State of Journalism with Yumi Wilson

Yumi Wilson is a longtime San Francisco State University professor and a guest lecturer at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She is a former reporter and editor for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Associated Press in Los Angeles, where she helped cover the aftermath of the Rodney King beating by LAPD officers.

In addition to teaching, she has taken on numerous side gigs, mainly to stay current in her ever-changing field. In 2012, she was hired by Linkedin, where she learned how to show journalists and other communicators the tips and tricks necessary to get their LinkedIn profiles to “all-star” status.  She has since written a book called Social Media Journalism.

This summer, Wilson taught two courses in the Journalism Minor program.

When she’s not teaching or working at one of her side gigs, Wilson loves to write fiction, travel to faraway places, and watch Paw Patrol toy videos with her four-year-old grandson.

During our chat, we talked about why she chose journalism as her career; why she chose to stay in California, and why she is now enjoying teaching her craft to future generations.

We then talked about the realism and possibilities of Objectivity in journalism today – is it possible - or was it ever possible? We opined about the New York Times poor handling of an op-ed from Senator Tom Cotton, and why that was a watershed moment for this august publisher. 

We also discussed the business model of journalism, and why audience capture is influencing what stories get published and when – and how this is only exacerbating the divide between fellow Americans.

We ended our chat by talking about the future of AI and Social Media in the realm of journalism.

Yumi is a treasure to the industry of journalism, and I hope you learn as much as I did from her. 

Check out Yumi’s podcast here: https://yumiwilson.me/podcast/

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