Can News Be Good?

If humans are biased toward negativity, it follows that journalists are more likely to construct and curate negative news stories. Journalism often centers on documenting the problematic and acting as a watchdog, particularly the field’s “fourth estate” responsibility to keep citizens informed and hold government accountable.¹⁵ While some journalists question traditional concepts of objectivity, news norms throughout the ages have remained relatively fixed. What is determined to be news generally does not include the “normal,” the “good day,” or positive stability.¹⁶

Journalists, for good reason, can be resistant to efforts that deliberately showcase “good news” stories. Positive human-interest stories are often derogatorily labeled as puff pieces. These are tolerated—but are not regarded as serious journalism. Positive stories are frequently scrutinized as the potential outcomes of public relations initiatives¹⁷ ¹⁸ or advocacy journalism, which remains “a dirty word for legacy journalists.”¹⁹ A series of movements, however, have come to fore in an attempt to push journalism toward not only highlighting problems but promoting solutions.

Peace Journalism

A group of scholars and journalists emerged in the 1960s and 1970s to challenge the conventions of news construction, and its reliance on negative references and conflict as a news value. Sociologist Johan Galtung, the driving force behind the movement, advocated for the practice of “peace journalism,” as opposed to the status quo that he called “war journalism.”²⁰ Galtung called for a shift in framing toward a model more akin to health reporting—where journalists are encouraged to explore causes and strategies for prevention of disease.²¹ While peace journalism as a genre has many qualities in line with traditional ideas of responsible reporting, it does in some cases contain interventionist elements—for example, encouraging stories with an agreement-orientation versus only focusing on points of difference.²² Critics of peace journalism suggest it subverts fundamental tenets of objectivity and places undue responsibility on journalists for correcting global ills.²³ But proponents of this and other strains of advocacy journalism say that objectivity is actually an obstacle which prevents journalism from playing a more constructive role in public life.²⁴

Civic or Public Journalism

In the 1990s another movement emerged that sought to place journalism as an active player in the functioning of democracy. Civic journalism (or public journalism) advocated a “bottom-up framing of the news,” which prioritized non-elite sources setting a “citizens’ agenda.”²⁵ One of its founding theorists, Jay Rosen, called upon journalists to:

address people as citizens, potential participants in public affairs, rather than victims or spectators;

help the political community act upon, rather than just learn about, its problems;

improve the climate of public discussion, rather than simply watching it deteriorate;

make public life go well, so that it earns its claim on our attention.²⁶

This movement renewed a historical journalistic debate between Walter Lipmann and John Dewey over whether the journalist was just an observer, or rather an engaged actor who could shape public discourse. Civic journalism took the latter approach, arguing that reporters had a responsibility to craft their coverage so that the communities they represent engage with issues that impact them. A number of news outlets undertook civic/public journalism initiatives, and researchers noted cases that achieved success in sourcing greater numbers of non-elite and more diverse sources. Still, integrating civic/public practices into the mainstream of journalism remained a challenge.²⁷

Solutions Journalism

Solutions journalism builds on some of the concepts developed in peace and civic/public journalism. The Solutions Journalism Network, which was created in 2013 and has become a leading player in advancing the approach, defines solutions journalism as “rigorous and compelling reporting on responses to social problems.”²⁸ Solutions journalism stories—which can cover a range of local, national, and international issues—are not advocacy pieces or “good news” stories. Nevertheless, they are in sync with calls from journalism scholars like Herbert Gans that we broaden definitions of “newsworthiness” to include “solutions for the country’s problems—advanced by people outside the mainstream.”²⁹

The strongest solutions journalism stories use the rigor of investigative reporting to explore systemic, underlying reasons for social ills, and then critically examine efforts to address them. These are not stories about a problem that tack on a quick ending note as an afterthought about what could be done. Neither do they follow the formula identified by Gaye Tuchman, wherein media outlets present a solution as a way to “soothe the news consumers even as they reify social forces” by ensuring the public that “legitimated experts and authorities are doing everything they can.”³⁰

In recent years, a number of media organizations have adopted regular segments that either explicitly set out to create a platform for solutions journalism, or (at least) to highlight social entrepreneurship and problem solving efforts.ⁱ The Solutions Journalism Network has championed this genre, spearheading collaborations with mainstream outlets, including The Boston Globe, the Detroit Free Press,³¹ and The Seattle Times.³²

Solutions journalism is also a potential revenue generator—offering something fresh for negative-news fatigued eyes hungry for positive innovation. The executive director of J-Lab, Jan Schaffer, who was previously a leader in the civic journalism movement,³³ suggests that solutions-oriented stories can engage audiences and offer possible new business models:

If one shifts the periscope from new business models for journalism to new journalism models for news, I see the convergence of several trends that are beginning to provoke a new conversation about whether journalists can—and should—craft a more deliberate suite of tools that inspire movement and action. And if these tools were effective, would citizens begin to pay as much for news as they pay to go to, say, a TED conference?³⁴

The Solutions Journalism Network believes solutions journalism can sell: “People are likely to pay for news that helps them understand how the world works.”³⁵

At the heart of solutions-oriented journalism is an assumption that a solutions news frame will encourage greater audience engagement. J-Lab’s Schaffer points to examples of community participation in stories that focused on the redesign of streetscapes in Milwaukee and efforts to aid preschool enrollment in Chicago.³⁶ The Knight Foundation posed the question: “The real challenge is, how do we move people from informed to engaged?” It thinks solutions-oriented journalism may offer the answer.³⁷ Solutions Journalism Network co-founder David Bornstein sees journalism as “a feedback mechanism to help society self-correct” and believes that knowing about the problem alone is unlikely to generate corrective action. “People need to know what they can do—and how,” he said.³⁸

There has been limited empirical research into how audiences respond to solutions journalism. Preliminary research conducted by the Solution Journalism Network and the University of Texas at Austin’s Engaging News Project revealed that readers of solutions-oriented stories felt more informed, and were more likely to share what they read and seek more information.³⁹ However, there is a lack of research on how solutions journalism can be applied at the level of local and ethnic media—a level at which community members learn about issues closest to home and have the greatest chance of affecting change.

Why Local News Matters

Local-level news is the focus of this study, primarily because communication theory suggests it is critical to the maintenance of healthy communities. A lack of media discourse reflecting the concerns of local residents poses barriers not only to residents’ access to information, but also to their sense of community belonging and engagement.⁴⁰ ⁴¹ ⁴² ⁴³ According to communication infrastructure theory, strong communities have strong storytelling networks—that is, residents, local and ethnic media, and community organizations are connected to each other and share an understanding about what is happening in their area. Researchers have found that residents’ connection to a shared storytelling network can predict higher levels of belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation.⁴⁴ ⁴⁵ However, in communities like South Los Angeles, these networks become problematic when the link between organizations and media is weak, the networks are ethnically bounded, or the content of the stories circulating is overwhelmingly negative.⁴⁶ ⁴⁷ Residents who connect to such storytelling networks tend to be less engaged and lack a sense of belonging.

This study aims to contribute to the development of a model for healthier local storytelling networks. It responds to concerns about a dearth of constructive local coverage around both community problems and systematic efforts to address these challenges. The project explores how audiences process stories that have both been developed with input from community organizations and employ a solutions-oriented lens, as well as how the same audiences process local coverage of similar issues that use more traditional formats.

Research questions include:

How do South LA residents process media coverage of their communities?
How do South LA residents process stories that use a solutions-oriented journalistic format?