Session Host(s): Allison Shirk and Joy Mayer

Session Reporter (if not the host): Lauren Pabst

Discussion

Introductions and “What brings you to this session?”

Ideas include: rural and conservative areas also include communities of color; finding “the middle” is key for developing news audiences; getting a lot of pushback to coverage from conservative readers; developing voter guides that will be trusted; at the local level, issues don’t always revert to partisan siloes; opportunities to think outside of liberal/conservative frame (liberalism has done harm, too) and think about issues more realistically and complicate narratives; what can bring people together; Room to grow and listen; delivering relevant news to readers from a legacy newsroom; learning how conservatives develop their worldviews; pushback against pandering to conservatives “both sides-ism” from media organizations; reaching non-Trump conservatives; making sure a paper feels accessible to all – even though it has been pigeonholed as a “liberal” paper; reaching people beyond labels; bridging trust gaps; this conversation is missing from other national conferences; inclusion and practice change; intellectual humility needed in newsrooms; who feels “seen” and understood in news coverage?

Caveats to the organizing statement/complicating factors:

• Political, philosophical, or social conservatives?
• Does a liberal-leaning journalist automatically do liberal-leaning stories? Newsroom culture
• False both sides-ism – mis- and disinformation
• Stereotypical interviewing of conservatives in diners
• The press calls extremists conservatives when they’re not – and ignores fiscal and social conservatives

Conservative vs. Liberal has become very politicized since 2016 – many people hold complex personal views that do not fit neatly into one or the other but they are being lumped into a binary. People agree on local issues, but the national political frame dominates and takes the air out of the room when people identify as one or the other. Fraught terms with a lot of baggage.

Fox News and MSNBC have been part of creating this split – bias, viciousness, anger, hostility, distrust comes from both sides. The news is where the polarization happens and influences peoples.

People from all political affiliation are losing trust in the news.

What is a newsroom’s responsibility?

Some journalism pieces seem designed to make the “other side” angry.

Cities governed by liberal democrats can be hostile towards Black people, marginalized communities. It appears that confusion benefits people in power – the historical sides of “conservatives” and “liberal” have changed. Reporting doesn’t have historical grounding and biases can be apparent. Example: affordable housing conversations. Media perpetuates and creates political narratives and is run by powerful interests.

National politics muddies the water – local is more complex. AND the national talking points and strategies (anti-trans, anti-“CRT”) are also making their way into local policies. So, not as clear of a separation between national and local.

How to gain trust of conservatives, so they will agree to be interviewed, so that they can be reflected in the coverage

How we see the world as an individual colors what we see as relevant, important, etc. What we choose to shine a light on. Example: a series on mental health not including anything on faith.

Worldviews that aren’t part of partisan politics

How to create a space where everyone feels comfortable? Is it possible?

How do you create a space where everyone feels uncomfortable? Even progressives (who have a problematic history that they don’t own up to)

What angers people about reporting is that it makes them question their framing of an issue. Example: Reporting on a community foundation’s available budget for participatory grantmaking VS its total endowment and comparison with city budget angered people because they thought it wasn’t relevant.

We allow ourselves the luxury of dehumanizing people – not allowing ourselves the habit of doing it.

Critiquing journalism is also important. Coded language aimed at liberal audiences loses people. Clarity and transparency about language.

Rather than talking about “coverage of conservatives” talking about coverage of each issue to understand whether reporters have multiple perspectives about it. (Usually, no) Nuance and complexity needed.

Being precise about language and how others interpret terms differently.

Historical context is usually missing. People don’t develop their own opinions, often.

Right wing politicians have found it effective to mobilize people against the media – what to do with this?

Newspaper publishers who get pushback against readers who don’t agree that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen.

If you lose these readers, they will go into the right-wing media ecosystem. What then?

Some people believe the election was stolen; some people don’t have good information. Approach: providing explanations instead of using short hand (like “Trump’s false election claims” – actually explain, provide the receipts)

Important to look at terminology and how it lands with audiences (using “pregnant person” or “birthing person” made people angry). Switched to “patient” or “parent.” Are there any surveys or studies around lightning rod terms?

Generally, explaining more is better. Whose language are we adopting? Always subjective.

Offensive headlines about conservatives happen too, often from national media.

What is the practice of engaging rural audiences?

At events, not responding right away to people who make disruptive remarks – engage them outside of that comment (who were you before the election?)

