director of Wallace House, and his lifelong commitment to international journalism.

About the Speakers

Baktygul Chynybaeva, 2024-25 Knight-Wallace Fellow,  is a journalist from Kyrgyzstan with more than 20 years of experience covering healthcare, environmental and human rights issues. Fluent in five languages, she serves as a correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s central newsroom in Prague. Her investigative reporting on the dire condition of children’s cancer care in Kyrgyzstan inspired significant reforms in the country’s policies. Chynybaeva is also actively involved in organizing training sessions and capacity-building programs for journalists across Central Asian countries.

Holger Roonemaa, 2024-25 Knight-Wallace Fellow, manages the investigative and fact-checking team at the daily news site Delfi Estonia. He is also an editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). He has covered money laundering, corruption and evasion of sanctions, and topics related to national security, espionage and propaganda. In recent years, most of his investigations have focused on Russian security threats in Baltic countries. He led and coordinated the “Kremlin Papers” project, a high-profile investigative collaboration that detailed election interference, information manipulation and territorial aggression by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Joseph Sywenkyj, 2024-25 WCEE Distinguished Fellow and Knight-Wallace Fellow, is an American photographer of Ukrainian descent who has lived and worked in Ukraine for approximately 20 years. His photography throughout Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Central Asia has been published regularly in The Wall Street Journal, as well as in The New York Times. His ongoing photographic series, “Wounds,” is an intimate study of Ukrainian activists and soldiers who were severely wounded during the Euromaidan Revolution and Russia’s current war against Ukraine. Sywenkyj has exhibited his photographs in numerous galleries and museums in both the United States and abroad. He was the recipient of two Fulbright scholarships, one as a student and the other as a scholar, and also received a W. Eugene Smith Grant and an Aftermath Project Grant.

About the Moderator

Geneviève Zubrzycki is the Weiser Family Professor of European and Eurasian Studies and the William H. Sewell, Jr. Collegiate Professor of Sociology at U-M. She is the director of WCEE and the Copernicus Center for Polish Studies. She previously served as director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the Center for European Studies. Her research focuses on nationalism and religion, collective memory, the post-communist transition, and cultural politics in Eastern Europe and North America. Her award-winning books have been translated into Polish and French. In 2021, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Bronisław Malinowski Prize in the Social Sciences from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA). She serves on the Board of Directors of The Reckoning Project, an NGO investigating war crimes committed against civilian populations in Ukraine; the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America; and the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie(CRIDAQ) at the Université du Québec à Montréal. 

Co-sponsors:
Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia

This event is produced with support from Knight Foundation.

Announcing the 2024-2025 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows

Wallace House Center for Journalists and the University of Michigan are pleased to announce the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows for the 2024-2025 academic year. This cohort of 18 accomplished journalists from nine countries and a broad cross-section of the U.S. marks the 51st class of Fellows in our program’s history.

The Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellows will pursue ambitious journalism projects, immerse themselves in university courses and participate in weekly seminars with journalism leaders, renowned scholars, media innovators and social change agents.

“We’re honored to introduce the newest cohort of Knight-Wallace Fellows, whose expertise spans a diverse array of critical topics,” said Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House. “Their projects will delve into pressing issues such as protecting vulnerable sources, navigating the implications of technological advancements and supporting reporters in hostile environments. Through their collaborative, cross-disciplinary efforts, they’re poised to make a profound impact not only within journalism but also in the communities they serve.”

In addition to the academic and intellectual resources provided, Fellows will receive $90,000 in stipend and relocation support over nine months, an increase to help the journalists in our program weather industry instability and rising housing prices. Fellows will reside in the Ann Arbor area and enjoy most seminars at Wallace House, a gift from the late newsman Mike Wallace and his wife Mary, and the program’s home base.

Wallace House’s Knight-Wallace Fellowship program is funded through endowment gifts from foundations, news organizations, individuals and ongoing contributions from funders committed to journalism’s role in fostering an informed and engaged public.

The 2024-2025 Knight-Wallace Fellows and Their Journalism Projects:

Dieu-Nalio Chery is a freelance photojournalist from Haiti. He has documented the profound beauty, searing pain and upheaval in his homeland for The Associated Press, and many of his images have become iconic records of Haiti in the 21st century. His work will illuminate the larger story of the Haitian diaspora and combat common stereotypes.

Baktygul Chynybaeva is a journalist from Kyrgyzstan who has covered healthcare, environmental and human rights issues. She will explore avenues for achieving media independence in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan despite the countries’ economic and media dependencies on Russia.

Denise Guerra is an audio journalist and co-founder of popular news podcasts who focuses on breaking news and narrative storytelling. She will examine how short-form videos affect news consumption and how both news consumers and news creators can best utilize this evolving medium.

