Prepare for a visually engaging, interactive, multimedia, multicultural handbook for incoming student journalists in Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
Unlike traditional textbooks, The Reporter's Toolkit has been designed for both the college and high school markets, and it's built around current events as they happen.
In short, it is the most diverse, accessible, and engaging journalism textbook and online educational platform to come along in more than a decade.
The Reporter's Toolkit by journalism educator Chris Evans, Ph.D., and longtime MSNBC producer Colleen King combines interactive reporting experiences, video lessons taught by well-known journalists from across the media landscape, and instruction in core concepts of reporting, writing, ethics and news production, all in a dynamic, cross-platform learning environment that engages, entertains and educates.
The text puts special emphasis on multicultural representation and digital media platforms relevant to today's college and high school students. Nationally recognized experts in the fields of AI, ethics and constitutional law present alongside prominent working journalists from NPR, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times and a host of social-first news platforms.
The Reporter's Toolkit Advantage
The authors' extensive connections in the media industry mean students will get to know and interact with the top journalists and media educators in the world today.
Students will play the part of journalists covering fictional news events with supplied reporters' notes, public documents and network-quality video news-source interviews that will challenge students in an interactive and gamified environment.
A user-friendly platform will be easy to navigate for both students and educators, and seamlessly integrate with learning management systems. TheReportersToolkit.com is ready to provide paywall-protected supplementary content in cooperation with the publisher's needs.
In a rapidly changing news and media environment, journalism instruction must be increasingly of the moment. The Reporter's Toolkit will continuously update educational content online, providing both new and experienced teachers full lesson plans with subject matter ripped from the headlines.
Interactive reporting scenarios put diversity and cultural competence first, with people of color featured prominently. The authors' connection with Howard University, the nation's top historically Black university, will place Black journalists and students front and center. Spanish-language components will provide content for a growing and underserved Spanish-speaking population. Students who need to understand world events will hear from people who live and work the places worldwide where the news happens.
All journalism textbooks produced within the past decade feature text-heavy pages, easy to tune out. Not so here. Like Tim Harrower's “Inside Reporting” before it, carefully crafted two-page layouts will make learning exciting for students and handout-ready for teachers. Image-filled lessons will take on topics one double-truck spread at a time — two pages for covering city council meetings, two pages about the challenges of artificial intelligence for modern journalism — with the lessons nested among photos and images from professional designers.
[Chris] probably knows more about the law of the First Amendment and the law of gathering and publishing news than anybody out there who hasn't practiced law.
Chris Evans is an enthusiastic and innovative educator. He brings great ideas, strong classroom teaching and enthusiasm and empathy into the classroom.
I've really been able to see [Colleen's] drive and passion for teaching students… She really is engaging and wants the best for journalism students.
A dear friend, a fantastic co-worker, and a veteran of the cable news wars.
Meet the Co-Authors
Chris Evans
Chris Evans, Ph.D., is a longtime, award-winning multimedia journalist with nearly two decades of experience advising student-led media outlets and a decade of leadership experience in College Media Association, the nation's largest association of college media advisers and their students, where he served as both president and head of the organization's First Amendment Advocacy Committee. At the University of Illinois, he developed the audio-first multimedia enterprise of the Illinois Student Newsroom, where he embedded Illinois journalism students in the professional newsroom at Illinois Public Media to create a student-professional newsroom hybrid where students broadcast more daily, professional-quality work than at any other public radio station.
Diversity and social justice lie at the center of Evans' professional practice. Today he is a tenure-track assistant professor of journalism at Howard University in Washington, D.C.. He has just stepped into the role of digital adviser for Howard University News Service, the university's student-powered multimedia news organization, which provides hyperlocal and national reporting for 200 African-American weeklies, with coverage of national and local events in and around the Washington area, including Congress and the White House, as well as issues of interest to multicultural audiences.
Evans' students routinely earn the first national awards of their careers under his tutelage and have gone on to become leaders with national and international profiles at The Washington Post, Wired, Apple, USA Today, WBUR Boston, The Houston Chronicle, Good Morning America, OpenAI and elsewhere. His own recent awards include the 2023 Distinguished Dissertation Award for his Ph.D. and, for his work as a journalism educator and adviser, the Distinguished Multimedia Adviser Award from College Media Association. Academic honors include membership in Phi Beta Kappa and designation of his doctoral degree as a Ph.D. with Distinction.
This former reporter's writing spans genres, with work published by print, broadcast and web news outlets, as well as literary magazines and academic journals. His article ‘The Four Phases of the Digital Natives Debate’ quickly became one of the top-cited pieces of scholarship related to digital natives, emerging as among the top 1% of journal articles in that field since its publication in 2020. His work in development includes a five-episode podcast designed for NPR audiences about the evolution of The Hilltop, one of the nation's oldest Black student newspapers, as told by the student leaders as the struggling newspaper enters its 100th year. This podcast is intended to serve as the basis for a longer, book-length, multimedia text about the history and current state of the Black student press in America.
Evans has degrees in journalism, French, English and fiction writing from the University of Kansas, University of Central Florida, the State University for New York at Albany and New York University.
Colleen King
Colleen King is a clinical assistant professor in journalism and the inaugural director of the Richard and Leslie Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
She has taught in-person and online courses including Introduction to Journalism, Newsgathering Across Platforms, Navigating the Job Market and Writing for Television & Streaming News. She has repeatedly been named to the UIUC list of Teachers Ranked as Excellent By Their Students. She also advises student television newscasts including ‘UI7 Live’ and ‘Good Morning Illini.’
She came to academia following 17 years in television news that culminated in her tenure as executive producer of MSNBC's The 11th Hour with Brian Williams. Under King's leadership, The 11th Hour became the number one cable news program at 11 p.m., labeled ‘a success’ by The Washington Post and ‘a must-watch program for political junkies and the Beltway crowd’ by The Los Angeles Times.
King also produced MSNBC election programming and breaking news coverage anchored by Williams. She covered live events including the Parkland school shooting, the Trump-Putin summit, testimony by former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller on Capitol Hill, Supreme Court confirmation hearings, hurricanes, and other breaking news.
King has covered four presidential and five congressional midterm elections. She has booked and produced interviews with presidents, presidential candidates, and top lawmakers. King has also produced live coverage of the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primaries, party conventions, and presidential inaugurations.
King began at MSNBC as a booking producer for Hardball with Chris Matthews. There, she secured and produced interviews with top politicians and celebrities including Joe Biden, John McCain, Colin Powell, Sandra Day O'Connor, Robert De Niro, Matt Damon, and Robin Williams.
At MSNBC, she also served as senior producer for Morning Joe, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and other network programming.
King began her television news career at CBS News in Washington. She also worked as an associate producer and booker for the Fox News Channel prior to joining MSNBC.
King received a master's degree in journalism and mass communication with a concentration in journalism education from Kent State University. She earned her bachelor's degree in political communication from The George Washington University.