Perspective on journalism: Mark Lodato
Courtesy: Gage Skidmore under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Mark Lodato is associate dean of the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and associate general manager of Arizona PBS at Arizona State University. Lodato supervises the school's national-award-winning television newscast, "Cronkite News," which airs weeknights on KAET-TV, Arizona PBS. Lodato joined the Cronkite School in 2006 after working for 16 years as a reporter and anchor for television stations in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Phoenix and Ft. Myers, Florida. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a master's degree in higher education administration from ASU.
April interviewed Mark Lodato in 2018 about a variety of topics including:
How he got started
Lessons he’s learned (always be prepared)
The changing media landscape and TV news
Lessons from journalism’s history
The changing media landscape and media literacy
The value of teamwork
““What I realized I really liked was knowing things a little bit before everyone else.””
Here, Lodato describes how he got his start in journalism.
““I got to go. And it wasn’t because I was the best reporter in the building, and it wasn’t because I had the fastest car or anything like that. I had a bag packed. I was there and I was ready to go.”
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In this clip, Lodato discusses one of the most important lessons of his career, which proved invaluable in 1995 when he was sent to cover the Oklahoma City bombing.
““. . . [J]ust because you’re using Twitter doesn’t mean you can’t do it in an ethical way and in an accurate way.” ”
Next, Lodato discusses lessons from journalism's history that can be instructive in the social-media and "fake news" era.
““I think teamwork is one of the things that’s really special about journalism. If you’re in a newsroom that’s working well, you’ve got each other’s backs. And that’s a really neat feeling and it really elevates your work.””
In this clip, Lodato describes the many ways teamwork comes into play in journalism.
““We’re strong advocates of a varied media diet and understanding the people should be getting their news from multiple sources, not just one or two or even three, and we encourage them to mix it up.””
Next, Lodato addresses how social media and the changing digital landscape have impacted media literacy.
““We’ve too often relied on that low hanging fruit, and I think it’s a responsibility of local news rooms to invest time and resources in community stories and realize that it may not be the flashiest, but it’s relevant.””
Here Lodato describes how the changing media world has impacted local television news.