This report explores the potential impacts of local solutions journalism, particularly for underrepresented and stigmatized communities. Solutions journalism explores responses to systemic social problems—critically examining problem-solving efforts that have the potential to scale.
Resources
The Continuum of Engagement
Based on the post, Engagement is Relational, not Transactional, this continuum visualizes the continuous loop between journalists and communities when the public is at the center of our journalism. “The question we often forget to ask ourselves is: How can we motivate more journalists (and journalism students) to put the community at the center of their work, be better listeners, and understand more precisely the needs of the public? Until we can think of the public not just as “audiences” and “consumers,” but also as experts and partners in the communities we aim to serve, we shouldn’t expect to receive the public’s complete trust.”
Tips for Hosting Online Conversation
Looking for an alternative to face-to-face events in the time of Coronavirus? People have been experimenting with synchronous online convening for years and the tools continue to improve. Here are some suggestions based on experiences of the Journalism That Matters team.
Systems Thinking For Journalists
Journalism + Design has developed a suite of systems thinking tools for journalists to focus their reporting on the underlying causes of complex problems: the policies, power dynamics, and beliefs fueling systems that actively harm, marginalize, or benefit specific people. By expanding our lens beyond individual events and outcomes, journalists can hold entire systems accountable, rather than just the symptoms they produce.
[DigitalEd] How to Launch a Killer Newsletter
Newsletter expert Jacqueline Boltik, who helped develop projects such as Ann Friedman’s Weekly and the LA Times’ newsletters and journalism professor Daniela Gerson, who recently created Migratory Notes, break down what you need to know to make your newsletter take off. In this course, you’ll learn best practices to grow your newsletter, design basics, and how to report and measure the data from your email campaigns.
Imagined Audiences: How Journalists Perceive and Pursue the Public
Imagined Audiences draws on ethnographic case studies of three news organizations to reveal how journalists’ assumptions about their audiences shape their approaches to their audiences. Jacob L. Nelson examines the role that audiences have traditionally played in journalism, how that role has changed, and what those changes mean for both the profession and the public.
Story Circles: Deep Listening And Bridge Building On Issues That Matter
We produced The View From Here: Place And Privilege, a 10-part podcast, hourlong radio documentary and online community voice platform. To carry the conversation deeper into the community, CapRadio collaborated with community partners to co-host a series of Story Circles.
The Ethics of Engaged Journalism
Journalism has little purpose if it is not trusted by the public it is meant to serve, so public engagement and public trust are inseparable in the networked world of digital journalism. Engaged journalists are starting to ask, “How can we help people trust each other?” In addition to representing the public interest, engaged journalism involves the public as true partners, enabling journalism to become complete, more accurate, more trusted, and more meaningful.
America Amplified Guide to Community Engagement Journalism
This playbook for leaders and journalists at public media stations is a practical exploration of how public media newsrooms can better engage with and amplify the voices of their local communities. America Amplified partnered with eight journalism collaborations across the country encompassing more than 50 public radio stations.
Welcome to Bridgetown: Bridging the Gaps Between the Worlds of Professional and Citizen Journalism
This study examines the opportunities and threats to the discursive values of professional journalism inherent in collaborating with citizen journalists, as well as areas of overlap in the values and practice of professional and citizen journalists. This study reveals that, while there is minimal overlap in discursive values between professional and citizen journalism, there are several areas of overlap between the two traditions in theory and practice. This study indicates strong public interest in participating in the journalistic process.
The Best Ways to Build Audience and Relevance by Listening to and Engaging Your Community
Now more than ever, journalists can engage their audiences as contributors, advisors, advocates, collaborators and partners. This study describes in detail how newsrooms and independent journalists can grow their readership, boost their relevance and find new sources of revenue by listening to and learning from their audiences.
The News Is Served: A Practical Framework for Newsrooms to Better Engage Niche Community Groups
For so long journalists held a monopoly on attention and information. That time is over; we all know this. What’s just beginning is an era when journalism can redefine itself as something of people, not about them. … How can we serve our neighbors and our world? By involving them in the process from start to finish; by focusing on them. We have to know who they are, what they value, and how they consume information. And we have to demonstrate that we know these things by bringing the stories to them where they are.