by Lornet Turnbull

May 2018

Alicea is a Seattle-based reporter for public-radio station KNKX, formerly KPLU, where a 2013 internship first introduced her to radio. She previously worked as a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times and as an intern at the Cape Times in South Africa. @svalicea

In a rapidly evolving media landscape, Alicea is still trying to find her place. She’s the personification of an industry fundamentally upended by the emergence of the internet, where Facebook and Twitter are as normal a source of daily news as the morning paper once was.

Alicea got into journalism hoping to write for newspapers, while witnessing the carnage as publications across the country merged and shrank and disappeared.

Like many of her fellow journalism graduates, her employment prospects in 2015 made her anxious — even with a degree from Northwestern University, a top journalism school. When she landed a job as a reporter on the breaking news desk at the Chicago Sun-Times, she felt lucky, but in the wake of massive staff cuts months earlier, knew better than to hope she could build a journalism career there.

When she learned of an opening at KNKX, she returned to Seattle, where she produces stories on business, labor, and other local issues for on-air and manages the station’s online news content and social media.

Alicea had been an advocate of more transparency in the media even before this concept of fake news crept into regular parlance. She sees value in letting listeners in on how a story develops. “People are craving an understanding for why you are saying this the way you’re saying it. Why should I trust you?’’

But she also finds that people her age have fairly low expectations of the media: “They’re generally more skeptical of everything they read.”

So as the industry tries to sort it all out, she finds herself doing the same. “The thing about news as an industry, it seems to be the case that the changes are just as fast as the news itself.”

And, “The thing I might be doing five years from now might not even exist yet.”

Alicea had been an advocate of more transparency in the media even before this concept of fake news crept into regular parlance. She sees value in letting listeners in on how a story develops. “People are craving an understanding for why you are saying this the way you’re saying it. Why should I trust you?’’

But she also finds that people her age have fairly low expectations of the media: “They’re generally more skeptical of everything they read.”

So as the industry tries to sort it all out, she finds herself doing the same. “The thing about news as an industry, it seems to be the case that the changes are just as fast as the news itself.”

And, “The thing I might be doing five years from now might not even exist yet.”