Five ways to make Community-Centered Reporting more mainstream
Here is what we need to do to ensure community-led approaches move from niche to norm
This is an extract from my September 2024 report on Advancing Community-Centered Journalism. Read Chapter 1 on the principles that underpin this practice here. In Chapter 2, I outline the challenges facing this practice and how to overcome them.
In this penultimate piece, we explore how to grow Community-Centered Journalism so that its practice becomes stronger and more prominent.
Although Community-Centered Journalism is not a new practice, with many characteristics deeply rooted in ethnic and community media, it remains a nascent — albeit growing — area of journalistic endeavor.
Nonetheless, despite this growth, as Andrea Wenzel has outlined, Community-Centered Journalism may encounter resistance due to potential (or perceived) clashes with a number of journalistic norms. This includes perceptions of objectivity, journalism’s traditional gatekeeper role, and the need to build accountability mechanisms with the communities you are working with.
We do not take these concerns lightly. However, as Wenzel has shown, these challenges are not insurmountable. With the right mindset, training, and commitment, newsrooms can successfully integrate Community-Centered Journalism into their operations, creating a more inclusive and responsive media landscape in the process. This matters, if you share our view that mainstream journalism does not work for everyone, and that it needs to be done differently.
Our hope is that the behaviors engrained in delivering Community-Centered Journalism will become part of a new journalistic normal.
Reflecting on her earlier career, Madeleine Bair expressed sentiments — shared by us and our interviewees — which explain why this shift is needed. “I saw a lot of innovation in journalism, that was really exciting,” she says, “and yet, it was serving the same audiences and telling the same stories. And I thought, ‘what a missed opportunity to really reinvent journalism to work for more people, and work for more communities.’”
For Community-Centered Journalism to move more into the mainstream, it will require effort from a number of stakeholders. This includes funders, audiences, educators and practitioners.
In this chapter, we have identified five primary areas where these groups can make a difference.
1. Raising Awareness
It all starts with visibility and understanding. More people need to know what Community-Centered Journalism is and what it isn’t. We hope this report can support that goal, and recognize it’s an issue that other emerging practices, like solutions journalism, have also had to contend with.
Explaining the practice of Community-Centered Journalism and why it matters, is particularly important for attracting talent and funding.
“I was joking with a friend the other day,” Candice Fortman told us, ”I said, I feel like I’ve been on the campaign trail for four years. You know, like, just perpetually running for office.” Part of the reason for this, she says, is the need to “attract talent.” “Whether it be kids, folks coming straight out of J-School, or people who are many years into their career,” Fortman wants “organizations like Outlier and MLK 50 and City Bureau [to] seem like places they should work.”
This communication is important if you want to get more people in industry to practice this approach, agrees Antoine Haywood. “Newsrooms are still learning about this and how to do it,” he says. “A lot of people are questioning, where to start? How do we sustain this?”
Sarah Stonbely also emphasizes the value of communicating the benefits and relevance of Community-Centered Journalism to your audience and the neighborhoods you are covering. This is especially important for start-ups, she contends. “There’s an awareness issue that you have to overcome at the beginning,” she explains. “You have to make people aware that you’re producing news for them that might be of interest.”
As part of this process, outlets also need to continuously demonstrate and emphasize the work they have done. El Tímpano’s annual impact report demonstrates one way to do this. It outlines their efforts to inform, amplify and connect with the community, explains their priorities and funding structure, and outlines their goals for the year ahead. It’s a model others can replicate.
For communities that have traditionally been disenfranchised and disconnected from the news, it is even more important to reiterate the work you are doing, its impact and how/why you are doing it.
As Michelle Ferrier reminds us, some people do not see the value in news subscriptions and therefore don’t (or are unable to) budget for it. To change this, outlets must consistently demonstrate value to the community and remind people of the difference that they are making.
2. Building A Community Of Practice
Another recurring theme to emerge from our conversations was the importance of expanding networks to support practitioners, educators and researchers of Community-Centered Journalism. These networks — like others dedicated to areas such as solutions journalism or investigative reporting — can play an important role in fostering collaboration, innovation, and resilience among those dedicated to this practice. Support for practitioners can take a myriad of different forms, including sharing ideas and case studies, as well as exploring opportunities for partnerships and training.
