Redesign news infrastructures to build community power

After the 2016 presidential election, I left institutional journalism philanthropy, questioning my ability to reinvigorate journalism’s role in a healthy democracy.

Since then, I’ve explored other avenues on how journalism might inspire in people a sense of self-efficacy — the driving factor for civic engagement. But many people have continued to feel even more hopeless, frustrated, and isolated in pursuing the American dream. This is why I believe working towards an explicit North Star goal to build community power is critical.

I stay optimistic about the wins I’ve seen (and have been lucky to be a part of) in moving journalism to be more adaptive and to center people over products, as we enter into possibly the most hostile landscape for journalism we’ve seen in awhile. I am also exploring other levers for thriving civic information ecosystems because the journalism industry needs help outside of itself. To redesign news infrastructures with a more explicit goal of building community power (and thereby relevance), I propose the following:

Lean into interdisciplinary (namely human behavior and epistemological) expertise in newsrooms. Most “audience” or “community engagement” roles are really looking for marketing and business development expertise that may help most newsrooms in the short-term, without addressing the core of what could transform the culture of newsrooms for long-term relevance. By getting creative in recruiting expertise such as sociology or other cognitive behavior-related fields, we prioritize the understanding of how communities learn and exchange information as part of a greater whole. For example, I love Data & Society’s new Trustworthy Infrastructures call to Connective (T)issues run by the dynamic Maia Woluchem. It is an expansive space from and with which journalism institutions and initiatives might also learn and partner.

As newsrooms constrict, partner strategically with institutions that already have community trust and credibility, prioritize community-driven interests, and the expertise to inspire empathy for the neighbors we don’t know. In my current role supporting the resilience of community organizers, I am learning from leaders such as Rev. Kenneth Nixon (of VOICE) who points out that organizers are “in constant conversation with people most affected by local challenges. We in a sense uncover stories traditional newsrooms often overlook.”

Nixon utilizes relational 1:1 meetings that grow into broader civic engagement via institutions that foster a sense of belonging, regardless of ideology and partisanship. This includes structured listening sessions and leaning into difficult conversations to strengthen relationships. Journalists also know how to do these things. But many are forced to use a lot of shortcuts to produce a constant stream of content that undermines how quality journalism is made — by creating connections and meaning between people.

Nixon sees that there’s “an untapped opportunity for journalists to partner with broad-based community organizing efforts in ways that could reshape how stories are told and how communities engage with the news.” Organizers, similarly to journalists, know the value of having the grit to show up for people with integrity, in the face of unfair and opaque systems that get in the way of community progress.

I’ve already seen powerful local examples where this infrastructural partnership already exists. It’s one of the most dynamic interplay of institutions working to protect community interest that I’ve ever seen.

Above all, we need to exercise courageous honesty, so we can be more curious (instead of apathetic), self-reflective (instead of defensive), and open (instead of dismissive). None of this is rocket science, and for some reason we continue to package this in much mushier terms that don’t require us to listen and translate in ways that require a lot of time, effort, and care. In optimizing walled gardens of like-minded folks, we’ve forgotten how to create the conditions for us to safely and openly disagree. We waste a lot of time being polite as we are being disingenuous, while more and more communities are rejecting institutions that obviously don’t care about or see them. How we help communities build power requires taking communities seriously in a way they can actually feel it.

Instead, audiences are creating their own lanes of truth, which for better or for worse as our news infrastructures continue to fragment and swiftly change shape, is an opportunity for change. Those that courageously stay true to public interest goals while staying adaptive to the medium will survive, while those who continue to dismiss and deny, simply won’t.