About

Meet the host

My name is Autriya Maneshni and I attend the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. I am also a part of Barrett, the Honors College at ASU and this project that you're listening to is my honors thesis.

Ever since freshman year when I took my history of mass communication course, I was fascinated with the topic of journalistic objectivity. I remember sitting in that class and learning that as a journalist, I am supposed to stay unbiased and impartial. I can't report on communities I belong to because it would be biased in my reporting. It was weird. It didn't make sense because I wasn't seeing the things I was learning about practiced by journalists in the industry.

So that's how I got this idea for this podcast. I've heard both sides of this story. Some people prefer journalists to report in a neutral way, others want us to share our emotions and personal perspectives. There's no right answer to this problem it feels like. But, I wanted this project to give some insight into what journalism objectivity looks like in the 21st century and how it has evolved over time.

Now, a little more about me. I am originally from Tehran, Iran and I moved to American when I was 9 years old. I really enjoy talking and was the emcee of many events back in Tehran as early as 5 years old (even before I could read!). Because of my love for talking and storytelling I decided to pursue journalism as a major during my senior year of high school. I actually originally wanted to be a lawyer, but after my journalism history class (yes the same class mentioned above), I deiced to throw away the lawyer idea and stick to journalism. I am really glad that I made that choice. I cannot imagine for the life of me having to take the LSAT. That sounds awful.

The first club that I joined at the Cronkite School was Blaze Radio. Blaze is ASU's only student radio station. I've been a part of this club since 2019 and previously served as the club's music director and am now the station manager. Blaze Radio introduced me to audio storytelling. I really loved being on the radio and I knew that I wanted to always keep audio apart of my life. That's why I decided to do a podcast for this thesis instead of a huge 30 page paper, I mean, what's the fun in that?

I also wanted this thesis to be in a medium that almost everyone can access. I wanted newsrooms to listen to it and takeaway a thing or two from it. I know that I can't solve all of the issues that surround journalistic objectivity, but I know that this podcast can give some great insight into how we can move past robotic reporting.