Power to the People

“Take a member of the public with you when you report, let them ask questions,” said Bridget Thoreson, engagement consultant at Hearken.

There are sixteen of us gathered here in room 432 at the Newmark J-school. We’re learning about how to report and produce better stories by engaging with the public. But, here’s the thing. Bridget’s suggestion about getting a member of the public so involved, sounds foreign to me. It makes me uncomfortable. But, it’s something I need to get used to.

As a reporter this is what I’ve known so far. We’ve always known that the public is central to our reporting. In theory, we serve them. However, we also never involve them beyond the quote, the sound bite or the information we extract from them. We rarely maintain a relationship with them post publication let alone actively take them with us on a reporting trip.

Yet, evidence proves that involving the public results in really great journalism.

ProPublica published this amazing story on Trump selling condos to his son while evading taxes. The cool thing about the story is how a reader tipped off ProPublica after they had asked readers to analyze documents related to the deals. ProPublica’s Lost Mothers series is another example where communities powered the reporting and also post publication engagement. The Texas Tribune Texplainer also directly engages with the public and communities by having them ask pointed questions to which they provide answers.

It wouldn’t be so hard to accept I suppose if we let go of the shackles of conventional journalism.

This is what I’ve garnered from my numerous classes and assignments at the social journalism program so far.

Learning to Unlearn

One, I learned to listen without extracting information.

This past week we had been assigned to go to the South Bronx on a community engagement assignment. The point of the assignment was to listen to the public without an agenda. Just listen, take in the information and then figure out what the problem was and what solution could be given. This was different from walking in there with assumptions and having a “pitch” ready that I wanted to report on. It was NOT easy for me nor for my other friend who was also a seasoned reporter. At one point my teammates and I were talking to a community organizer whom we’d met at a park. The organizer was talking at length and after the first ten minutes (I’m amazed it didn’t happen sooner), I found myself thinking — “Ok, so what’s the bottom line? Where’s the piece of information that’s going to fit my pitch? What are you going to say that is going to validate my assumptions about this story?”

But, you don’t build relationships by extracting information from sources and being transactional with them. I may not have mastered the art yet, but it was definitely an exercise in self-awareness.

Pro Tip from Monica Guzman: Engage and ask FIRST, not after.

Two, I learned that it’s important not to underestimate the public.

This is what we’ve been taught to do. Ask questions. Ask the right questions, get the right answers. In fact, prior to Bridget suggesting that the public too could ask questions, it had never occurred to me that the public may possess appropriate questions that they want answered. In fact, I don’t think it’s even occured to the public that they have the right to ask those questions and have them answered via news networks. Journalism has for so long been stuck in a space where the only relationship between newsroom and the public is strictly that of information giver and information receiver and not much more.

Pro Tip from Bridget: They must ask questions that state not only what they’re wondering about, but also, HOW they’re wondering about it.

Three, I learned that editorial processes need to be more transparent and collaborative.

This relates to the learning about empowering the public to ask questions. In this post by Jennifer Brandel she argues that the only way newsrooms can be more inclusive and useful is by becoming more transparent in its editorial processes. It means going beyond a centralised editorial team who pitch and make decisions that affect the masses. I couldn’t agree more. The only way to build trust and improving engagement is by getting members of the public/the community involved at the editorial table. There is NO way a group of ten to fifteen people can represent or voice or discover what the people want to know.

Pro Tip from Jennifer Brandel: 1. Invite members of the public to the newsroom to show how it works and give feedback. 2. Live stream your pitch meetings (I LOVE this one).

At the end of the day, I think it all boils down to control. Who controls the questions, who controls the narrative and who controls how much information is too much. Maybe we just need to let go a little more and trust the public that much more?