We, the media.
This weekend I welcomed the opportunity to debrief, discuss, and deconstruct the ways that media outlets have covered our communities. My fellow workshoppers came from organizations ranging from a local Chicago neighborhood newspaper to public radio in Minnesota to a journalism school in Nebraska to a newsletter startup in Seattle. And we all know: it’s time for change. There have been countless articles attempting to pull apart the dry results of the election and the way we, the media, failed. We failed to talk to everyone that mattered—which is everyone. We wrote off groups that we felt had already been represented. In trying to listen to some groups better than we had in the past, we forgot about others. In the media industry today, this is a particularly remarkable challenge when you’re already squeezing pennies and writing for clicks. But this is not an acceptable excuse. No excuse is acceptable. Journalists tend to like to talk. When you’re interviewing someone, you’re trying to get to know them and make them feel comfortable chatting with you. And we like to be heard. We use our platforms to share the words that we write and, sometimes, the opinions that we hold. We value our authority in our audiences. We haven’t been listening. That’s why the timing of the Poynter Institute’s “Building an Engaged Newsroom” conference worked out so perfectly. I and 29 other journalists spent a day and a half plunging into discussions about community engagement, audience construction, and the role of the news media in our lives. We’re learning to associate ourselves with the audience and our community now, rather than outside of them. We, the media, are guilty. But we’re also energized for this change. We’re ready to get to work. Note: As the only student participating in the institute, I was the only person unattached to a formal news organization. Stay tuned for some news on that coming in the coming weeks.
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