We agree on the need for expert decision-making and leading with truth. Glad to agree that listening matters, too. I’d responded specifically to your statment that “These are not people who listened. They led.” That’s a common dichotomy that often winds up as false in journalism.

‘We know journalism better than the average person’ can be editorial hubris even when true: Reporters and editors should know more about journalism then I do; when reporting about my neighborhood/community activism/tour of duty, having their knowledge plus mine, with their ability to filter signal from noise, is additive.

This inclusion of facts/contexts/tangents available when we listen and lead in service to the story acknowledges there can be more truth than what one reporter can know on her own. Accepting this and acting accordingly “requires even more radical cultural and organizational change” than the ‘I’m the expert; they’re just the audience’ perspective Spayd describes.