Cassie Haynes, J.D., M.P.H., the co-founder of the nonprofit journalism organization, Resolve Philly, is a journalism strategist with executive experience in government, corporate and nonprofit sectors. She will research mechanisms that enable newsrooms to quantify and predict the impact of their reporting on the evolution of social narratives.

Fatemeh Jamalpour is an Iranian journalist who has been interrogated, arrested and jailed by the Iranian government because of her human rights-focused reporting. Her study project will examine Iranian society’s move towards secularization.

Kwanseok Jang is a political reporter with the Seoul-based daily newspaper Dong-A Ilbo. He has 15 years of experience in journalism, including three years covering presidential and administrative policy-making processes. He will explore tensions between the public’s right to information, individual privacy rights and political partisanship, with a focus on the U.S. presidential elections.

Ally Jarmanning is a senior reporter at WBUR in Boston, where she focuses on accountability stories using data and public records. Based on her work with victims of police brutality and survivors of domestic and sexual violence, Jarmanning will create a guide for working with vulnerable sources.

Kunāl Majumder serves as the India Representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, where he documents and researches press freedom issues and advocates for journalists’ safety. He will engage with diverse experts in public policy, democracy and media studies, exploring ways to advance protections for journalists.

Zahra Nader is the founding editor-in-chief of Zan Times, a non-profit news outlet that covers women, gender-based issues and human rights in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. She will study business models and management strategies tailored to the needs of entrepreneurial journalists in exile.

Katie O’Brien is a two-time Emmy Award-winning producer at ABC News. She has reported from more than 30 U.S. states and covered dynamic and pivotal stories. She will explore multiple facets of juror biases, including studying juror selection processes and cutting-edge strategies for detecting juror biases through Artificial Intelligence algorithms.

Sarah Rahal is the lead city reporter for The Detroit News, where she covers developments within Detroit City Hall and spotlights important local issues. She will research the challenges and successes that municipalities face as they support refugees and asylum seekers as well as the impact of growing refugee communities on local politics, economics and culture.

Nada Rashwan reports on the Middle East and North Africa with a focus on politics and society in Egypt. She will investigate strategies for engaging youth and producing nuanced journalism under repressive governments, particularly in Egypt and other countries in the Middle East that actively censor the media.

Holger Roonemaa manages the investigative and fact-checking team at the daily news site Delfi Estonia. He is also an editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). He will develop an investigative journalism hub designed to bridge resource gaps, make use of high-tech investigative methods and bolster data-driven regional partnerships.

Davy Rothbart is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, journalist, bestselling author, creator of Found Magazine and a frequent contributor to public radio’s “This American Life.” He will explore the challenges facing wrongfully convicted inmates who lack DNA evidence and examine cases where innocence has still been established despite the obstacles.

Laura Santhanam is a health reporter and coordinating producer for polling at “PBS NewsHour.” She will study what both health professionals and journalists learned about public health messaging from the COVID pandemic and how to more effectively combat misinformation and build trust going forward.

Summer Sewell is an independent journalist who most recently worked as a contributing editor for special packages at Mother Jones. Through narrative storytelling, Sewell will trace the trajectories of two families, one black and one white, who have farmed over generations– recounting the families’ setbacks and triumphs and directly comparing their lost and gained generational wealth.

Joseph Sywenkyj is an American photographer of Ukrainian descent who has lived and worked in Ukraine for approximately 20 years. He will study how the psychology and sociology of war trauma change the identity of individual Ukrainians as well as the shared identity of the nation.

Anastasia Tsioulcas is a correspondent on NPR’s Culture desk and also contributes as a classical music critic to The New York Times, the first journalist to hold such a dual role. As a joint fellow with the University of Michigan Arts Initiative, Tsioulcas will research the effectiveness of recent diversity efforts, with a focus on Detroit and the surrounding region.

Read more about the 2024-2025 Knight-Wallace Fellows and their journalism projects »


About Wallace House Center for Journalists
Committed to fostering excellence in journalism, Wallace House at the University of Michigan is home to the Knight-Wallace Fellowships, the Livingston Awards and the Wallace House Presents event series, programs that recognize exceptional journalists for their work, leadership and potential.
wallacehouse.umich.edu

University of Michigan Arts Initiative and Wallace House Announce Inaugural Arts Journalism Fellow

ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan Arts Initiative and the Wallace House Center for Journalists are pleased to announce Anastasia Tsioulcas, Culture Correspondent for NPR, as the inaugural Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow.

This fellowship marks the latest collaborative effort from the Arts Initiative to expand access to the arts on campus and strengthen the arts ecosystem nationally and across southeast Michigan. As a Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow, Tsioulcas will actively engage in the Arts Initiative, collaborating with artists-in-residents and arts organizations to enhance learning, arts research and the campus experience for students.

