This week, DePaul University is moving from merely woke to academic insomnia. The university is teaming up with former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to create an institute dedicated to journalism and “racial justice.” As trust in the media plunges, DePaul is moving to double down on advocacy journalism with the “Institute for Journalism and Racial Justice.”
DePaul announced that the institute would advance racial justice by challenging “inequitable media practices” and promoting “narrative change by employing asset-framing, solutions journalism and other innovative journalism practices towards more inclusive storytelling.”
“Inequitable media practices” and “solutions journalism” is jargon often used by those demanding that reporters seek social justice in their framing and coverage of stories. Such programs often reject the touchstone of neutrality in journalism.
The “Institute for Journalism and Racial Justice” will reportedly focus on Lightfoot’s “I.C.E. Accountability Project,” an initiative targeting ICE enforcement policies. Lightfoot declared that she and the university “intend to unmask those agents who have been alleged to have committed crimes or to have engaged in other unlawful conduct.”
Lightfoot was tossed out of her position as mayor in 2023 after a disastrous run during which she regularly used racial attacks and claims during her career. When she was called out for her horrendously poor performance as mayor, she accused her critics of being racist or anti-lesbian.
The Institute is the perfect embodiment of how journalism has become a ship of fools, blithely staying the course as the industry flounders.
It is important for journalism schools to teach about race and other issues that have long divided the nation. It is also important for students to understand the history of racial issues in journalism and the need to combat all forms of racial, gender, and ideological bias. However, this Institute is clearly part of the advocacy wing of journalism, headed by a polarizing political figure.
Other universities like Howard University are also doubling down on advocacy journalism, inspiring students with questions like “what am I willing to burn?”
We previously discussed the release of the results of interviews with over 75 media leaders by former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. They concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”
Downie recounted how news leaders today.
“believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading “bothsidesism” in covering stories about race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change and many other subjects. And, in today’s diversifying newsrooms, they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”
Now, objectivity is virtually synonymous with prejudice. Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press, declared, “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy.”
Stanford journalism professor Ted Glasser insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He declared that “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”
Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.”
Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism.
Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared, “all journalism is activism.” Her 1619 Project has been challenged as deeply flawed and she has a long record as a journalist of intolerance, controversial positions on rioting, and fostering conspiracy theories. Hannah-Jones would later help lead the effort at the Times to get rid of an editor and apologize for publishing a column from Sen. Tom Cotton as inaccurate and inflammatory.
As “J Schools” teach advocacy journalism, trust in the media has fallen to an all-time low. Media outlets are struggling to survive. Yet it remains personally beneficial for academics and reporters to continue engaging in advocacy journalism, even (in the case of NPR) at the cost of federal funding.
In the case of DePaul, it is willing not only to join this movement but to do so at considerable cost to its own academic integrity. Like the media, universities (including DePaul) have been criticized for virtually purging their ranks of conservative or libertarian faculty. They have created an ideological echo chamber on their campuses. Indeed, DePaul is viewed as one of the most viewpoint-intolerant universities.
I have written two books addressing the decline of journalism in America — “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” and “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.” These books discuss the parallels of how advocacy became a substitute for both journalistic and academic values.
In that sense, this is a perfect marriage of activist academia and media — headed by one of the most divisive figures in Chicago’s history.
The new institute reinforces the view that J schools remain unrepentant and unchanged. As they sever ties with much of the public, they continue to replicate the same radical agenda to use academia for activism. That includes schools like UCLA that have actual “resident activists” who proselytize to students.
In the end, the Institute will change little, but that is precisely the problem. DePaul and other academic institutions (as well as the media) must make hard decisions to restore credibility with the public. Instead, they are merrily sawing at the branch upon which they sit.
Dear Mr. Turley, growing up in Rockford, Ill, our politics and funding always revolved around the “Chicago question”. Which meant how will our local policies benefit Chicago? Sounds crazy, however it was true then and it is true now. Ms. Lightfoot is well acquainted with racial policies against white people. During her term she would only meet folks from the media if they were “people of color”. These universities fear the left and their media allies. One wrong step against the perceived “woke” culture and it is over for them. There is hope for the crumbing city..a group of black people have a political army called “Flip Chicago Red” that is gaining strength each week. The group has a woman running for mayor who is brave enough to call out the hypocrite attitude of the current city government. Plus, she is calling out the Chicago’s Teachers’ Union. Brave woman and brave people can turn this wokeness cancer around.
