Introducing the Children & Family News website, bringing you examples of excellent and timely journalism.
Everyone was once a child and part of a family. Stories about Children & Families matter: health, education, parenting, daycare, poverty, school shootings, opioid addiction, technology etc. The list goes on and on.
Too often, these kinds of stories get shunted to a farther back printed page, or many clicks down a webpage.
Journalists should “give voice to the voiceless.” That statement is one of many in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics and it is both important and valuable.
Reporters, editors and multi media journalists strive to do that every day. However, the stories that matter most, are often about the people who seem to matter least: children in poverty, immigrant families, the sick, etc. Journalists must find and cover their stories. We are better as people when we do.
Beyond giving voice, journalists need to amplify the stories of the voiceless. That is where this website comes in.
For 20 years, the Casey Center on Children and Families at the University of Maryland amplified such journalism stories and projects. They provided resources for journalists on all kinds of topics, such as juvenile crime, maternal health, rising autism rates, school testing, child welfare and vaccinations. The Center closed in 2014 when funding was depleted, and a void was created in journalistic coverage of these issues. Numerous layoffs at news organizations over the past ten years have also hurt coverage of Children & Families journalism.
Then came the Presidential Election of 2016 and all the oxygen was sucked out of the journalism air and diverted mostly towards politics.
This website is an attempt to spotlight the important and nuanced journalism about Children & Families journalism. Please follow and and feel free to submit any excellent examples you come across to quigleyk@rowan.edu.
There is also a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ChildFamilyJournalism/
Welcome.
Kathryn Quigley
Professor Quigley is an Associate Professor at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ
She holds her B.A. from Villanova University and an M.A. from the University of Maryland. She worked as a daily newspaper reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Fayetteville (NC) Observer, the Daytona Beach-New-Journal, the Orlando Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post.
In 1999, she won a journalism fellowship to the graduate program of the University of Maryland. She worked at the Casey Journalism Center on Children & Families and focused her research on juvenile justice and child welfare.
Quigley began teaching journalism at Rowan University in 2002. She teaches News Reporting 2, Feature Writing and Media Ethics courses. She is the coordinator of the Internship program for the Journalism Department, and advised The Whit student newspaper for more than 10 years. Her research is focused on Media Ethics and Children & Families journalism.
Quigley is a freelance writer for New Jersey Family, New Jersey Baby, the South Jersey Times and Philly Metro newspaper. She is the the author of the news writing textbook “Introduction to News Writing: The Real Scoop.”
She can be reached at 856-256-4132 or quigleyk@rowan.edu
Newsletter on Children & Families Journalism 