One key example of such a network is Gather, a platform and project to support community-minded journalists and other engagement professionals. It is led by the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon. (Disclosure: Agora has published and funded this report.) Gather exemplifies how a well-structured, active, and managed community can bring together professionals from diverse backgrounds to exchange knowledge, offer support, and work towards common goals.
And although we have seen the emergence, and growth, of organizations such as the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) and LION Publishers (bodies featured in our panel of expert interviewees), we also heard in our conversations about the need for further groups and associations. These larger organizations provide valuable resources and advocacy on behalf of their members, there’s still a gap for more localized or specialized networks. Several interviewees noted that smaller informal networks (e.g. at a city, regional or demographic level) are springing up, underscoring the grassroots nature of this movement and the need to nurture it at a hyperlocal level.
This type of support matters, because for practitioners and “solopreneurs,” it can be incredibly lonely, Lisa Heyamoto at LION told us. “We found that the community piece is really huge,” she says, stressing the “emotional aspect” and “feeling like you’re not alone.” Being part of a wider community of practice can help exponents of Community-Centered Journalism to navigate an often challenging landscape by providing valuable emotional and professional support.
There’s also a practical side to building these networks too.
As Lisa Heyamoto points out, there’s a value in tapping into your peers for “tips and tricks and hacks and examples and templates.” “All of the[se] things are going to look very different for a small, scrappy organization,” she adds.
For instance, smaller outlets might benefit from shared resources on low-cost tech solutions, or strategies for community engagement on a tight budget.
Heyamoto also advocates for the impact that “personalized support” and ‘individual coaching” can have, a key focus of her work at LION.
Moreover, these networks can further serve as incubators for new ideas and practices. Based on collective insights, they can foster innovation by allowing members to share their work, experiment with different strategies, and refine their approaches. These types of activities need to encompass the business side too, Heyamoto and Candice Fortman at Outlier Media told us. That is especially important given the challenge of how to scale — and pay for — this type of journalism. By working together, these professional networks can help their members to more easily navigate the complexities of funding, sustainability, and growth.
There is no cookie-cutter model for Community-Centered Journalism. Although there are overarching principles and characteristics, ideas that work in one community do not necessarily work (and may not be as relevant) in another. Nevertheless, for those who are interested in Community-Centered Journalism, there is a value in being able to share ideas, success stories and challenges. This can be especially useful for those who are starting out, be they start-ups, smaller operations, or those dipping their toe into these waters for the first time. Building a strong community of practice can help ensure that everyone interested in Community-Centered Journalism has access to the knowledge and resources they need to succeed.
“We don’t necessarily have research that this is absolutely gonna, you know, fix all your problems,” Carrie Brown says. “But we have a lot of examples of things that are like, ‘this is some cool shit.’ And it’s working!”
3. Preparing the next generation
Recognizing the growing practice of Community-Centered Journalism, and the need for more people with the skills to deliver it, journalism schools can play a key role in helping to support this demand. As Candice Fortman reminds us, “there is this incredible opportunity to build a new future.”
J-Schools should integrate Community-Centered Journalism practices into their core reporting and ethics classes, so it is seen as integral to all reporting, rather than a niche or specialist approach. Alongside this, they can further explore opportunities for students to deeply engage with communities, and support Community-Centered Journalism initiatives, as partners and researchers.
In addition to offering specific courses for students, journalism schools can also play a vital role in the continued professional development of current journalism professionals. By providing training, facilitating conversations, and sharing best practice, J-Schools can help to further embed essential Community-Centered Journalism skills within the industry.
Among our interviewees, there was a consensus that more needs to be done to elevate and embed the practice of Community-Centered Journalism within J-Schools. At the same time, there was also a recognition that this is also hard to do. One key obstacle is the time constraints of the academic calendar. Nurturing relationships with communities can also be hard to do due to student turnover.
Nevertheless, young journalists, or those moving into journalism after other careers, can be great advocates for Community-Centered Journalism. For them to play this role, it’s essential that they are exposed to it as part of the curriculum.
“We’re training these new skill sets, a really new mindset, [a] new and different way of approaching what journalism is,” Sue Robinson reflects. “We just kind of have to do it every year,” she says. “Student by student, just like these journalists have to do it community member by community member.”