Drawing from her extensive journalism background, Tsioulcas will lead a series of student workshops for budding arts journalists. Modeled after sessions she led at Stanford University, the workshops will help students develop their skills in arts journalism and explore their creative potential. Additionally, Tsioulcas will mentor students in crafting compelling short-form journalism for social media and other digital platforms.

“The broad, enthusiastic response to this new partnership between U-M’s Wallace House and the Arts Initiative has demonstrated the vital importance of supporting arts journalism in this moment,” said Mark Clague, Interim Executive Director of the Arts Initiative. “Welcoming Anastasia as our first fellow opens up a host of opportunities to connect our campus to the community and to inspire our students to engage in arts criticism that addresses urgent cultural issues and social themes.”

Anastasia Tsioulcas is a correspondent on NPR’s Culture desk and classical music critic at The New York Times, the first journalist to hold such a dual role. Her reporting focuses on music at the intersection of culture, politics, economics and identity. Previously at NPR Music, she curated episodes of the Tiny Desk concert series, hosted live events, and created video shorts. Tsioulcas has reported globally from Africa, Asia and Europe. Prior to NPR, she was a reporter and critic for such publications as Gramophone and Billboard. A trained classical musician, she holds a B.A. in comparative religion from Barnard College, Columbia University.

As a Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow, Tsioulcas will delve into Detroit’s classical music scene, researching the effectiveness and outcomes of efforts to diversify both performers and audiences. Since 2020, nationwide, classical music institutions and presenters have reshaped their offerings to appeal to more diverse audiences. Drawing inspiration from the university’s own innovative programming, Tsioulcas will track initiatives and performances in Detroit and the surrounding region and examine how well these programs tackle systemic challenges and opportunities for growth.

“I’m thrilled and honored to have been selected for this fellowship,” Tsioulcas said. “It’s a unique opportunity to look holistically at the evolution of classical music programming, and to share what I learn with students, NPR’s audiences, and the broader public.”

Tsioulcas will be a member of the 51st Knight-Wallace Fellowship class and participate in bi-weekly Wallace House seminars, cohort-based workshops and training, and international travel to bring context to the economic and social forces shaping news coverage.

“This partnership with the Arts Initiative comes at a critical time when staff positions for arts reporters have all but disappeared in American journalism. We’re making an intentional statement about the importance of arts coverage in a healthy journalism ecosystem,” said Lynette Clemetson, director of Wallace House Center for Journalists. “Reporting that fosters engagement with artistic expression is as vital to society as reporting on any other pillars of our communities or public institutions.”

The Knight-Wallace Fellowships offer accomplished journalists access to the rich resources at U-M to pursue ambitious projects. From tackling pressing newsroom challenges, to digging into research for a long-term reporting project or developing a journalism venture, Fellows undertake a range of projects aimed at advancing the profession and fostering an informed and engaged public. The full class of 2024-25 Knight-Wallace Fellows will be announced in May.

Tsioulcas says she is eager to become part of the U-M community, to immerse herself in the vibrant arts ecosystem at the University of Michigan and to share her insights with the next generation of arts journalists.

Read the original announcement about this inaugural fellowship.

About the Wallace House Center for Journalists

Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan is committed to fostering excellence in journalism. We are home to programs that recognize, sustain and elevate the careers of journalists to address the challenges of journalism today, foster civic engagement and uphold the role of a free press in a democratic society. We believe in the fundamental mission of journalism to document, interpret, analyze and investigate the forces shaping society.

About the Arts Initiative

The U-M Arts Initiative seeks to illuminate and expand human connections, inspire collaborative creativity, and build a more just and equitable world through the arts. It is a University-wide endeavor to make the arts central to U-M’s identity and mission.

Webinar for U.S. Fellowship Applicants

Portrait of Delece Smith-Barrow and Bernice Yeung

Learn More About the Knight-Wallace Fellowships and Hear from our Alumni.

Are you ready to take the next step in your journalism career with a Knight-Wallace Fellowship? Join our webinar with alumni Delece Smith-Barrow ‘17 and Bernice Yeung ‘16 and learn how the fellowship helped propel their careers. Hear about their application and fellowship experiences, ask them your questions, and discover what a year in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan can do for your life and journalism career.

Noon – 1 p.m. ET | Thursday, December 14. 
RSVP here to receive the Zoom link.

About the Speakers

Delece Smith-Barrow (2016-2017) is an Education Editor at Politico. As a Knight-Wallace Fellow she examined underrepresented minority faculty recruitment in top universities. With ample resources and time, she conducted extensive research and interviews to shed light on diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges in higher education.

