Becca Aaronson
- Interim Executive Director, News Product Alliance
Austin
As seen in:
Medium,
The New York Times,
The Washington Post,
Chron,
Poynter Online,
Nieman Lab,
WFAA-TV (Dallas, TX),
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
MYSA,
Texas Tribune
and
News + Product Strategy, beccaaaronson.com. @newsproduct founder, fmr dir. of product @Chalkbeat, product manager @TexasTribune.
Articles by Becca Aaronson
What is “News Product”? — News Product Alliance
Product is the discipline of creating value. So in journalism, “news product” is about creating value in news. Yet the way we talk about it can be confusing. “Product thinking” refers to a mindset or a strategic approach to work. “Products” are the things we’re building, like newsletters, websites and apps. And “product” roles are teams or individuals managing this process. This guide will help you make sense of these terms and understand the role of “news product” within news organizations.
The First-Party Data Future: Helping small and local newsrooms harness their superpower — News Product Alliance
If your stories and products aren’t informed by audience insights, no amount of growth hacking will make them truly stick. This is no easy feat. Newsrooms struggle to collect and manage the kind of rich, declarative data that makes this possible, let alone connect it on an ongoing basis to their editorial strategy. Improving this process is one area that the AI Co-Lab has zeroed in on for support.
The State of Product Management in Journalism: 2025 Census — News Product Alliance
Product is the discipline in the newsroom most focused on creating value. It is designed to navigate audience shifts and technological disruption at the speed the next decade demands, aligning audience needs with editorial priorities, business strategy, and technology, while ensuring journalism delivers on its public service mission. Yet the field is still maturing. Too many organizations treat product as an informal add-on rather than a leadership function.
Launching News Product AI Collaboration Lab: Bridging the gap between local community needs and journalism products — News Product Alliance
We’re thrilled to announce the expansion of News Product AI Collaboration Lab [NPAI Co-Lab] in partnership with the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. This initiative aims to leverage AI to tackle one of the most pressing challenges facing the news industry: better understanding and engaging audiences to build sustainable news organizations. The media industry is facing yet another crucial juncture.
Solutions for Local News: Highlights from the NPA Forum — News Product Alliance
How do we build and strengthen healthy news product operations in local news? A healthy product operation in a news organization requires a combination of skilled individuals, a supportive and flexible organizational culture, efficient processes, an understanding of audience needs and behaviors, and a shared alignment on mission and desired impact.
News product goes from trend to standard
In 2023, news organizations will realize that they need product leaders in the newsroom who are explicitly tasked with overseeing the execution of editorial products — and not just the editorial strategy of these products, but editorial strategy in combination with technology, revenue and audience strategy. News product management is not a trend — it’s an essential function of every news organization.
Meet Feli Carrique: NPA’s new Executive Director
We are incredibly excited to introduce our new Executive Director, Feli Carrique! Feli is an Argentinian journalist and product thinker working at the intersection of media, technology, and sustainability. In her previous role as the Innovation Director at SembraMedia, she worked with news organizations across Latin America to promote innovation and led product design and systems development for the organization.
Looking back on the first year of the News Product Alliance
A year ago today we launched the News Product Alliance and I published a Medium post titled, “Why I quit my job to launch the News Product Alliance.” I wrote about how, as the pandemic contributed to a growing unease across the journalism industry, I wanted to created a community for “Product thinkers — those with the abilities to align editorial, audience, technology and business goals” because I believe they have “become the missing link to creating sustainable journalism in the digital...
Why I quit my job to launch the News Product Alliance
Like many people, the pandemic has forced me to re-evaluate my career. As I watched fellow journalists struggle to work from home, be furloughed, laid off or asked to work double-time, I’ve sensed a growing unease among my peers that the pandemic might be the last straw that causes the entire news industry to come tumbling down. That’s why I left my job at Chalkbeat, an organization I adore, to help build The News Product Alliance, a global community for news product professionals.
Why I quit my job to launch the News Product Alliance
Like many people, the pandemic has forced me to re-evaluate my career. As I watched fellow journalists struggle to work from home, be furloughed, laid off or asked to work double-time, I’ve sensed a growing unease among my peers that the pandemic might be the last straw that causes the entire news industry to come tumbling down. That’s why I left my job to help build The News Product Alliance, a global community for news product professionals.
First Person Guidelines
Chalkbeat publishes personal essays in a series we call First Person. Our goal is to elevate the voices of students, educators, parents, advocates, and others on the front lines of trying to improve public education. We’re not looking for traditional opinion pieces. We’re seeking essays centered around the writer’s personal experience or observation. Our pieces are usually around 800 words.