This work is one-on-one – it feels overwhelming. Can it be scaled?

Field canvassers surveying populations (Borderless Field Canvasser’s Guide Playbook)

Hate speech is rampant on social media – when reporting on immigrant communities. Makes you not want to reach those people.

Closer connections between reporters at differently oriented media organizations to find more common ground, share approaches, and reach conservative audiences.

Do people actually know conservatives? Creating exchanges across different communities (Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska example)

Major effort needed to do better engagement with communities of color because they have been misrepresented and disengaged – many newsrooms are on board to find out how to do this. Many of those same ideas and techniques can be used in any community in the nation. Rural communities also feel this sense of misrepresentation from media. Must overcome the trepidation of dealing with difference. A playbook for engaging one community could be used in other communities.

David Plazas (opinion reporter) does focus groups. Can share perspectives that reporters hear with one another (even though you can’t talk to everyone).

Some newsroom assignments tokenize people “go talk to a Latino about this.” Understand that people don’t automatically have expertise about elections just because they have one political persuasion (for example).

Marginalized peoples’ feelings about social changes that might change material opportunities for them – these are complex and might not have language to express it. But this colors their perspectives – everywhere.

Anand Giradharadas, THE PERSUADERS (book) – making room for the people who are not yet on board and not excluding them in the way coverage is crafted.

Newsrooms using language that is adopted by a small fraction of the population can lose people.

Jonathan Hayt (?), THE RIGHTEOUS MIND (book) – there are a lot of complex explanations for why people believe what they believe.

Focusing on what people do have experience (expertise) with – outside of political coverage – might lend itself to more people seeing themselves

A lot of news coverage probably does appeal to conservatives, but reporters don’t hear about it, or have a way of knowing about it. (farming stories, e.g.)

A tool: flipping a frame “if I said this same statement about X people, would it be a problem?”

How can we just tell the truth?

Host:

Roshan Bliss, National Coalition for Dialogue and Liberation

Who’s in the room?

• Caitlin Tapia
• Michelle Faust Raghavan, Claridad Media
• Gene Sonn, Resolve Philly
• Linda Shaw, Solutions Journalism Network
• Nation Hahn, EdNC
• Megan Garvey, LAist
• Allison Dikanovic, Kansas City Star
• Chelsea Naughton, America Amplified
• Meredith Edlow, photographer
• David Bornstein, Solutions Journalism Network
• Frank, professor observing

These other things that are about democracy beyond elections exist, but people don’t know about them, examples:

• Participatory budgeting

How do we use journalism to engage folks in conversations and decisions that impact them beyond going to the ballot on Election Day?

Linda:

• Research that horse race coverage leads people to lose trust in political and journalism institutions
• Start with community listening
• Use the citizen’s agenda approach
  • What are the issues you want politicians to be solving?
• Use solutions journalism to cover those issues

Megan:

• LAist has done a lot of work listening to community and figuring out where people are at when it comes to participating in democracy
• Human voter guide — People didn’t know how to vote, how to get a ballot, what each of the roles do
  • If you don’t know how to get the ballot, the rest is moot
• Civics and democracy reporter → instead of politics reporter
• LA has a new mayor
  • Used influencers and other strategies to get a demographically representative survey response from voters about issues of importance
  • Main story that has come out so far: promise tracker
    • Identified main points of the new mayor’s policy for reducing the homelessness crisis and tracked success
    • We’re able to hold her to account on each point regularly
  • Promise Tracker takeaways
    • City data is terrible
    • A written story
  • “Meet Your Mayor” type quiz/guide

What people say they want/what’s good for our democracy vs. what people actually engage with?

Chelsea:

• Platforms: people aren’t their best selves on social media
• Zombie mode, outrage motivates people
• The platforms we put information on are set up to get people to behave that way
• We have an obligation to figure out another way to deliver that information

Megan:

• Planet Money TikTok
• Providing information in a more interesting/creative way

Chelsea:

• You’re not hosting the dinner party
• You’re providing a dish at the dinner party
• You’re not showing up in the space in a way that people care about

Caitlin:

• Statements that fuel policies and decisions vs. seeking a platform and coverage
• Where is the journalism line between paparazzi and those who are implementing policies and decisions that affect people’s lives

Gene:

• Documenters expansion
• Active participation → more than 200 people who were signed up for training
• Hunger to be involved in democracy beyond elections
• Meetings that are supposed to include the public have become prohibitively restrictive