Here is an example of some high quality, MSM journalism, (/sarc) With no radical footprint, what drove suspect to try and assassinate Trump?
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/28/nx-s1-5801467/cole-allen-suspect-washington-correspondents-dinner-shooting
Here is the funny part,
“You look at the social media profiles that have been attributed to this suspect and they’re really not that radical,” said Jared Holt, senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that tracks online threats and narratives. “Oftentimes it’s like quite centrist, pretty moderate left wing, if anything.”
They inadvertently point out that the radicalization that they themselves have been pushing is now no longer far left wing radicalization but centrist and moderate left wing.
Chicago is in a ‘Death Spiral’. The lessons learned on the other end of I-94 in Detroit Michigan have not been learned.
The hubris of the Chi-Town Democrats are killing the metroplex softly. Lightfoot will wane away leaving a mess behind at the cost of a University’s reputation.
A waste of time and resources that could be used to improve the Lincoln Park and Loop campuses
re: (It’s about access to Education – Lowering Cost & Improving Life)
Red, Brown or Purple Line Trains
Classes are offered on the Lincoln Park and Loop campuses, so you’ll probably take the “L” or bus to class.
Study, listen to music or people-watch while taking the Red Line train. It takes about 20 minutes to travel between campuses.
Text, catch up on Instagram, or take snaps of the skyline and other historic buildings on the above-ground Brown or Purple Line trains. It takes about 30 minutes to travel between campuses.
https://www.depaul.edu/student-life/chicago/get-around-chicago
[Same can be said for the University of Chicago: The University of Chicago is primarily served by the CTA Green Line (Garfield or 51st/53rd stops) and Metra Electric District line (University Park/55th-56th-57th St stop). While not directly on campus, the Red Line (Garfield)]
(Ms. Lori Lightfoot) – Killing
Me Chicago Softly WithHis SongHer Swan SongThe man was ahead of his time:
“So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here — not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.” (Hunter S. Thompson).
Whther they are nations or persons, I have no sympathy for those who use injustice, wether they see it where nobody else does, amplify it beyond reason, or simply lie about it, as a hammer to shut down speech or a license to commit their own “acts of kindness” like rioting, lawfare, theft, murder. Why do we have to share the air with these triglodytes?
Once the news audience fractures into two political tribes, disjoint realities is the ultimate outcome. The news selection process then becomes highly subjective, because it follows from the question “What is relevant?” Progressive media simply ignore misdeeds committed on the left as irrelevant, or if they can’t, push them down in priority or reframe them as innocuous. They can even flip the narrative and blame the right — as is happening this week — you have Rosie O’Donnell making the outlandish claim that conspirators on the right orchestrated Cole Tomas Allen’s attempt on the President’s life to besmirch the left. Not outlandish if you are a leftist infowarrior looking to reap advantage from any situation.
Add to that, because the internet of the 1990s was rushed into existence as borderless and without law enforcement built into the infrastructure, add to the chaos foreign enemy infowarriors who reach daily into our infospace (and that of our children) to push their stilted narratives. They take full advantage of the biases held by their target audience.
We can’t have a well-functioning country split by two contradictory perceptions of reality. Instead, what we have is paralysis, ping-pong policy gyrations, moral confusion, and tuning out. The battle of centrist moderates to take back control over media and the public square is the existential fight of our time.
And, a full redesign of the internet — this time to embrace the sanctity of our laws and national borders in the core design layers of the technology — is way overdue. These changes must be made before our free society becomes completely swallowed up by pernicious infowarfare. Let’s start by repealing Section 230. And, let’s expand defamation civil law to include all attempts to dupe the public — while keeping government constrained by 1A.
I think the notion of Lori Lightfoot leading a university’s “Institute for Journalism and Racial Justice” is a wonderful idea! Teaching journalism students “advocacy journalism” and “storytelling” devoid of objectivitywill likely serve to further erode the profitability of the news media companies that hire them after graduation when subscriptions and viewership plummets because no one is willing to pay to read or watch their “reporting”. Ultimately ridding the community square of these propaganda machines will be a net benefit to society.
In the interest of truth and full disclosure, we should begin referring to such establishments as expensive centers of indoctrination, coercion and brainwashing rather than institutions of higher learning. I say this because learning is far removed from process of creating non-questioning zombies. This should be a nation-wide change of title for any institution with progressive faculty and administration. Truth in advertising is always the best way to build brand loyalty.
” begin referring to such establishments….” whim says. Begin referring to such establishments as cesspools of vice.
Fixed it!
