New Year’s Resolutions for INBA
Jason Piscia, INBA President
It’s the time of year to make New Year’s resolutions. Every December, I resolve to read more books, bite my nails less, exercise daily and skip the fast-food drive-through when I’m hungry. Unfortunately, I fail at most of these goals before January ends. The allure of the next streaming series, the nervousness before my next class lecture, the fatigue after a long day and my growling stomach inevitably pull me back to old habits.
Over the past two months as INBA president, I’ve thought a lot about the goals and objectives of this organization. Journalism is facing many challenges that demand resilience and creativity. My hope for 2026 is to find additional ways to support journalists – both professional and students – in their everyday work. So here goes: my New Year’s resolutions for the INBA.
Expand the reach of our professional development: If you’ve ever been to a full-weekend INBA convention, you know the sessions are a great way to learn more about covering trending topics and using new technology to enhance our reporting. But in recent years it’s been a challenge to get most members to attend in-person educational sessions. I hope we can take our teaching online to gradually create a library of on-demand content, perhaps in the form of a podcast or video series, that connects our members with digestible bits of useful information they can apply to their jobs.
Increase INBA membership: Our numbers have been declining in recent years. In the fall, we were at 128, a four-year low mark after hovering in the 150s to 170s range during most of that time. See this chart for more details. With the help of our board and the rest of our members, I’d like to see us launch a recruiting campaign to encourage more journalists, especially those from professional TV and student broadcasting, to join us.
Plan a great awards celebration: Mark Saturday, April 18, 2026, on your calendar now. We’re debuting a new event: the INBA Best of Broadcast Awards. We’re bringing all of our awards into one big night of celebration. We will honor the winners of the professional Crystal Mic Awards, the student SINBA Awards, our college scholarship recipients and Illinoisan of the Year at an evening dinner event in Champaign.
Advocate more publicly for journalism and the right to know: You don’t need me to tell you journalism and First Amendment rights face immense challenges right now. Many of you live it every day. Cuts to public broadcasting funding, physical and verbal attacks on journalists, the lack of respect in the marketplace for solid, factual, hard-hitting reporting, and government efforts to prevent reporters from getting information the public is entitled to – it’s all incredibly disheartening. As president, I will continue to speak out on these issues, especially when they affect journalists right here in Illinois. Journalists play a vital role in bringing accountability, reason, and understanding to the chaotic environment around us. Efforts to block reporters from doing that threaten the foundations of democracy and must be called out.
They say New Year’s resolutions are more likely to stick if you write them down. So there they are. I hope we can work on this list together and have an immensely better outcome than I do with my inability to tear myself away from Netflix and an order of fries.
Happy New Year — and thank you for all you do.