Roshan:

• Journalists collaborating with professional facilitators to engage around an issue at hand in the community along the lines of reality TV covering the deliberative process

Megan:

• “Make Al Care”
  • LA is infamous for having very low turnouts for elections
  • Al was a cafe owner who had never voted
    • He didn’t see the point or how it could connect to his life
  • What would it take to get Al to vote?
  • Politicians came and started pitching to Al
  • Reporter drove him to the polls
• Covered 2000 campaign following Dick Cheney and Ralph Nader
  • Nader had said Bush and Gore were basically the same
  • People’s lives aren’t all that different depending on who is in office

Peggy:

• Robert Putnam’s research — bowling alone
• Civic institutions where people come together
• Decline of civic institutions tracks with decline of participation in democracy
• The more that people see the ways they can engage, the more they will

Nation:

• Community college students
• Surveyed with Reach
• Created candidate survey based on students’ questions
• Brought them to the candidates
• Hosted a forum to create videos for social media and also a digital guide
• The community colleges distributed the survey
  • EdNC gave the data back to the colleges
• Teacher survey, partnered with Dept. of Public Instruction
• Promise: EdNC would include the survey results in the DPI report
• Creating meaningful ways for people engage in ways that can actually affect policy

Megan:

• Voter guides start with the responsibilities of what officials do

David:

• Most Americans don’t know what the government does
• Department of energy
• Inflation and infrastructure act — Biggest public expenditure since the new deal, should be talked about but people don’t know what it is
• We don’t understand or cover what problem solving looks like in the government
• How do we cover government day by day to show what they actually do that affects our lives
• The brand of government has been destroyed by journalism

Peter Block:

• Conversation about democracy is about self-governance 
• Our attention on elections gets in the way of our coverage of democracy
• What are you doing to keep your neighborhood safe?

Chelsea:

• Series about democracy from the ground up
• Focused on people who were doing the work of democracy outside of politics and government
• Profiles of people and portraits of what else is democracy
• Think more broadly about what democracy is, put it in different beats

Meredith:

• For Black people, there is a very thin line between democracy and slavery
• Has bred this culture of hierarchy
• Has bred this culture of disseminating your information to a certain subset of people
• We talk past the reality of if we don’t have democracy, some people would be enslaved
• “My position of the world outside of democracy is slavery.”
• Until we get comfortable talking about slavery and what that means to the United States
• Knew so little about the history of her family’s experience in Virginia
• Was confused about the origin of her name, went on a personal search
• If we don’t start talking more about slavery and the sanitation of history after the Civil War, I’m not sure we’re having the best conversation about democracy
• In churches in Virginia, a lot of white rightwing conservative ideas and politics mix with Black people who vote Democrat but also have conservative religious views

Megan:

• We are an ahistorical country that wants to forget.
• It’s easy to forget that the electoral college exists because of slavery, the rules that keep people from distributing water at the polls is to keep people from voting.
• We need reporting that offers historical context.

David:

• The message to get people to dismiss/disengage with democracy is that “democracy doesn’t deliver”
• Journalism doesn’t cover how democracy delivers
• “We can’t be an advocate for the government”

Peter Block:

• What is the other conversation we can be having other than investigative?

Chelsea:

• “Traveling While Black” exhibit
• Oral histories in a VR headset
• At a restaurant in the Green Book, riding around in a bus
• The immersive experience brought you into the space
• Allocating resources to powerful VR experiences can be really important
• We forget that the way we present our stories can have such a huge impact

Gene:

• The plane landing safely isn’t a journalism story
• If the pattern of planes landing safely is going up, that is a story
• Grew up attending a public forum in a school gymnasium, the physical representation of democracy was powerful

David:

• Documentary about election workers called no time to fail

Nation:

• People think about their lives first, and their civics and community second
• If you can directly show people that their voices will be heard
• Philanthropy: Survey to inform grantmaking

Megan:

• We can cover democratic systems
• Who has power and why and how to create greater access
• Making streams available

David:

• Budgets tell you how power is operating in a town 

Session Host(s):

Anthony Victoria and Luisa Ortiz Perez

Session Reporter

Luisa Ortiz Perez

Participants:

• Maritza Felix
• Jessica Maria Ross
• Tony Elkins
• Purva Indulkar
• Sandra Janoff
• Jingyuo Yu
• Anthony Victoria 
• Sue Robinson
• Luisa Ortiz Perez

DISCUSSION

Sharing personal stories and context for burnout

• Not eating, not sleeping, angry, depleted.