Modern journalists write better fiction than actual modern fiction authors. These people are ridiculous, and totally transparent. It’s like a kid thinking you can’t see them if they have their eyes closed.
This is not an academic decision. This is payback. We’ll never know who made the decision. We should not forget that the University of Pennsylvania hired Joe Biden (described as a nice man with a poor memory) as a professor. We should not forget that Bernie Sanders’ wife was hired as president of a university in his home state (which she shepherded into financial ruin).
YEAH BAAABBY! Can’t keep WOKE alive without a champion of DEI (or is that DIE?) Gotta get those young minds early while they are moldable as young Comrades and Revolutionaries without a CLUE – aka IDIOTS!
“narrative change by employing asset-framing, solutions journalism and other innovative journalism practices towards more inclusive storytelling.”
Storytelling. That is what modern MSM journalism amounts to. Storytelling.
That is what modern MSM journalism amounts to. Storytelling. And, so what. Asking, do you in fact listen/read MSM? No, you say. Then WTF do you know about journalism if your opinion is that its all storytelling? Turley said so?
Want to tell us your daily source for journalism that makes you so perfectly informed?
Upstate did you see this.
A resurfaced video shows Minnesota House Rep. Ilhan Omar mistakenly referring to World War II as “World War 11” while .
LOL…
DustOff,
HA!
I also read her and her husband’s wealth went from nearly $30m to less than $100k between them. And their winery, poof! It was as if it did not exist!
USF/DO
As Tom Holman says, Stay tuned…
I see a prison term followed by deportation in Ilhan’s future.
I think she got her early education at “The Learing Center”. If so it would explain a lot.
As a side note my spell check wanted to change learing.
Going hard on racism is on-brand, Triple down racist leftys! The only way to cover the democrats long history of racism is with more racism today and ‘developing’ more race baiters to replace their aging ones.
Democrats: Invest in racism! Now with new improved rising-star race-baiters!
The re-defining of language continues as truth becomes relative depending on the writer or speaker’s viewpoint and not fact based. The absence of factual information on which to base decision making results in poor choices and failure. We have plenty examples of the outcome in places like Chicago. Academia is choosing failure for itself.
Hopefully, the whole movement ultimately will collapse and along with it, the networks that might otherwise employ them but for bankuptcy.
Eliminate objectivity in reporting events……insane. Those advocates have their heads up their butts. Kind of dark in there.
DePaul’s appointment and creation of this “center” is about like asking Satan into your church pulpit to give talks on ethics, love of god, canon law and his interpretation of the bible. I suppose there will be a large serpent coiled and hissing represented over the entrance to this “Institute”.
The analogy is wrong, in fact deranged. Is your perception of the world strictly based on Satan?
It’s jargon and not “jargin.” Jargin (or “jar of gin” as he called it) is what my grandfather drank at backyard barbecues about 65 years ago.
DePaul is closing its arr museum, to ahixh an artist friend gave his extensive collection a few years back, as well as prozed pieces of his own work. They can’t afford to keep it open, but they have money for this mishegas.
DePaul is America’s largest Catholic university. But their students are not known for their intellectual heft. One of my friend’s English professors, a friend of Gertrude Stein and Alics B. Toklas, chucked academia shortly afterwards to become a tattoo artist, the famous Sparrow, who taught Ed Hardy how to tattoo.
Sorty for the typos
DeJoke University is training the next crop of MSNOW “urinalists”. They completely dismiss the foundational principle of journalism, to report fairly without favor, and to allow the stories to speak for themselves. Of course, even this has been abused over the years by propagandists deciding to cover certain stories and ignore or minimize others; we saw it on full display during the eight years of Obama and four of Biden.
Winner ⬆️…… 🏆🏆🏆
“teaming up with former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot”? That is the as crowning yourself “loser”, DePaul University!
Lightfoot declared that she and the university “intend to unmask those agents who have been alleged to have committed crimes or to have engaged in other unlawful conduct.”
1. Joe Biden
2. Hunter Biden
3. Jill Biden
4. James Biden
5. James Comey
6. John Brennan
7. Bill Clinton
8. Hillary Clinton
9. Barack Obama
10. Eric Holder
And the beat goes on…
Sure Cletus, sure.
The second this country goes into a major recession Chicago is history, they have so much red ink it’s unbelievable, it’s not going to survive. The last MAJOR recession was 92 to 95, we’ve had a couple small ones since then, but we haven’t had a big one for over 30 years, and trust me on this, when that big recession comes it’s going to be all over for Chicago.