As part of this, Michelle Ferrier argues that journalism school should equip students with “hosting skills, deliberative dialogue and deliberation skills, appreciative inquiry skills, hosting skills, all of the kind of ‘how do you manage people and relationship skills’ that we don’t teach in journalism school.” Meanwhile, Robinson spoke of working with other universities to “blow up their syllabus” to focus on community conversation facilitating, building trust and encouraging students to report from within their own communities.
It’s important to acknowledge that some journalism schools may not currently have the skills or knowledge to teach these practices effectively. So, there’s a need to train educators, as well as students. The Solutions Journalism Educators Academy offers one model demonstrating how efforts are being made to upskill journalism faculty members in an emerging practice. Carrie Brown also asked how we can bring in other people, potentially from different fields, to help pass on some of the skills that Robinson and Ferrier had outlined. “It’s easier to teach basic reporting stuff,” she said. “This shit [i.e. CCJ], is hard to teach,” she adds.
Journalism schools also have to be cognizant of industry realities. Brown reminds us, “some students are going to enter newsrooms that [don’t] understand all of these things very well. How do I prepare them for that, too?” “That’s also a really tough piece of the education part about this kind of work,” she adds.
And, of course, the next wave of Community-Centered Journalism practitioners are not — and should not — just come from J-Schools. Jonathan Kealing and others pointed to City Bureau’s work in ”equipping the community to cover themselves.” Alongside this, “you see a lot of community-oriented individuals moving into this space,” he adds. “That’s part of why INN is here,” Kealing said, “to help people who may not have the same journalistic background still understand the principles and best practices that are really necessary to be successful in this ecosystem.”
Recognizing this trend, we need to ensure that practitioners — whatever their background or experience — are given the support and skills they need to deliver Community-Centered Journalism.
As we have discussed, this goes beyond traditional reporting work to facilitate conversations, build trust, and engage deeply with communities through community engagement, cultural competency, and relationship-building skills.
That support can, and should, take place in a myriad of diverse places including online and physical communities, as well as journalism schools, industry conferences and other targeted workshops. Collectively, this will ensure that practitioners — regardless of their background — are well-equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities of this evolving field.
4. Grounding discussions in questions of equity
Addressing issues of equity is already a key touchstone for many Community-Centered Journalism practitioners.
As Madeleine Bair told us, reflecting on the work of El Tímpano, “we really strive to put equity into practice through how we build our team, the community relationships that we build with, how we partner and support other organizations… [as well as ] how our work and journalism can be more accessible and really fill in equity gaps.”
For Bair, that also means tackling “linguistic or technological barriers, or just a lack of trust.”
In doing this, successful proponents of Community-Centered Journalism like El Tímpano are actively addressing gaps in news and information coverage, transforming newsroom cultures, and challenging long-established norms around whose stories get told and how they are communicated. We hope to see these community-centered efforts continue to grow and flourish, and for them to be weaved into wider conversations about the nature — and future — of this industry.
“When those conversations are done in a holistic way, the outcome is going to be stronger,” Andrea Wenzel argues. That’s particularly important when we consider issues of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), areas where Community-Centered Journalism can help address long-term inequities.
As noted earlier in this report, Community-Centered Journalism can also play a role in helping to shift journalistic tone too. This matters, because research shows news avoidance can be dictated by the negative emotions that some news content generates in consumers.
One way to address this, as advocated by Peggy Holman, is for Community-Centered Journalism to be constructive as well as reciprocal.
“An early insight from the beginnings of Appreciative Inquiry was the recognition that visionless voice keeps people trapped,” Holman wrote in an email to us.
“So even if it is reciprocal, if all it does is focus on problems, it just reminds people of being helpless. When it speaks to aspirations, dreams, possibilities, it draws people in to create together.”
However, these types of moves may trigger the old-age debate about whether this makes journalists advocates. In a 2014 article, Stephen Ward suggested such debates are redundant, arguing that
“The plain truth is that journalists and news organizations are always advocating, interpreting and educating, not just reporting in some narrow sense.”
Nevertheless, the debate persists. Some practitioners and researchers, like Steven Wang, embrace this advocacy role. Wang suggested to us that a key function for Community-Centered Journalism includes “advocating for a political cause necessary for the survival of the community (e.g., social inclusion).”