Our Staff
Leadership Team Elizabeth Green COFOUNDER & CEO egreen@chalkbeat.org Elizabeth Green is the CEO and co-founder of Chalkbeat. She is also the cofounder and board chair of the American Journalism Project, the first venture philanthropy firm dedicated to local news. Elizabeth’s book Building a Better Teacher was a New York Times bestseller and notable book of 2014. She has also written about education issues for The New York Times Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and other publications.
Careers at Chalkbeat
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How to be a source
This guide will help you share your tips and experiences with Chalkbeat. What to expect from Chalkbeat One of Chalkbeat’s aims is to foster a nuanced conversation about education changes among a diverse community of educators, policymakers, students, and parents. We promise to treat every source with the respect and dignity they deserve. We promise to provide a welcoming and trusting environment for all to share their story.
Our Supporters
All those who contribute commit to helping us preserve our editorial independence. They agree that Chalkbeat’s only duty is to our mission and that editorial decisions are ours alone. To read more about our code of ethics, click here. The following list represents all donors who have given $1,000 or more to Chalkbeat in the last two fiscal years.
About Chalkbeat
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization committed to covering one of America’s most important stories: the effort to improve schools for all children, especially those who have historically lacked access to a quality education. We are mission-driven, in that we believe that every child deserves an excellent education, and that a strong press is vital to making that happen. Yet we are also fiercely independent, in that we do not take a position on the best path for achieving equity.
Code of Ethics
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering educational change efforts in local communities across the country. Our mission is to provide deep, local coverage of education policy and practice to inform the decisions and actions that lead to better outcomes for children and families, especially those in low-income communities.
Becca Aaronson | Digital Women Leaders
Thanks for your interest in a coaching session! We hope you’ll get a lot out of your one-on-one call. Here are just a few quick ground rules before we take you to the scheduling page. Take note of your scheduled call, and show up on time. Keep in mind that each mentor is a busy person. Please be respectful of her schedule! If you need to cancel your one-on-one call, please do so ahead of time if possible.
What Elizabeth Warren told charter activists after protest at Atlanta event
Elizabeth Warren defended her education plan — while also promising to go back and read it — in a meeting with pro-charter activists Thursday, a lengthy video of the conversation shows. The Democratic presidential candidate argued that her plan seeks only to put charter schools on an even playing field with district schools.
Introducing Chalkbeat’s new brand identity
You may have noticed Chalkbeat looks a bit different today. Nope, we didn’t get a new haircut. We got a new brand identity! As Chalkbeat embarks on our strategic plan for 2025, we recognized the need for a new visual identity that reflects who Chalkbeat is now — and for a design system dynamic enough to grow with us as we expand from seven locations to 18 in the next five years.
Lawmakers Wonder Whether Trust in CPRIT Can Be Restored
The embattled Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas was put under the microscope Tuesday as the Senate Finance Committee grilled the institute’s leadership on findings by state auditors and questioned whether public trust in the institute could be restored.
3 out of 4 Americans support giving teachers a raise, the highest in a decade
Striking teachers have been successful at drumming up support for a raise, a new national poll suggests. Nearly three in four Americans think teachers should be paid more, the poll shows. That points to a potentially strong base of support for the proposals by a number of Democratic presidential candidates to dramatically raise teacher pay and ramp up federal investments in high-poverty schools.
How to keep your sanity as you dismantle the status quo in newsrooms
Becca Aaronson is the director of product at Chalkbeat, a nonprofit education news organization. She was the first product manager at The Texas Tribune when she graduated from Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media in 2018. There are days when I don’t feel good at my job. Then something will remind me of the positive impact I’m having.
House Gives Final OK to "Pork Chopper" Bill
The Texas House gave a final OK today to the "pork chopper" bill and sent it off to the governor's office. The bill would allow licensed hunters to hire helicopters and contract with landowners to shoot feral hogs and coyotes on their property from the sky. The Senate approved the measure last week but changed the wording of the bill slightly to give the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department more authority to regulate who can pay for helicopter hunts. State Rep.
Summit Learning, the Zuckerberg-backed platform, says 10% of schools quit using it each year. The real figure is higher.
When nearly 100 students walked out of their Brooklyn high school in protest last year, saying they were spending too much of their days in front of a computer, the story took off. The students were complaining about their school’s use of Summit Learning, a curriculum and online learning system backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
New Democratic divide on charter schools emerges, as support plummets among white Democrats
There’s a sharp racial divide among Democrats on charter schools, according to national data newly released to Chalkbeat. A separate poll commissioned by Democrats For Education Reform, an advocacy group that backs charter schools, was the first to illustrate a racial divide among Democrats on the issue. It found that white Democrats are strongly opposed to charters, while black and Hispanic Democrats are modestly in favor.
