I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the damage to journalism’s reputation—some deserved and some artificially created by the current crop of global demagogues and authoritarian leaders. This is a real issue that has not only diminished the belief in journalism and the media but created more tension and aggression towards journalists and photojournalists.
Here are some ideas on how to remedy this.
I’ve talked about and been a practitioner of the idea of solutions journalism, or advocacy journalism, for years and find great satisfaction and efficacy in this approach. There are three main goals that journalists and media makers should incorporate in our storytelling and reporting in order to improve the standing of our profession and more importantly, better our societies.
We should give hope to the reader to open up their minds to the possibilities for improvement and change and show how problems are being addressed.
We should encourage agency for our readers, so they can feel empowered to act, whether that be to engage with the issue, donate money or time, contribute solutions, or at the very least be able to talk with a clear understanding about the topics our work covers.
We should maintain dignity in our work, both for the subjects and for the issue itself, so that what the reader feels matters, that the life of the people whose stories we tell is worth caring about.
Below are some great thoughts from a recent article by Amanda Ripley in The Washington Post. and David Bornstein, Co-Founder of Solutions Journalism Network, whose organization has trained over 25,000 journalists to write high-quality action-oriented stories all over the world.
“There is a way to communicate news — including very bad news — that leaves us better off as a result. A way to spark anger and action. Empathy alongside dignity. Hope alongside fear. There is another way, and it doesn’t lead to bankruptcy or puffery. But right now, these examples I’ve listed remain far too rare.
Changing that may require journalists to accept that some of their own core beliefs are outdated. “The journalist’s theory of change is that the best way to avert catastrophe is to keep people focused on the potential for catastrophe 24/7,” Bornstein says.
A better theory of change, Bornstein suggests, might be something like:
“The world will get better when people understand problems, threats and challenges, and what their best options are to make progress.”
Ripley writes:
“Finally, and this is closely related: The people producing the news themselves are struggling, and while they aren’t likely to admit it, it is warping the coverage. News junkies tend to drink deeply from the darkness, mistakenly thinking it will make them sharper. All that angst has nowhere to go — and it leaks into our stories.
There aren’t many major news outlets systematically creating news for humans yet, but one that I admire (and now subscribe to) is the Christian Science Monitor. Each issue features reporting from around the globe, vivid photos, brutal realities — right alongside hope, agency and dignity. Stories include a brief explainer called “Why we wrote this,” treating readers like respected partners.
It’s a kind of low-ego, high-curiosity journalism that I’ve started trying to emulate in my own work. I don’t always succeed. It can feel uncomfortable to, for example, let listeners dictate the subject of the podcast I host. But last month, I spent four hours at an antiabortion rally with a camera crew and did something I’d never done before: I just tried to understand, deeply, what people told me. I didn’t try to extract the most chilling quote or the vivid, ironic anecdote. I just asked deeper questions, without judgment. It felt less transactional, more human. I also felt more informed.
So, as we brace ourselves for the coming midterms, variants and cataclysms, here’s my plea to all my fellow journalists: Please send a search party for the 42 percent of Americans who are avoiding the news. We can’t all be wrong. Or oversensitive or weak. And we might just be you.”
We must always be ready to shine a spotlight on the problems of the world, our societies and increasingly, our own personal stories. That's what keeps us informed, sensitized and engaged. But we must remember to do so in a strategic and thoughtful way.
Thanks for reading! -Ed