This approach may make some newsrooms uncomfortable, as it challenges traditional journalistic views of objectivity and distance. However, it’s important for these considerations to be discussed openly. We argue that local newsrooms have long advocated for the communities they serve and — as the work of the Solutions Journalism Network has demonstrated — exploration of potential solutions to issues is not incompatible with journalistic rigor.
These discussions are part of a broader conversation about the future of journalism. Efforts such as MLK50, and ideas such as community information districts, and funding journalism as a public good, encourage us to rethink what journalism looks like, how it is funded and what it should be. The contribution of Community-Centered Journalism should also be part of these discussions, given its potential to meet the information needs of communities often overlooked by traditional media providers.
That said, the ideas in this paper also open up further challenging, yet important, conversations. For instance, Eric Gordon, Professor of Civic Media and the Director of the Engagement Lab at Emerson College, asked how does a community-centered approach reconcile with “diversity of ideology?”
Ideas of co-production and ceding power to determine the news agenda may become particularly challenging when people in the newsroom disagree with the standpoint of the communities they are working with.
“Does this framework go beyond progressive politics?,” Gordon asked. “Does a small rural newsroom in Texas, attempting to be responsive to community fears about immigration from the mostly white population of the community, fit within the mold of CCJ? Why or why not?” Echoing this, Wang also expressed concern about situations such as “What does CCJ do dealing with an alt-right community aiming to spread hatred and bigotry?”
In such scenarios, journalists must navigate a delicate balance between upholding journalistic values (such as accuracy) and respecting the community’s voice. Co-production doesn’t mean giving away control to the community; it’s about shared decision-making with clear boundaries. And community-centered journalists continue to bring critical thinking to their work, they are not simply providing a platform for a community to say whatever they want.
Ceding power does not extend to promoting harm, exclusion, or disinformation. In these cases, the newsroom has a duty to push back, reporting on these views critically and providing necessary context or opposing viewpoints.
Sarah Stonbely posited a different scenario. What happens if you try to engage with communities that “don’t want to be served?” Stonbely highlighted a conservative, rural, community in New Jersey that did not want to do an information needs assessment. In that situation, do outlets and funders just move on? Or should it be every community’s inalienable right to have access to a certain level of news and information?
How do newsrooms and community-centered journalists navigate these situations? We do not pretend to have all the answers, and we do not have the space here to explore them. However, as Community-Centered Journalism grows, there must be a willingness to engage with these types of complex issues. These hypothetical questions also emphasize the need for diversity within newsrooms to better navigate these ideological and practical journalistic tensions.
Ultimately, while Community-Centered Journalism offers a pathway to more inclusive storytelling, and the ability to create a more equitable news and information landscape, it also requires careful and nuanced approaches to address the cultural diversity seen across the United States, and the ethical complexities that newsrooms must navigate when reporting on, and with, different communities.
5. Making It Pay
Finally, we cannot look at the future of Community-Centered Journalism without asking how it will be funded. After all, this form of journalism can take considerable time and resources to produce. Moreover, it does not necessarily lend itself to conventional engagement metrics (page views, time on site, unique users, etc.).
“This type of journalism — journalism that gets people who don’t usually have their voices heard… is not necessarily going to save journalism financially,” Jacob Nelson says. “But it will make journalism better. And it’s okay for that to be a goal all by itself,” he suggests.
That does not mean that Community-Centered Journalism initiatives shouldn’t strive to be self-sustaining, but it may mean more help is needed to get operations off the ground or to maintain them. Both Candice Fortman and Madeleine Bair talked about the challenge of getting started, especially if you don’t come from wealth, have social circles linked to successful start-ups, or existing relationships with funders and large-scale donors. “I’ve talked to so many founders who didn’t pay themselves for their first several years,” Bair says, “and you know, not every founder can afford to do that.”
Andrea Wenzel also notes the challenge of successful outlets getting their voice heard. “Funders only know about certain projects in certain areas,” she says. “Not everybody has the social capital to kind of get on their map. So that’s the big challenge.”
Audience demographics can further contribute to funding challenges. “The whole reader revenue and sponsorship model of nonprofit news really rests on having an affluent base of readers,” Bair says. “So if your core model centers on serving low-income audiences, then those models simply don’t work for you in the same way.” There are also lots of funding ideas on the table, but revenue models will inevitably vary, tailored to the unique circumstances of each outlet.
