A brief history of the Constructive Journalism Project
After six years of pioneering work, we feel that the Constructive Journalism Project has achieved its mission of raising awareness of constructive journalism and helping it grow into an established field of journalistic practice. As a result, we have decided to wrap up the project.
Founded in London by Sean Wood and Danielle Batist in 2014, we joined a small but dedicated group of people who believed it was time to redress the negativity bias in the news. Together with Jodie Jackson, Veronique Mistiaen and Giselle Green, we formed a collective who promoted constructive journalism within the industry and to the public.
Initially we operated UK-wide but quickly attracted attention from around Europe and beyond. Training was at the heart of our approach, beginning with workshops for freelance journalists before collaborating with universities across the UK to share learnings from a growing body of research on the effects of solutions-focused news on audiences. Soon we were invited into newsrooms at major media organisations.
Between us we ran hundreds of workshops as our training expanded internationally from Dublin to Doha, Vienna to Virginia, Tirana to Thessaloniki, and London to Leeds. We brought the concept to journalists in very different political and media landscapes, such as Syria, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, exploring how constructive journalism could play a role in conflict reporting. Our team spoke at events such as the International Journalism Festival (Perugia, Italy) and the Global Constructive Journalism Conference (Aarhus, Denmark), and regularly advocated for the benefits of constructive journalism in industry press. And we moved beyond the journalism industry to bring audiences on board.
Throughout our journey, we remained committed to producing constructive journalism ourselves. We’re proud to have inspired and supported a number of other constructive journalism outlets, while more and more major news publishers have begun including constructive journalism in their reporting too. Other organisations promoting and teaching constructive and solutions journalism have grown alongside us, and new ones launched. Many are now much larger and better resourced than our project, so we end our activity knowing that the field is in good hands.
We’ve been particularly inspired by the brilliant work of the Solutions Journalism Network in the US and Europe, as well as the launch of the Constructive Institute and the Constructive Journalism Network. While our collective project has completed, individually we remain very much committed to constructive journalism through all the work we continue to do.
Thanks for all your support and enthusiasm over the years. Our shared passion for a more constructive journalism landscape will undoubtedly mean some of our paths will cross again, and we’d love to stay connected. Feel free to get in touch:
– Sean Wood is CEO of Positive News and co-founded the Constructive Journalism Project. Follow on Twitter
– Danielle Batist is a journalist, media innovation consultant, and co-founded the Constructive Journalism Project. Follow on Twitter
– Veronique Mistiaen is an award-winning journalist reporting on human rights, social and humanitarian issues, global development and the environment. Follow on Twitter
– Giselle Green is a former BBC radio news reporter and producer, who was the launch editor of Constructive Voices and now delivers training and talks about constructive journalism. Follow on Twitter
– Jodie Jackson is the author of You Are What You Read: Why changing your media diet can change the world, and Little Ruffle and the World Beyond, an illustrated children’s book introducing solutions stories to the next generation. She holds a master’s in Applied Positive Psychology and has conducted research on the psychological impact of news. Follow on Twitter
