Sign In

Subramaniam Vincent

Director, Journalism and Media Ethics, Santa Clara University

Subramaniam (Subbu) Vincent is the Director of Journalism and Media Ethics at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.12 He is passionate about the power of ethical media to foster pro-democracy discourse and focuses on developing tools and frameworks to advance new norms in journalism practice, ethical news product design, and new vocabulary and signals to help the public process and demand ethical media.23

Vincent's career highlights include:

  1. Leading the design and development of a Source Diversity Dashboard Audit system for news articles.1
  2. Convening the News Distribution Ethics Roundtable, which has released recommendations on platform transparency over news.1
  3. Receiving the Distinguished Service to Journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California in 2022.13
  4. Being a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University in 2016.23
  5. Co-founding and leading the award-winning news outlet Citizen Matters in Bangalore, India.3

Vincent has authored several book chapters and journal articles on journalistic practice, product management for news, digital disinformation and misinformation, and community media.12 He combines research, convenings, and advanced prototyping in his work to advance applied ethics for news media, news product design, and platform distribution.3

Prior to his current role, Vincent had a successful career in tech as a computer and communications engineer.3 He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and daughter.3

Highlights

Aug 9 · linkedin

Say you are a politics reporter. What should you do when Donald Trump, of all people, asks you to define DEI? What could you do?

This post will seem like it is only for journalists covering politics and elections. No, really! It is also for you folks in HR, cultural competence consulting, and the C-suite where questions on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are real. You will likely have better insights on what to do than I could come up with.

At the now-famous National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) event where Donald Trump attacked Kamala Harris' identity last week, he asked Rachel Scott, ABC News' Senior Congressional Correspondent to do define DEI. She passed on it for the most part. After all, he had just attacked her on her previous, brilliant, question. The risks were high, but NABJ had baked them into the event by inviting him anyway.

Many of you will likely dismiss the case for engaging the former president on his ask. This piece was hard for me to write. But I felt it was an opportunity to offer definitions to the man, in public, when potentially millions were watching, as TV networks went live to his Q&A. https://lnkd.in/gCZYC59w

#journalism #politics #DEI #definitions #elections #identity

Jul 15 · linkedin

Sometimes local media can take on the blind spots of the national media more substantially than we give them credit for. This morning KALW (San Francisco's 91.7 FM radio and digital outlet, kalw.org) had one of the best shows complicating the narratives from the Trump assassination attempt at Butler, PA.

Guests David Cay Johnston (DC Report) and Jeff Sharlett (Dartmouth College) put into context Trump's longer history of espousing violence himself at political rallies and his speeches particularly, without taking away the gravity of reality from the moment. Example after example. https://lnkd.in/gR_XjEi6

(T/H to host Rose Aguilar and producer Malihe Razazan for a timely show. Disclosure: I happen to be a Board Member at KALW.)

So yes, there is expectedly a ton of news media coverage, social media outpouring, dozens of conspiracy theories, and whatnot, after the Trump assassination attempt. But one recommendation: avoid simplistic narratives about heroes and villains, criminals and protagonists, unifiers and dividers, etc.

As my colleague David DeCosse pointed out at a meeting this morning, the problem of how security protocols at election rallies are upstaged by open-carry gun laws in states like Pennsylvania is not getting headlines. We need more coverage of those sorts of structural angles beyond the handwringing of sheriffs and officials.

Related Questions

What are the main goals of the Source Diversity Dashboard Audit system?
How does Subramaniam Vincent's work contribute to democratic discourse?
What are the key recommendations from the News Distribution Ethics Roundtable?
Can you explain the significance of the John S. Knight journalism fellowship award?
What are some of the book chapters and journal articles written by Subramaniam Vincent?
Subramaniam Vincent
Subramaniam Vincent, photo 1
Subramaniam Vincent, photo 2
Add to my network

Location

United States