Newsrooms are examining their relationships with each other, with audiences and with those we seek to hold accountable with a new sense of urgency, need and vulnerability. The time of surviving without the explicit support and trust of the public is over. The time of being able to do the work that we need to do in isolation from one another is over. The time in which we endeavor to both serve society and default to centering reporting around the interests or perspectives of the most powerful is long past due for being over.
Since Acta Diurna we’ve focused on news about the world around us — stories about crime, politics, international diplomacy, war, economies and labor, science and arts and in each of these subjects, the people at the center of the issues at hand. We create stories that have a cast of characters and a plot, told with the intention to inform or provoke. This structure does not serve all of our audiences. It leaves behind vulnerable and marginalized communities. It ignores the reality of many people.
We must collaborate on rewriting the power dynamics between newsrooms and each other, our audiences and those we seek to hold accountable.
To start, we need to replace the traditional process of “Reporting About” with intentional practices that take into account the respective power of the people involved.
For + With > About
Instead of considering only the object of the reporting, we must consider the greater context.
Each piece of reporting should be contemplated in terms of power and representation, so that the those with the least amount of power and whom are represented or affected by what the reporting is “About” are always part of “For” or “With”?
To pretend power and influence has nothing to do with our work is to be recklessly naive about how the world works and how journalism plays a role in enabling or exposing how power is wielded in our societies.
If we start from the place of who we are reporting for and who we are including in that reporting, we reduce our chances in excluding those with the least power from the conversations around issues they are most affected by.
For example, if a newsroom wanted to cover economic hardship, many newsrooms would still follow this general editorial process:
What if instead, the process was more like this:
A newsroom responds to a need or request for reporting about economic hardship because it’s in the best interest of the audience or society. From there, the process is answering three questions.
Who is the reporting for?
Who should this reporting be done with?
And ultimately, are you prioritizing those who are disempowered over those who are empowered?
What does the reporting need to be about to serve who the story is for?
This is likely not the final version of this formula, but it’s a start in reorienting what we do so that we serve the needs of our audiences and societies rather than entrenched powers.
The intersection of capital “J” Journalism — the institution of service and information that we’ve protected because it’s essential to society — and journalism-the-industry has created a complicated information ecosystem that has left our audiences and our societal institutions vulnerable. Our decisions as reporters and as organizations must reflect not only our commitment to the ideals of journalism, but also our role in the power dynamics of our societies and the accountability required of an institution as powerful as ours. In the coming year, we will be held to a higher standard for editorial decisions, organizational affiliations and use of our power — and we should be.
Heather Bryant is the founder and director of Project Facet.
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