Championing a Farm to Table Movement in Texas
Photo Glenn Foore, an owner of Springdale Farm in Austin, works in the field. On a mission to advance the local food movement, a Democrat from Austin is finding common ground with Republicans and rural Texans. When Republicans hear a Democrat saying there is “too much regulation, their ears perk up,” State Representative Eddie Rodriguez, that Democrat, said with a smile.
From bridge roles to product thinkers
For the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of bridge roles in newsrooms across the country — engagement reporter, designer/developer, digital editor, growth editor, the list goes on. Many of these roles perform the same essential task: They connect the dots between disciplines to enable more strategic work. They are, essentially, product thinkers.
Rough Patch
The oil bust is threatening to deal a serious financial blow to schools in oil-producing regions across the state — particularly if it lingers.
In Coordination of Care, a Partner in Children’s Health
It takes a team of medical specialists to care for Anna Barkhuizen, a 9-year-old with epilepsy, cerebral palsy and significant developmental delays. Her mother, Rebecca, recalls waiting for hours in exam rooms and leaving before seeing the doctor, because Anna had grown too impatient. “I felt like we had all of these dots with all of these specialists, but no one to connect all these dots for us,” Ms. Barkhuizen said.
School choice is pushing wealthy families to gentrify neighborhoods but avoid local schools
When Francis Pearman was studying at Vanderbilt, he and a fellow graduate student noticed a striking phenomenon in Nashville: white, affluent families were moving into low-income neighborhoods without sending their children to the neighborhood schools. “We were really curious to see what that relationship looked like at the national level,” said Pearman, now a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. When he and that student, Walker Swain, looked at national data, a pattern emerged.
Why one Harvard professor calls American schools’ focus on testing a ‘charade’
Harvard professor Daniel Koretz is on a mission: to convince policymakers that standardized tests have been widely misused. In his new book, “The Testing Charade,” Koretz argues that federal education policy over the last couple of decades — starting with No Child Left Behind, and continuing with the Obama administration’s push to evaluate teachers in part by test scores — has been a barely mitigated disaster. The focus on testing in particular has hurt schools and students, Koretz argues.
T-Squared: A fresh look for The Texas Tribune
Today our homepage received its first major facelift since 2013. Take a look!We’ve simplified the layout, removed features that weren’t getting much love from readers and added a few new things, like trending stories. Some of the biggest changes are things you don’t actually see, but we think you’ll still notice. Our homepage, for instance, used to be one of the slowest-loading pages on our site.
T-Squared: A fresh look for The Texas Tribune
Today our homepage received its first major facelift since 2013. Take a look! We’ve simplified the layout, removed features that weren’t getting much love from readers and added a few new things, like trending stories. Some of the biggest changes are things you don’t actually see, but we think you’ll still notice. Our homepage, for instance, used to be one of the slowest-loading pages on our site. Now, thanks to this new design, it loads lightning fast.
Updated: Travis DA Says CPRIT Investigation is Ongoing
The Travis County district attorney’s office clarified on Wednesday that its criminal investigation of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas “is ongoing and aggressive.” The comments followed assurances made Tuesday by a spokesman for CPRIT, chairman Jimmy Mansour, that "CPRIT, as an organization, and all current board members, are free from suspicion in the ongoing CPRIT investigation." “Chairman Mansour and other current CPRIT board members are not under suspicion in the...
Chalkbeat in Chicago and Newark
Dear readers, We have some exciting news: After hearing from community leaders across the country, we’ve selected the next two places where we’ll launch Chalkbeat coverage. By early 2018 — just a year after launching in Detroit, our fifth city — we’ll have Chalkbeat coverage in Chicago and Newark, New Jersey. The timing couldn’t be better. Both Chicago and Newark are in the midst of sweeping changes with far-reaching consequences for students and families, educators, and communities.
National support for charter schools has dropped sharply in last year
Public support for charter schools has declined substantially in the last year, according to a national survey released Tuesday. The survey, conducted by the school choice-friendly journal Education Next, found that slightly more Americans support charter schools, 39 percent, than oppose them, at 36 percent.
Texplainer: Can the Lege Override a Veto After the Session Ends?
Hey, Texplainer: Can the Lege override a governor's veto after a regular session has ended? The governor of Texas is the only person with the constitutional authority to veto a bill passed by the state House and the Senate. That authority can be used within 10 days after legislation reaches the governor’s desk during the regular session, or within 20 days of the Legislature’s adjournment. This year, the veto deadline is June 19.
