Journalism & Media Innovation
My Journalism (formal bio)
Jessica Buchleitner currently examines the intersectionalities of emerging technology with society, politics, economics, gender, and philosophy. She’s also written longform articles examining women's perspectives as global unsung heroes and through sexual violence, diplomacy, power structures, and economics.
She is the author/curator of the award-winning 50 Women anthology series featuring personal narratives from 50 women representing 30 countries that discuss navigating and overcoming political, cultural, and societal issues, armed conflict, gender-based violence, immigration, health afflictions, and business ventures. Their stories challenge stereotypes and offer living accounts of densely complicated issues of our time. The book inspired "Stories from Girls and Women of Mogadishu, ”an anthology of personal narratives from women in Mogadishu where she served as co-lead editor.
Like many conviction-driven young journalists, Jessica joined the media in the early 2010s during the great industry disruption from Craigslist and social media. Watching her nonprofit news organization’s economic ups and downs from this disruption inspired her to examine innovation methods and emerging technology’s impact on how to convey information. She published a study, photogrammetry for journalism, with Northwestern University Knight Lab and authored the first investigative deep dive into sexual harassment on nascent Virtual Reality platforms (when VR was all the rage like AI is).
Jessica was featured Journalist of the Month for the International Journalists’ Network in May 2015 and a 2016 Medill Editorial Scholarship recipient for her Master of Science in Journalism/ Media Innovation from Northwestern University, where she studied the application of agile innovation methods to media companies and technologically driven cultural shifts in news reporting. She was a 2017 European Union External Action press visitor, where she witnessed article 50 of the European Consitution delivered to the European Council, initiating Brexit; a 2020 recipient of a Media Lab Bayern grant for the inaugural CUNY Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators initiative; and a 2023 ICFJ Newscorp reporting fellow for a forthcoming essay on ancestral homeland migration.
Her work appeared in Harvard Nieman Foundation, Women News Network, Smithsonian, Publisher’s Weekly, Reveal/Center for Investigative Reporting, and L'Atelier Insights, among others.
Our Bodies, Their Drugs - The Open State of DNA in Closed Hands
DNA companies use altruism narratives to convince customer to donate their genetic materials for novel drug discovery, which implies that any medicines developed will be affordable and available to those in need. But are they?
- L’Atelier Insights, 2024
Return of the Descendants
What does it mean to return to a land you are supposed to belong to as a descendant but in which you are functionally a foreigner? An essay examining ancestral homeland migration.
- Aeon, 2024
Crime, Punishment, and Cyberspace
Who will be responsible for law and order as the metaverse grows more elaborate? Will it be traditional law enforcement? Users themselves? Or developers? The answer: all three.
- L’atelier Insights, 2024
Programming trust: Web3 could break programmatic ad tech's spell. Are we ready?
Deep diving into the viability of Web3 to revamp ad tech so it is not destroying democracy.
- L’atelier Insights, 2023
Ectogenesis: Could this be humanity’s next small step?
Is the artificial wombs hype driven by Silicon Valley tech gods fact or still far off science fiction?
- L’atelier Insights, 2022
The Double-Edged Dissident Darknet
The story of darknet use is often a one-sided narrative of a democratic West furnishing technology to those in formal governmental regimes. Yet, users in liberal countries increasingly turn to Tor for illicit purposes. Tor usage data undercuts overly simple narratives that sustain Western imperialism.
- L’atelier Insights, 2022
Valley of the uncanny dolls: Sex tech and the evolution of intimacy
By 2050, experts predict we will be having sex with AI-driven humanoid robots. Sex tech has both been hailed as a cure fro loneliness and a human relationship killer. How valid are these arguments?
- L’atelier Insights, 2022
Infinitely evolving, exploitable you: What's driving influencer coaching
Influencer coaches inundate social media with offers galore, enticing Instagrammers to spend on online courses or live workshops. Many of them lack the qualifications to tackle serious mental and emotional health issues.
- L’atelier Insights, 2021
Rise of the Clones: Even Our Avatars Suffer Real-World Prejudices
Cyberspace enthusiasts tout avatars as perfect extensions of ourselves. What happens when in virtual worlds, they encounter the same prejudices as in reality?
- L’atelier Insights, 2020
When virtual reality feels real, so does the sexual harassment
The first investigative long-form article on pervasive sexual harassment in virtual reality environments occurring at the height of the XR tech hype.
- Reveal (Center for Investigative Reporting), 2018
More Articles
COMMENTARY
Storythings 2031 Project (2021), Night Farm - Literary Examination
Publisher’s Weekly (2020), Why Can’t Publishers Handle Truth?
