We Need to Listen to Communities

Tiziana Rinaldi
Sep 8, 2018 · 4 min read
Piazza IV Novembre in Perugia, Italy. Photo credit: Tiziana Rinaldi

Social journalism is about going into a community, and learning about it from it to identify which needs journalists can help solve. That means investing time, and bringing an expanded tool box of information-gathering skills to achieve goals together.

It’s an approach that requires partnerships with people — developing relationships, not just passing through. When it is done well, the benefits are mutual. Journalism affirms its importance by finding new meaning in an age of diminishing recognition and shrinking returns, while audiences connect with news that matters in their lives.

But careful! “Collaboration is not about what your audience can do for you, but what you can do with your audience,” writes Mónica Guzmán, a Nieman Fellow who studies how news organizations can successfully join forces with communities. True engagement is about improving the work of journalists not simply promoting it, she says.

So, if that’s the goal, what is the process? That’s where social journalism reevaluates old skills and adds new disciplines to its knowhow. The ability to listen and the methodology of design thinking are among them.

  • What’s new about listening? To paraphrase Chip Scanlan, author of The Power of Listening*, the idea when journalists talk with people, is to practice patient listening, deep-down listening. This means “listening with the heart as well as the head,” he says.” Listening in a way that lets the person know you care, that you want to hear what she has to say, that you’re enjoying the sound of her voice.”

In the article How a Culture of Listening Strengthens Reporting and Relationships, Cole Goins says that a “listening-oriented practice” seeks “feedback and perspectives of the people in our areas of coverage.”

But it’s also about discovering and gathering new voices from the community we’re interested in, especially if it’s a neglected audience not used to being paid attention to by a news organization. Jesse Hardman, a long-time journalist, media developer and college professor, pioneered the approach by founding the Listening Post Collective.

His strategy begins with an assessment of “people’s information needs,” Hardman said during a recent class participation via Skype at the Craig Newark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

It’s important to know how people “access and share information, which local sources they trust, and which issues they feel most passionate about,” he writes in The Listening Post Playbook, a guide that maps the undertaking. Among the ways of initiating rapport are spending time in the community, attending events, going to churches, libraries and neighborhood eateries; and partnering with local stakeholders are among the ways of initiating a rapport with members.

The intent is to relate to people as “the experts on their own lives,” said Hardman to the class.

Indonesian women at the Al-Hikmah Mosque in Astoria, Queens. Photo Credit: Alexander Flores
  • The intelligence gathered during the process is analyzed to discern trends, patterns, interests and points of tension. And that’s how design thinking, a method that uses the principles of product creation to solve problems, can come handy.

In this context, journalists bring their skills to what they have learned from the community to collaborate with it and find solutions. For example, “a social media campaign to engage the community through events” and “a community-based app to give access to local resources and news” were among the outcomes of a design thinking exercise hosted by the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism with residents of the Mott Heaven section of The Bronx.

Over time, this type of commitment builds trust and a more genuine exchange of information, which in turn sustains journalism and makes good business.

But does any of this apply to the community of foreign-educated immigrant women, the group I want to engage? I believe it does, but it’s hard to know yet in what specific terms. One of the challenges of dealing with a large, intersectional portion of the non native community is its fragmentation. Immigrants differ by country of origin, language, culture, documentation status and degree of professional integration in the US workforce, to name a few obvious categories. The large majority, however, also deal with similar difficulties in remapping their lives. They are all too often left to their own resources. I often think of that experience as being in a dark room, looking for the light switch.

I’m thinking of reaching out to a few groups in New York City — for example Italian women, or immigrants served by organizations that help them re-enter the professional job market. I’m interested in meeting both documented and undocumented newcomers.

My strategy is first to connect, participate in some of their events and observe which groups reciprocate my interest and curiosity. I would then consider applying the tools of both a listening post and design thinking. But first I will need the time to build rapport.

One of the challenges I’ll be facing as an immigrant myself is to be mindful of not approaching my intended community with preconceived assumptions about what I may find.

“Engaged journalism doesn’t work when we bring solutions into communities,” says Hardman. “Instead, listen to what they have to say!”

My effort will be to remove myself, practice listening and be open to being surprised.

*A reading from the class on reporting for social journalism.

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