Betsy DeVos’s comments on discrimination drew headlines, but her stance isn’t unique among private school choice backers
Betsy DeVos drew incredulous reactions this week when she said she would let states decide on the rules for voucher programs vying for federal money — including whether schools that discriminate against LGBT students could participate. But the education secretary’s position isn’t out of the mainstream among voucher supporters, or out of step with how private school choice programs work across the country.
Women's march participants took on DeVos this weekend — with posterboard. Here's what it looked like
A portion of the protesters at the women’s marches across the country on Saturday made it clear that they found Betsy DeVos unbearable. Signs referencing President Trump’s nominee for education secretary were scattered throughout the protests — and grizzly bear puns abounded, in reference to remarks DeVos made during her confirmation hearing about the need to protect students from bears.
What you should know about Betsy DeVos, Trump's education secretary pick — and what her choice might tell us about his plans
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President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Michigan philanthropist Betsy DeVos to be his education secretary. “I am honored to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again,” DeVos tweeted Wednesday. “The status quo in ed is not acceptable.” DeVos, an advocate for school vouchers, has chaired the Michigan Republican party and played a key role in some major education policy decisions there in recent years.
By Matt Barnum Verified, Becca Aaronson, Dylan Peers McCoy Verified, Philissa Cramer Verified, Sarah Darville Verified
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Chalkbeat
Verified
Texas Voter Turnout is Dismal. Here Are 8 Ways to Improve it.
By Becca Aaronson & Kyle Ellis, Director of Strategic Programs, Society for News Design This year, Texas saw record highs for voter turnout in presidential primaries, more than 4.2 million voted March 1. But with about 21 percent of its citizens 18 or older voting, Texas ranked near the bottom compared with other states in overall turnout. People who don’t vote are all around you. Hell, you may not vote.
Texas vs. the Feds: A Look at the Lawsuits
Editor's note: This story was originally published on July 31, 2015. It has been updated to include new lawsuits filed by the state of Texas against the Obama administration as well as new cost estimates. Since President Obama took office in 2008, the State of Texas has sued his administration 40 times — a point of pride for the state's Republican leaders. Former Texas Attorney General and current Gov. Greg Abbott filed 31 of those lawsuits.
Has the Oil Downturn Affected You or Someone You Know?
How plunging oil prices are reversing fortunes across Texas. When the oil and gas industry was exploding in 2014, The Texas Tribune chronicled how that was changing lives and fortunes in the state. Now that the boom has turned into a bust, we're exploring how Texas shale towns are faring. If you or someone you know has been affected by the changing tides of the oil industry, we'd like to hear from you.
See How Many Students Texas Public High Schools Sent to UT-Austin
In Texas, public high schools with fewer “economically disadvantaged” students and more “college-ready” students tend to send a greater percentage of their graduating classes to the University of Texas at Austin. Often, the majority of those schools’ students are white.
How Much Texas Politicians Spent per Vote in 2016
House Speaker Joe Straus spent the most money per vote to maintain his seat in the 2016 primaries — $307. One of his top lieutenants, state Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, spent the second most, $120 per vote. The extra spending may have helped Straus and his allies survive strong challenges from the right. The table below compares how much money candidates for the Texas House, Texas Senate, Railroad Commission, and State Board of Education spent from Jan. 1, 2015 to Feb.
Who Are the Biggest Spenders in Texas Races?
Ahead of Tuesday's primary, political organizations have contributed more than $26 million to Texas legislative and State Board of Education campaigns since Jan. 1, 2015. Empower Texans and Texans for Lawsuit Reform have given the most money this election cycle. Empower Texans, a political action group that backs Tea Party candidates such as state Reps.
2015 Interactive Features Included Death Row App, Look at Space Race
In the last year, The Texas Tribune’s News Apps team has doubled in size, with developers Annie Daniel and Jolie McCullough joining veterans Becca Aaronson and Ryan Murphy. And we've tackled some of our most ambitious projects to date, including our first fully immersive multimedia experience, Starstruck; a complete redesign of our popular Texas Public Schools Explorer; and several new interactive site features, including a tool to see the inmates currently on Texas’ death row.
Interactive: How Many Texans Resemble You?
There are more than 25 million people living in Texas — but how many of them are just like you? Choose from the drop-down menu below to see the percentage and raw number of Texans who share your demographic characteristics. Keep in mind that the Census Bureau asks people to self-report race and ethnicity separately because it defines "Hispanic or Latino" as an ethnicity, not a race. People who identify as Hispanic or Latino may report their race in a variety of ways.
Women’s Health Claims in Texas Decline Under New Program
The number of claims filed for medical and family planning services in the new state-run Texas Women’s Health Program has dropped since the state ousted Planned Parenthood from it and set up its own program without federal financing, according to figures from the Health and Human Services Commission.
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