Being a good journalist does not mean you are there for the story

Can I be sustainable enough and grounded enough to be able to tell a good storyteller

Calmly address the situation, grounded when facing trauma and experiences

Facing trauma, shootings, sexual violence.

You can care about the people you are covering and the stories we cover.

It is ok to slow down and take care of myself

I need help, I asked for mental health support, I grounded myself

Reporters, editors, taking that into the newsroom.

What causes your burnout?

BURNOUT IS SLOW BURN

• The news never stops, we are never oof 
• We take in trauma all the time
• ‘I put the paper to bed’
• ‘I am fucking done’
• Design thinking facilitating school
• The trajectory I had was going to help me.
• Covering shootings, I was not protecting myself from the story

Things I spend my time and emotions now…triggers

My people are in the same room

Emergency exit….feelings and awareness

Sustainability

• When we cover online harassment and not show up as humans
• Vicarious trauma…j and social services
• What is done after 5 o’clock can happen in another space
• Our context is always present, we cannot dissociate
• Vulnerability and imposter syndrome
• Eradicate systems and be more authentic and vulnerable

In the newsroom

• As a mother and a worker
• Culture and leadership 
• Labor rights and health care
• Points of tension and discussion
• Intentional touch points, ongoing conversations
• Culture and policy

Practical solutions

• Build resilience
• Settings and structures
• In policy and practice, what are the policies?
• Fully supported as a human
• What is your health plan?
• Your sustainable and holistic newsroom
• Clear communication
• I speak about going to therapy
• Bonito/Beautiful, we listen to our bodies
• Actionable items and model the behavior
• Intentional benefits 
• Policy care + handbook, culture + practice, modeled by leadership
• Spotlight is so wrong…he was burning his newsroom down
• Health plan…what is MY plan for my own health.
• Not make sexual harassment taboo

What we did not talk about

• Responsibilities women have, caretaking
• We are not just j, we are caretakers and we are people
• Collective disturbance? How do we name it and how do we address it? Acknowledge it and act on it.
• How much of this work had to be fostered by the collective
• Every member of the community has to be given the right incentives to grow
• Intersectional and women led
• These are not just workplace issues

Host:

Angilee Shah

Intro: Accountability session

• Community, internal, funding

This session is about the funding piece.

Starting point: nonprofit news funding is increasing, beyond public media and in some growing and consolidating public media spaces. I love personal money journeys — this is not that. Structural questions through the lens of money.

Notes, but please say if you don’t want something in the notes. We’ll leave it out.

Exercise: Introduce yourself, tell us about your relationship to money in your work or organization. Your feelings, your current goals or struggles.

OFF THE RECORD

We had just a couple people so we talked for a while and then dispersed.

Sorry, no notes.

Host:

Andrea Wenzel & Jingyao Yu

Participants: 

Amy L. Kovac-Ashley, Jingyao Yu, Letrell Crittenden, Tara Pixley, Luisa Ortiz Perez, (Eu)Gene “G-Gene” Sonn, Antoine Haywood, Kristin Traniello, Trip Jennings, Andrea Wenzel, Doron Tanssiy, Angilee Shah, Fabiola Sahagun, Sue Robinson, Jesikah Maria Ross, Dylan Smith, Sierra Sargetti-Daniels

Other session notes recommended (as they relate to accountability + care):

• Mental Health: Selfcare and Care Awareness – Anthony Victoria and Luisa Ortiz Perez
• Care aware newsrooms – Luisa Ortiz Perez

Summary

• What can we do in the daily as journalists to build space for regular accountability…and also what do we need to change in the structures of organization doing journalism to make space for accountability and dismantle the parts that prevent accountability?

