The Art of Just Listening
This week in my first Community Engagement class with Jeff Jarvis and Carrie Brown, we dove below the surface level of what it means to listen.

Our guest speaker via Skype, Jesse Hardman, founded the organization known as the Listening Post Collective. The concept seems straightforward enough:
“The Listening Post Collective provides journalists, newsroom leaders, and non-profits tools and advice to create meaningful conversations with their communities. We believe responsible reporting begins with listening. From there, media outlets and community organizations can create news stories that respond to people’s informational needs, reflect their lives, and enable them to make informed decisions.”
However, the more Jesse discussed the rise of his organization, and the obstacles he and his small team overcame, the more I realized how both radical and simple the art of listening can be.
From my understanding, the goal is to inspire reporting in communities that aren’t getting covered or don’t have access to the information that affects them, in addition to jump-starting conversations between the community and respective organizations.
So it came as a surprise to hear that some of the challenges he faced didn’t originate from communities not trusting him or the intentions from his design thinking strategies. News outlets, as he explained, felt like they had to force reporters to engage; it wasn’t natural to their years of working as beat reporters, to slide into a community and just…listen.
Engaged journalism requires time. Time to listen, observe and connect. One of the more critical objectives of this kind of journalism is showing the public why journalism is relevant to them. People need to be reminded why the field exists and how good reporting should have a positive impact on their lives.

As shown in this graphic, the art of listening is prominent at every step in the process: the journalist listens to acknowledge the concerns of the community, allowing them to build sincere empathy and curiosity, whether that’s in diners, bars, laundromats or libraries. The information received will help narrow down the trending issues people share so the journalist can focus on a single concern. This leads to the idea development phase, where brainstorming of potential solutions come together to address the selected issue.
Next, the prototype should be reviewed by members of the community to determine its viability in addressing their concerns. This feedback should be openly listened to in order to modify the launched prototype, allowing the journalist the time to ideate once more on the best solution possible.
This method takes more time than what a lot of reporters are allocated. Beat reporting is often faster, with an angle pre-decided most times, albeit open to modification, depending on the story.
This is an art, approaching and listening to people for the purpose of design thinking. It’s qualitative listening, not quantitative. The journalist is collecting concerns, not sources. And active listening, sincere empathy and well-defined strategies are key to socially engaging with a community in need of journalistic assistance.
