If the truth will never go out of business, there will always be a place for journalism, says Charles Sennott, the man behind a mission to advance the next generation of correspondents.

The GroundTruth Project and SiliconANGLE Media are partnering to launch and jointly manage the new TechTruth project. The GroundTruth Project, which longtime war correspondent Sennott founded and directs, is a nonprofit news organization tackling today’s top issues, including gender inequality in the lucrative land of war coverage. Based at the flagship PBS station WGBH in Boston, the initiative provides training and mentors to journalists seeking and building global international reporting teams and producing in-depth and investigative work from under-covered corners of the modern world. The primary focus is on social justice issues, spanning religious freedom, the environment and rising income inequality.

This month, SiliconANGLE Media launches TechTruth an initiative in partnership with The GroundTruth Project to train and fund the next generation journalists in technology through non-profit fellowships.  The technology-focused fellowship will focus on “Women in Tech” as the inaugural  project for TechTruth.  This new initiative will cover the intersection of technology and social justice. In a three-part interview series (full videos below), Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-host of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, spoke to The GroundTruth Project TechTruth fellows.

“Our real mission [is] to bring a new generation of journalists along and have them cover the biggest stories of their generation, but to do it from being there, being on the ground,” said Sennott. He went on to add, “We really saw a need there … this generation of journalists are really coming up in a time of great disruption in media; traditional media is failing; the new media is not giving them the opportunities they need, and we saw a chance to come at this with foundation support,” listing the Ford and MacArthur foundations as examples.

Impartial journalism is necessary

There’s a perception that so much news today is skewed either hard left or hard right that it has been a challenge for traditional media, dependent on ad revenue, to stick to neutral, unbiased reporting.

“We’re so challenged to have in-depth, quality journalism that enlightens and informs,” said Sennott. “GroundTruth and SiliconANGLE’s TechTruth fellowship really wants to tell the most important technology stories for the new future where we’re really going to support a new generation of journalists to hold true to those old standards, really try to look back to a time when we did more in-depth reporting.”

“It has been said, ‘The truth will never go out of business,’ and I really believe that … . It’s been said, ‘We are now living in a post-truth era,’ and that phrase gives me the chills. The idea that we don’t have a shared set of facts, that we don’t have a way to look at things with the great traditions and standards of journalism, that we really need in our country if we’re going to be a thriving democracy,” Sennott said.

The intersection of journalism and technology

Vellante also spoke to Karis Hustad and Pooja Sivaraman, two of the TechTruth Women in Tech fellows who will be attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, to be held in Houston, TX. Hustad and Sivaraman shared their thoughts around journalism and the role of women in the tech field.

“I’ve been covering tech, as a journalist, for about three years. … Incredible innovations are coming out every day … but not so much talk about who’s behind these innovations, who’s behind the infrastructure for the next big thing … and also to take a gendered look at this, as women are not well represented in technology,” said Hustad.

Sivaraman added, “At Tufts … I was working on a podcast about music and cultural appropriation … how with technology, there’s an increase in the ability to sample … how that affects cultural appropriation across music. … That’s what got me interested in the intersection between technology and social justice.”

Additionally, Hustad asked: “We have many examples of what happens when women aren’t included in the technical process. … What happens when women are part of the tech process, what does that change in the culture, in innovation?”

Why aren’t there more women in technology?

Vellante spoke of the many interviews he does throughout the year and how there are many women computer scientists who don’t go into the technology field. He asked what the guests thought about that.

“I’m looking at women gamers and game creators … especially post-GamerGate … one of the most obvious examples, a very definite reason why women were leaving the gaming industry,” said Sivaraman. “There’s this interesting gender dynamic that happens on and off screen where there’s definite sexism and misogyny on screen, but you can see that play out in who gets employed, who are the actual game developers. Gaming has definitely become a boys’ club.”

The fellows pointed out that while there are definitely more women in the boardrooms of technology companies, that doesn’t always “trickle down” to other roles within companies.

“Yes, it’s great to see more women in leadership roles … however, the pipeline is still a huge issue. We can’t get as many women in the field because of the ‘holes in the pipeline.’ You need that critical mass to create a healthy culture,” said Hustad.

Sivaraman went on to explain: “From our research, women have to be risk-takers and have to be stronger and more pushy.”

Changing the disparity game

Vellante also spoke with Tori Bedford, associate producer at WGBH, and Kevin Grant, cofounder and managing editor at The GroundTruth Project, about the role of women in technology and their thoughts on diversity in general.

Asking specifically about the role of women in technology and how journalists can ask better questions of their subjects to get a more in-depth understanding of what’s going on, Bedford had this to say:

“Women in tech, it’s a buzz phrase. … As long as there’s a disparity, it’s a worthwhile question to ask and to explore. … A lot of this is very insidious, and hard to prove. … Let’s re-frame the environment and say, ‘Let’s change the game and see what works best.’”

Grant added, “As journalists, it’s our role to ask these tough questions. … Part of that is the gender imbalance in the tech industry.”

The guests discussed that they hope The GroundTruth and SiliconANGLE TechTruth project can have a positive effect on the ratio of women in tech, on women in media and, really, in any space around the world.

Room for improvement

Vellante brought up the point that at some tech events he attends, there are plenty of women represented; at others, there are only a few. So things are changing, but maybe not fast enough. He said he sees a trend, but we’re on a steep climb to get where there would be an ideal balance.

“There’s something happening here, but we don’t want to be too optimist just yet. … The problem is very severe; it’s massive. We have some work to do,” said Grant.

Bedford then pointed out that, historically, “a trend that is improving ties into a larger cultural question. …Women were doing most of the computing in the 1940s and ’50s, when it wasn’t considered a desirable field. … It became a man’s game when it became a desirable job.”

The discussion moved to recent research that shows a diverse workplace is better for all employees. It’s up to women and men to make sure technology is fair to both genders.

Leading the editorial oversight of the TechTruth project is an advisory committee that includes Elisa Lees Muñoz, head of the International Women’s Media Foundation; Lara Setrakian, cofounder and CEO of News Deeply; Matt Carroll, research scientist for MIT Media Lab and former Boston Globe “Spotlight” reporter; Esther Wojcicki, founder of the Palo Alto High School Media Arts Center, former vice chair of the Creative Commons Board of Directors and distinguished scholar at Stanford MediaX; and John Markoff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer on science and technology for The New York Times.

Photo by SiliconANGLE