Here’s a great piece from Solutions Journalism about ideas from conflict resolution that can help make better news stories, but they’re also really great questions for us to ask each other when posting and commenting. So if you see these in a post or comment, you’ll know where they came from.
A great list of questions, Sharon. I’ve saved it for future reference.
I find this effort encouraging. I started my career in journalism but my first year at University of Arizona journalism school was dominated by a flood of new students, inspired by Watergate with hopes of being the “next Woodward and Bernstein.” Although there is place for investigative journalism, I think that the combative and sometimes simplistic attitudes that dominated the profession in the 80s and 90s backfired and helped sink public trust in professional news reporters. This was exacerbated by far-right politicians and networks that undermine mainstream media as “fake news.” Reporters are people, biased and sometimes wrong but very dedicated to truth. This effort to counter over-simplification and polarizing questioning/ coverage is a great start. Issues and people are complex; I am glad to see this being stressed.