In the absence of local staff, many news organizations have for decades relied on a foreign correspondence model known as parachute journalism.
The term evokes a vivid image: An out-of-towner arrives by air, perhaps without much preparation or knowledge. Upon landing, he or she does their best to manage local language, currency, transportation, and communication, all while likely nursing jetlag. The parachute journalist might rely on a “fixer” — a local journalist with knowledge and connections who may not receive any credit on the final product. Or the visiting reporter might go it alone, inevitably missing critical context and possibly key facts.
The final story is then likely to present a distorted picture back to the community being covered, potentially inflaming existing fault lines within the community, while amplifying stereotypes and misconceptions to a larger audience.
But there has always been a better way: local reporting done by people living in or near the community, bringing knowledge, relationships, and nuance to journalism that “checks out” with the people it’s about.
And 2020, this Dumpster fire of pandemic, economic recession, and political failure, may have finally burned up the parachute once and for all.
The reasons are as practical as they are ideological. Travel is dangerous and many places are simply inaccessible to outside journalists. Sources are understandably warier than ever about meeting strangers to talk about a story. And many of the events that once may have invited an outside reporter to travel now happen online.
So what remains are people and communities themselves, most accessible to reporters who know the places where they live. It isn’t news to a local outlet — whether it’s in Detroit, Des Moines, Lagos, or Hyderabad — that local reporting acumen builds trust and credibility, which supports audience development and ultimately the organization’s bottom line.
But The World’s Longest Year is opening up a new reality for national and international journalism organizations who see that if local news disappears, so does the backbone of democratic society. As pioneers of collaborative journalism have been saying since at least 2017: Partnerships, not parachutes.
In the U.S., we’ve seen organizations ranging from INN and LION Publishers to The New York Times, ProPublica, and Frontline get behind local news as advocates and partners. For news organizations that haven’t launched yet, the Tiny News Collective, a new partnership between News Catalyst and LION, will be “providing the tools, resources, and commonwealth of knowledge to help people build sustainable news organizations that reflect and serve their communities.” And we at Report for America are proud to partner with more than 200 U.S. newsrooms in 2021, including 35 LION members.
Globally, the Solutions Journalism Network is partnering with African newsrooms to support nuanced solutions coverage of health, science, and development while Énois is supporting Brazilian newsrooms to create more diverse and inclusive news ecosystems. The Local News Partnership between the BBC and the U.K.’s News Media Association has supported more than 100 local news organizations to publish thousands of public interest stories.
And a variety of philanthropic funders are making the transformation possible by focusing on local presence and expertise while catalyzing relationships and facilitating research.
Luminate, for example, supported ICFJ and Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University to produce a sweeping global report, “Journalism and the Pandemic.” The report offered a clear picture of the compound challenges, including journalists’ physical and mental health, economic threats, and COVID-related disinformation.
But as the report reads:
Still, there were some bright spots. Forty-three percent of the respondents said they felt there was increased audience trust in their journalism during COVID-19’s first wave. And 61% said they felt more committed to journalism than they were before the pandemic. There was also evidence of stronger community investment in journalism and increased audience engagement in reporting during the period. These comparatively optimistic findings may be key to reimagining post-pandemic journalism as a more mission-driven and audience-centered public service.
Whatever we face as journalists and as members of society in 2021, we will face it where we live. And increasingly, we will face it together, with parachutes off.
Kevin D. Grant is co-founder and chief content officer of The GroundTruth Project and vice president of strategic initiatives at Report for America.
In the absence of local staff, many news organizations have for decades relied on a foreign correspondence model known as parachute journalism.
The term evokes a vivid image: An out-of-towner arrives by air, perhaps without much preparation or knowledge. Upon landing, he or she does their best to manage local language, currency, transportation, and communication, all while likely nursing jetlag. The parachute journalist might rely on a “fixer” — a local journalist with knowledge and connections who may not receive any credit on the final product. Or the visiting reporter might go it alone, inevitably missing critical context and possibly key facts.
The final story is then likely to present a distorted picture back to the community being covered, potentially inflaming existing fault lines within the community, while amplifying stereotypes and misconceptions to a larger audience.
But there has always been a better way: local reporting done by people living in or near the community, bringing knowledge, relationships, and nuance to journalism that “checks out” with the people it’s about.
And 2020, this Dumpster fire of pandemic, economic recession, and political failure, may have finally burned up the parachute once and for all.
The reasons are as practical as they are ideological. Travel is dangerous and many places are simply inaccessible to outside journalists. Sources are understandably warier than ever about meeting strangers to talk about a story. And many of the events that once may have invited an outside reporter to travel now happen online.
So what remains are people and communities themselves, most accessible to reporters who know the places where they live. It isn’t news to a local outlet — whether it’s in Detroit, Des Moines, Lagos, or Hyderabad — that local reporting acumen builds trust and credibility, which supports audience development and ultimately the organization’s bottom line.
But The World’s Longest Year is opening up a new reality for national and international journalism organizations who see that if local news disappears, so does the backbone of democratic society. As pioneers of collaborative journalism have been saying since at least 2017: Partnerships, not parachutes.
In the U.S., we’ve seen organizations ranging from INN and LION Publishers to The New York Times, ProPublica, and Frontline get behind local news as advocates and partners. For news organizations that haven’t launched yet, the Tiny News Collective, a new partnership between News Catalyst and LION, will be “providing the tools, resources, and commonwealth of knowledge to help people build sustainable news organizations that reflect and serve their communities.” And we at Report for America are proud to partner with more than 200 U.S. newsrooms in 2021, including 35 LION members.
Globally, the Solutions Journalism Network is partnering with African newsrooms to support nuanced solutions coverage of health, science, and development while Énois is supporting Brazilian newsrooms to create more diverse and inclusive news ecosystems. The Local News Partnership between the BBC and the U.K.’s News Media Association has supported more than 100 local news organizations to publish thousands of public interest stories.
And a variety of philanthropic funders are making the transformation possible by focusing on local presence and expertise while catalyzing relationships and facilitating research.
Luminate, for example, supported ICFJ and Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University to produce a sweeping global report, “Journalism and the Pandemic.” The report offered a clear picture of the compound challenges, including journalists’ physical and mental health, economic threats, and COVID-related disinformation.
But as the report reads:
Still, there were some bright spots. Forty-three percent of the respondents said they felt there was increased audience trust in their journalism during COVID-19’s first wave. And 61% said they felt more committed to journalism than they were before the pandemic. There was also evidence of stronger community investment in journalism and increased audience engagement in reporting during the period. These comparatively optimistic findings may be key to reimagining post-pandemic journalism as a more mission-driven and audience-centered public service.
Whatever we face as journalists and as members of society in 2021, we will face it where we live. And increasingly, we will face it together, with parachutes off.
Kevin D. Grant is co-founder and chief content officer of The GroundTruth Project and vice president of strategic initiatives at Report for America.
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real