NATIONAL SECURITY
Harvard Nieman Foundation (2017), Harvard Nieman Foundation/ Nieman Story Board: Dana Priest of The Washington Post and the growth of the terrorism industrial complex
Northwestern University (2017), Treason and Torture: An Essay on National Security Reporting Post 9/11
JOURNALISM INNOVATION
Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program @CUNY Newmark (2020), 100 Days: Innovating to Restore Unbiased Reporting
Media Lab Bayern (2020), Media Innovation process for Women News Network - WNN newsletter & podcasts (German version)
SEX, VIOLENCE, WOMEN & POWER STRUCTURES
The Diplomatic Post, University of Exeter (2022), Tracking Jane Roe: Data Surveillance in a Post Roe v. Wade America
Women News Network (2016), U.N. Tribunal weighs in on atrocity against Bosnian women & the Radovan Karadžić Conviction
Women News Network (2015), The truth about bride kidnapping – an insider interview on Chechnya
Women News Network (2015), The Perfect Donor' Film and the Complexities of Commercial Egg Donation – An Interview with Medical Anthropologist Diane Tober, Ph.D.
Women News Network (2015), Asia child marriage initiative examines child marriage in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan
Women News Network (2015), Award-Winning Journalist Stella Paul on COP 21, Climate Change, and Gender
Women News Network (2015), Morocco at the Helm: Q&A with Driss El Yazami
Women News Network (2015), Annual U.N. Session Examines Sustainability Links to Empowerment, Poverty, and Violence
Glammonitor (2015), Virtue and Honor: How Women’s Rights are Being Trampeled in the North Caucasus
Glammonitor (2015), Meet the Entrepreneurs Challenging Beauty Industry Standards
Glammonitor (2015), Real Lives of Sex Workers
Women News Network (2014), Helping Rape Survivors Feel Stronger, Not Weaker Through Video, Flim & News Media
Women News Network (2013), Political Partisanship in the U.S. Does Not Stop Violence Against Women
Women News Network (2013), World Water Day: Is Social Entrepreneurship the Answer to our Water Problems?
Women News Network (2012), The Slow Genocide: War Rape and its Female Survivors
Women News Network (2012), Advocates for California Domestic Workers Bill Stay Strong for Equal Rights
Women News Network (2012), Are Homeless Women Without Children in the United States Last to Get Assistance?
Women News Network (2012), U.S. Women Veterans Work to Survive Traumatic Event PTSD
Women News Network (2011), Rural Women as Decision Makers Viewed as Pivotal to Climate Change Solutions
Women News Network (2011), Malawi’s Solar Microfinance Initiative Builds Business for Women Entrepreneurs
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Project M Magazine (2015), When Seas Bite Back: The increasing size of the modern container ship and the theory of Unintended Consequences
TRAVEL
Smithsonian Magazine Online (2016)
SF BAY AREA PHILANTHROPY
The Western Edition San Francisco (2010), Interview with Bernard Mayes, founder of NPR
The Western Edition San Francisco (2011), Interview with Gary Maxworthy, director of San Francisco Food Bank/ architect of the national Farm to Family program.
The Western Edition San Francisco (2011), Raising Social Consciousness - San Francisco’s heritage Women’s Building
KNOWN CITATIONS
When Worlds Collide: Challenges and Opportunities in Virtual Reality, Vol. 1 No. 1 (2022): Embodied: The Stanford Undergraduate Journal of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Recent Copyright Issues in Video Games, Esports, and Streaming
Deleuze and Guattari Studies, Love, Consent, and Arousal: Deterritorialising Virtual Sex
Media Innovation Projects exploring emerging tech and agile methodology for journalism.
Since newspapers nearly folded in the mid-2000s, entrepreneurs and journalists have applied agile software development, design thinking, product management, audience development, and A/B testing to news reporting, storytelling, and communications in attempt to make in-depth reporting profitable. We’re still figuring it out.
I examine how these processes affect journalism ethics and the quality of reporting while exploring them in various ways for my reporting, scholarship, and entrepreneurship.
I completed two media innovation programs with leading institutions and continue to be an early adopter who believes in the power of ingenuity yet is skeptical enough to find unintended consequences.
CUNY Journalism Creators/ Media Lab Bayern - Niche Media Entrepreneurship
An inaugural cohort of journos and entrepreneurs in a 100-day innovation program with specific areas of coverage that we want to turn into viable, self-efficient ventures. Most of these involve niche coverage, niche audiences, and cover specific topics.
This project was funded via Media Lab Bayern. Read the German version here.
Journalism and narrative with VR
Virtual and augmented reality delivered new tinkering mediums for storytellers and exploded mainstream in 2015 with creators, gamers, and platformers offering even their nascent experiences for trial and consumption. From prototype to product with remarkable speed, they’re redefining the concepts of presence and empathy in ways once considered science fiction.
“Photojournalism in 3D for VR and Beyond” integrated ancient photography techniques with modern 3D imaging approaches to produce stories and accompanying use cases for journalists and communicators.
Learn more about this project on the Knight Lab’s website.
Farley Center for Entrepreneurship: Nash’s Equilibrium & B.F. Skinner’s ratio reinforcement for reinventing dating apps
What if you could pursue your passions while arranging a date to meet you in places you already plan to be? We put this concept to the challenge by developing MUSE, an event-based dating application encouraging singles to get up, get moving, and fall in love. We looked at two academic theories to understand why people use dating apps like Las Vegas slot machines and realized this behavioral motivation is in their design.
MUSE was born during NUvention, a startup accelerator course at Northwestern University fostering the launch of seed-stage startup companies.