Bernice Yeung (2015-2016) is Managing Editor with the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley School of Journalism. Yeung’s fellowship project explored how journalists can employ social science research methods in their reporting. During her fellowship, she conducted research that informed her award-winning book, “In a Day’s Work,” which investigated the sexual assault of immigrant farmworkers and female janitors.

Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship applications for the 2024-2025 academic year are open.

The deadline for U.S. applicants is February 1, 2024.

More About Knight-Wallace Fellowship

An Interactive Webinar for Fellowship Applicants

Learn More About the Knight-Wallace Fellowships and Hear from our Alumni.

Are you ready to take the next step in your journalism career with a Knight-Wallace Fellowship? Join our webinar with alumni Makeda Easter ‘23, Chris Marquette ‘23 and Elodie Vialle ‘20 and learn how the fellowship boosted their careers. Hear about their fellowship experiences, ask them your questions, and discover what a year in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan can do for your life and journalism career.

Noon – 1 p.m. ET | Thursday, November 16. 
RSVP here to receive the Zoom link.

About the Speakers

Makeda Easter (2022-2023) is a journalist and creative artist based in Chicago. As a Knight-Wallace Fellow, she deepened and expanded “the art rebellion,” an art-reporting project that amplifies the essential role of artists in the U.S. and the stories of artists who fight to improve their communities.

Chris Marquette (2022-2023) is a congressional accountability reporter for CQ Roll Call in Washington, D.C., covering the U.S. Capitol Police and lawmaker transgressions. The Knight-Wallace Fellowship enabled him to complete an in-depth investigative series on trends and practices among the U.S. Capitol Police and potential areas for reform.

Elodie Vialle (2019-2020) is a journalist at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. She is also a Senior Advisor on Digital Safety and Free Expression at PEN America. During her Knight-Wallace Fellowship, she developed safety protocols, programs, and training for journalists facing online attacks.

Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship applications for the 2024-2025 academic year are now open.

The deadline for international applicants is December 1, 2023.

The deadline for U.S. applicants is February 1, 2024.

More About Knight-Wallace Fellowship

Introducing the Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellowship

Reinvigorating Arts Reporting

The University of Michigan Arts Initiative and the Wallace House Center for Journalists jointly announce the creation of a Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellowship for the 2024-2025 academic year. This specialized fellowship is designed to underscore the importance of arts reporting and criticism in American journalism.

The Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellowship will provide professional development opportunities and engagement with leading scholars, creators and innovators in the arts. The inaugural fellow will be a member of the Knight-Wallace Fellowship, now celebrating its 50th year, and a member of the University of Michigan’s campus-wide Arts Initiative, which seeks to illuminate and expand human connections, inspire collaborative creativity, and build a more just and equitable world through the arts.

The Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellowship emerges as a crucial lifeline for art journalists as arts reporting positions are disappearing nationwide.

“By adding this dedicated Arts Journalism Fellowship, Wallace House affirms the importance of coverage of artists and the work they create to enrich, reflect and challenge society,” said Lynette Clemetson, director of Wallace House. “We hope to foster new ways of approaching and sustaining arts journalism across a range of platforms.”

The Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellow will pursue an ambitious journalism project related to the arts and will have access to university courses, research and art creation across various disciplines, including art history, performance, policy, business, technology and design.

The Fellow will receive an $85,000 living stipend, $5,000 relocation reimbursement, and health insurance coverage for the academic year. They will participate in weekly Wallace House seminars, cohort-based workshops and training, and engagement with leaders and changemakers in journalism and the arts.

Arts Journalism Engagement

“The mission of the Arts Initiative includes energizing and nurturing the arts on campus and in our state,” notes its Interim Executive Director, Mark Clague. “This not only means making art happen, but it means inspiring a robust critical dialogue about creative work and its meanings—its joy, humanity, and challenges to our beliefs and understandings. The new Knight-Wallace Arts Fellow will be a catalyst of such conversations, especially for U-M students, and amplify the impact of the arts for all.”

Now Accepting Applications

Applications for the Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellowship are now open to arts journalists and critics with at least five years of professional experience. Coverage areas may include but are not limited to music, dance, theater and other performing arts, visual arts and museum culture, literature and poetry, film and new media, architecture and design. 

The application deadline is February 1, 2024. Applicants must be U.S. citizens. The selected fellow will be expected to relocate to the Ann Arbor area for the 2024-2025 academic year to study on campus at the University of Michigan.

On the application form, applicants for this new fellowship must describe their arts journalism work experience in their personal statement and explain in their journalism project proposal how their fellowship project is related to coverage of the arts. 

More About the Knight-Wallace Fellowships

How to Apply