Jennifer Kho didn’t set out to become the first woman and first Asian American Executive Editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. But in each of her career choices, she prioritized growth and inclusion, vowing to learn as much as she could about the news industry. The lesson for Widening the Pipeline fellows is that innovation, persistence, and betting on yourself can open doors to greater opportunities. [Transcript | Video]
5 takeaways:
➀ Dropping the paywall just made sense. Kho said there’s a problem in a society when misinformation is free and the truth is not. People who want the best information available should be rewarded for seeking it out, especially if media organizations put a lot of effort into verifying stories, Kho said. “We’re not just competing with other news organizations; we’re competing with content and we’re competing with anything that takes up anyone’s time. We have to make it as alluring as possible for people to want to read or watch or listen to the truth.”
➁ Never forget those “Aha” moments. Kho related a newsroom conversation early in her career that left a lasting impression. An editor summoned her to his office to discuss expanding coverage of the growing Afghan community—but also mentioned a dilemma. “One of the problems is whenever we put a person of color on the front, we lose subscribers,” he told Kho. “It was this discussion of, okay, well is it more important to retain the loyal racist subscribers that we have now or to potentially serve a community that was growing within our coverage area?”
➂ Focus on what’s not being covered. When Kho came across a report stating that the fifth largest investment category at the time was clean technology, her expertise in green energy reporting was launched. “As far as I could tell, no one was covering it. So I said, ‘Hey, I could cover this beat. It’s like solar and this electric car thing and stuff.’” Editors gave her the green light, adding, “We’d also like you to cover mobile devices in case that ever becomes a thing. I loved finding stories on the fringes of what had been mostly semiconductor coverage and things like that up to that point in the dot.com era. Also, people who are creating what’s new, creating the future.”
➃ Be open to big challenges. Kho describes her time during the launch of The Guardian U.S. as one of the most innovative chapters of her career. “I loved the idea that it was a new model that supported editorially-independent journalism,” she said. “A lot of the stories I did in that section were not positive stories, but they proved to be very successful from a revenue standpoint. Within a year, we were making a third of the revenue for The Guardian US. I was promoted to editorial partnerships editor, and we started to expand the topics and areas where we could use this model.” Kho was eventually named Managing Editor, and her achievements there caught the attention of HuffPost managers, who hired her as Director of Strategic Innovation.
➄ Taking a break from the newsroom can work wonders. When HuffPost was bought by Buzzfeed, and many top managers were laid off, Kho spent 18 months as an audience engagement consultant. “I got to really find out, again, asking a lot of audiences, what do they actually care about? What are they not getting in different markets and things like that.” Kho also did audience research for the Solutions Journalism Network and for the Membership Puzzle Project. By the time she interviewed for the Sun-Times position, Kho says her career had come full circle. “I was able to be really honest about my point of view, what I thought was wrong about journalism, why I thought this was an opportunity to fix it, what I’d be interested in doing, and what I wouldn’t be. It just aligned. It just was perfect that they seemed to want exactly what I wanted to bring.
The Widening the Pipeline Fellowship is sponsored by the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation, Bayer, J&J and Twitter. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
