You Are What You Read by Jodie Jackson

Author:Jodie Jackson [Jackson, Jodie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783527274
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2019-04-03T22:00:00+00:00

THE NEWS SOLUTION

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

— Desmond Tutu

It is time to appeal for a better balance in the news by making a well-evidenced case for solutions journalism. This is a term that is commonly misunderstood and has gained an inaccurate reputation. We look at what solutions journalism is, but more importantly what it is not, and how it can be of value to news organisations and to consumers.

* * *

In 2014, a Russian news site, City Reporter, published only ‘good news’ for a full day, to see how their readers would react. They filled their online papers with headlines such as ‘No disruptions on the roads despite snow’ and ‘Underpass will be built in time for Victoria Day’. That day, they lost two thirds of their readership and concluded from this loss of audience that people just aren’t interested in good news.1 So, they decided to go back to their stories of car crashes and burst water pipes.

The problem with this poorly executed experiment is that the ‘good news’ that was being reported was not actually good news at all; it was just reporting on an absence of bad news, and it was not at all interesting.

It doesn’t surprise me that this kind of lazy and uninspired reporting was used as a test case for ‘solutions-focused news’ because more often than not, people misinterpret the very idea of what it is. They assume it’s all about light-hearted, soft stories that have no part in the central news narrative and are reserved only for the ‘and finally’ section of the news.2 I have spoken about solutions journalism at many news functions and I am no longer amazed – sadly – at how many journalists themselves misunderstand the term. Or worse, dismiss it with comments like, ‘You mean like cats being saved from trees?’ I’m sure I’ve developed a few wrinkles from the numerous fake smiles I have forced in response to this sort of unimaginative and clichéd disparagement!

When I speak about the value of reporting on solutions, people often assume that this must mean I am devaluing or opposing the reporting of problems. Some even think me naïve enough to have entirely missed the point as to why we have the news in the first place. Those opposed to it usually try and talk me out of it by saying something along the lines of: ‘That’s a nice idea. But it will never work. People need to know about the problems that are going on in the world. It is dangerous to pretend like everything is OK when it isn’t. I don’t think it is the job of the news to make you feel better about the world. News organisations are there to tell it like it is. And unfortunately the world is in a terrible state right now. Worse than it’s ever been. That is the story the news is there to tell. No one cares about cats being saved from trees or that all the planes landed safely this morning.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.