Anthro x Journo: The Value of Ethnography for Solving Journalism’s Challenges

In 2023, Emily presented at EPIC, the premier international conference on ethnography in business & organizations. The 2023 conference theme was “friction.” Read more on 🔗the conference website.

Today’s working journalists are experiencing friction in stereo: both readers and sources don’t trust them to get the story right. This friction between media and the communities they cover has always existed, but today’s turbo-charged antagonism has brought this to a personal level for modern journalists just trying to do their jobs. For our democratic society to thrive, we need journalism in top form. In this presentation, trained anthropologist and magazine editor, Emily Kennedy, will show how journalism and ethnography are close kin. With audience members already familiar with ethnographic methods, this PechaKucha turns our focus to the creative opportunities ethnography presents for solving some of journalism’s modern challenges. Let’s spark creative thinking around applying anthropology to a sister discipline in need!

Emily Kennedy is is a trained anthropologist and has worked as a journalist and magazine editor for over 10 years in North America and Australasia. Her research around anthropology and journalism led to the creation of anthrojourno.org – an online resource for journalists looking to use ethnographic methods in their reporting.