Definition of Accountability

• Tara-Lyn: Recognition of impact over intent, understand harm and sit with the fact that intent didn’t match impact
• Amy: Bring it down to the small issues and the everyday, better prepared for big issues
• Kristin: Walking the talk not just talking the talk—action align with values
  • Being held accountable to moral structure of the community in which you sit
• Letrell: Responsibility we have
  • Whatever means consequences…not living up to expectations and responsibilities
• Doron: Consequences of action/impact…that there might be consequences for you
  • Letrell: People see that as a negative, doesn’t need to be that
• Luisa: Nonpunitive and reparation aspect of accountability. Wave of MeToo haven’t resolved that, but opened a lot of doors
  • How to reintegrate perpetrator, bring conversation to the newsroom and leave it there
  • Evolve standards of behavior
• Trip: Oscillating as punishment…finished a piece on restorative justice
  • Accountability as relationship
  • Universe of obligation…what do we owe each other
• Tara-Lyne: What does repair look like?—what are we restoring when we stay restorative justice?
  • While being accountable to the harm
• Andrea: Incentivize keep checking in and check-in back on that
  • Tara-Lyne: PArticular forms of offense…how do we balance that, recognize people are human, not absolving people of fault and responsibility, not taking weight of harm away while do reparative work while making space for people who can’t be repaired, how to keep balance
• Eugene: What do we build in daily work that facilitates accountability
  • Have been complaint based…who has been able to take advantage of complaint based?—those in power
  • How to build in reporting, to make space and time to look for accountability opportunities instead of waiting for it to find us

What Does the Work of Accountability Look Like

• Luisa: What it DOESN’T look like—the offenders doing the work of reparation.
  • Black and Brown people explaining why they’re offended
  • Opening the hate of DEI effort, onus on those offended to decide what reparations there are
  • Jingyao: Emotional and intellectual labor of those impacted by lack of accountability
• Angilee: Accountability is built in for me that I’m a part of, they’re at my dinner table, they’re at my business. When I did a story about South Asians, people knew how to reach me. At national level, that’s magnified
  • Accountability comes very much from community you work on
  • Keeping an open door, recognize that there will be failure
  • Re consequences and incentives, in industry, that kind of accountability isn’t quantified very well. In nonprofit side, the accountability is danger (funder) for you, when it should be incentive
  • When someone is upset, it’s dangerous the smaller the organization you are
  • Doron: What does that look like to rectify?
  • Angilee: Looks like bringing people in conversation, have 2 people have ear of major funder that may not approve
• Tara-Lyne: Different spaces of accountability
  • Newsroom accountability, where harm committed (DEI efforts)
  • Accountability to community, different structure
  • Accountability nonprofits to funders (where money coming from, impact the community, example taking money from private prisons)
  • How to think about all these things?
• Tara-Lyne: Emotional labor of education…not the job of the oppressed to educate, then whose job is it? Don’t trust oppressor to educate each other, but what does it mean to not put the responsibility
  • Invite them to a seat at the table and have people who can enact on that work
• Letrell: Journalism have no accountability infrastructure internally and externally.
  • Was let go in a previous role where vocally critiqued reporting
  • Editor of one newsroom sexually harassed, had a minor demotion for a couple of weeks

Wednesday, August 22, 2023 (2:30 pm – 4:00 pm)

Host: Antoine Haywood
Session participants:

• Antoine Haywood, University of Pennsylvania
• Carole Carmichael, Chestnut Hill Local

This session intended to discuss the role community access media centers should play in the larger effort to “advance journalism for all.”

Despite being the only two participating in this session, we were the right two people in the right space, having a productive conversation at the right time. 

Antoine and Carole started by discussing and comparing observations they made while talking to Philadelphia residents about what news and information that are most interested in receiving. Carole mentioned that most people wanted information about housing and wrap-around services. Support services for youth and seniors were also critical. Antoine said that while many people in the city still have cable television services, many don’t trust or watch local news. 

Antoine and Carole discussed many issues related to cable and broadband connectivity. The two agreed that new technologies don’t always supplant older ones. Many communities, especially older groups, still prefer to get their local information from printed weekly papers and cable television. They also discussed consumer protections, neighborhood connectivity, media ownership, and service affordability. 

A concrete action item that developed in this discussion was forging a relationship between the Chestnut Hill Local and PhillyCAM. 

Carole asked many questions about Philadelphia’s community access media center—PhillyCAM. After Antoine explained what PhillyCAM provides for community groups, Carole suggested that the Local could have a digital media reporter get trained at PhillyCAM and then produce a program to run on community access channels and stream online.

Carole also suggested that this could be a good case study to write about for the paper and publish in the Columbia Journalism Review. Antoine agreed. 

A few questions were noted at the end of the sessions:

• How can these two organizations support each other long-term? 
• Could this collaboration serve as a model for future collaborations in other places? 
• What kinds of funding could this partnership generate?

Antoine offered to facilitate a connection between the Local and PhillyCAM. Carole offered to facilitate an introduction with the Local’s editor, Carla Robinson.