Op-ed: Every news outlet needs a child-care beat

Haley Swenson and Rebecca Gale wrote for the Columbia Journalism Review about why news outlets need childcare beats:

In 2020, when Covid-19 shut down schools, workplaces, and daycares, news coverage of child care surged. During those early months of the pandemic, the number of news stories about the child-care industry increased by 90 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, according to data from the First Five Years Fund. President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better infrastructure package—which includes a $400 billion to support child care and early education, with stipulations for raising the wages of child-care workers, increasing subsidies to families, shoring up struggling child-care centers, and expanding eligibility—established child care’s place among our national economic priorities. It also sent reporters and news outlets scrambling to cover a complicated subject that spans beats and topics—from business to health care to education to child development—as well as regulatory systems and funding mechanisms, state and federal. 

Rather than selectively engage child care as an add-on or afterthought to those legacy beats, the time has come to make child care its own beat. Complexity and urgency don’t pair well; it’s unrealistic to expect a reporter new to covering child-care to churn out a nuanced story on a tight deadline. Over time, however, a dedicated beat reporter can develop expertise in the nuances, policy implications, and people that shape a subject as complex as child care—all while, hopefully, building public interest and rewarding it with new understanding.