Sites like El Tímpano have developed innovative funding models to address their reality. Bair explains that between a quarter and a third of their revenues last year (2022) came from civic partnerships. This included grants from the local public health department or sub-grants from community clinics. “Government agencies, sometimes other nonprofit service providers, see El Tímpano as a trusted messenger to reach communities that they want to reach with information or resources,” she explains. These partnerships are “both a source of revenue” Bair adds, and “really aligned with our mission of connecting Latino immigrants with the information and resources that they seek and oftentimes aren’t accessing.”
That said, there is a fear that the approach required to deliver Community-Centered Journalism makes it financially vulnerable. As multiple interviewees stressed, it is a “long game”. Success, or the returns on investment, cannot necessarily be measured in a short period. Even in the long term, demonstrating results can be challenging. Therefore, part of the wider financial equation for this sector must involve demonstrating outcomes through hard data.
“Measuring impact becomes something that is really important,” Lisa Heyamoto concurs, so that CCJ providers can “make a case to funders or to your audience.”
Heyamoto suggests three key components — audience research, measuring impact, and analytics — that “all have to work in concert.” “But I would say the measuring impact is the one that is in the earliest stages of an industry-wide understanding of a) the importance of it, and b), how to do it, and c), how to use it,” she adds.
At the same time, Jacob Nelson argues we need to “separate the conversation about how to make journalism better from how to make journalism profitable.” That might mean changing the funding paradigm, he suggests, with public funding potentially playing an integral role. Removing some of these financial constraints (i.e. the need for profitability) may make it easier to deliver Community-Centered Journalism. After all, Nelson points out, just because an organization is failing financially, does not mean “it’s failing at producing high-quality journalism.” In many cases, “we know that’s not true,” he adds.
The likelihood that public funding will be necessary — not just for Community-Centered Journalism, but journalism writ large — is echoed by Antoine Haywood and others. “There needs to be some kind of public funding structure,” Haywood told us. That’s essential, he contends, if we are to continue to see support for experimentation and innovation in journalism.
Many interviewees also called for a reevaluation of other funding mechanisms. “The bulk of institutional philanthropy for journalism in this country still goes to the largest national and international news organizations,” Jonathan Kealing says. “How do we adjust? Or how do we help reshape the way institutional philanthropy thinks about journalism so that more local news organizations get more money?”
“I don’t think the answer is just, you know, re-slicing the pie,” he told us. “The pie isn’t big enough for journalism as it is. But I think it’s making sure that the pie grows for everyone, but more intentionally grows for the local [outlets] that have a disproportionately small slice of the institutional philanthropy pie.”
Until we do this, Candice Fortman suggests, “we still have a deep imbalance,” around “how we are funding the future of information.”
Talking about journalism students, but expressing sentiments equally applicable to media funders and policymakers, Candice Fortman observes how “I really hope that they feel really invigorated by the idea that they are in this perfect position to build the future of journalism in our country and across the world.”
“And while that burden is big,” she adds, “it is also a gift… You don’t often get to rebuild an industry.”
About the Author
Damian Radcliffe is a journalist, researcher, and professor based at the University of Oregon. He holds the Chambers Chair in Journalism and is a Professor of Practice, an affiliate faculty member of the Department for Middle East and North Africa Studies (MENA) and the Agora Journalism Center, and a Research Associate of the Center for Science Communication Research (SCR).
He is an expert on digital trends, social media, technology, the business of media, the evolution of present-day journalistic practice and the role played by media and technology in the Middle East.
Damian is always a three-time Knight News Innovation Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture Studies (JOMEC), and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). In Spring and Summer 2023 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.
With nearly 30 years of experience in the media industry, Damian has worked in editorial, strategic, research, policy and teaching roles in the USA, Middle East and UK. This includes roles in all media sectors (commercial, public, government, regulatory, academic, and nonprofit/civil society) and all platforms (print, digital, TV and radio).
He continues to be an active journalist, writing regular features for Digital Content Next, the International Journalists’ Network (IJNet), What’s New in Publishing, journalism.co.uk and other outlets. His work focuses on digital trends, social media, technology, the business of media, and the evolution — and practice — of journalism.
Read his full report on Advancing Community-Centered Journalism via the Agora Journalism Center website: https://agorajournalism.center/research/advancing-community-centered-journalism/