Five ‘bright spots’ on bridging across difference + journalism

When we set out to catalog the kinds of collaborative spaces between journalists and researchers, we started with an eye toward depolarization.

Notably, few of these initiatives focus on helping journalists and researchers inform each other’s work on limiting polarization (or improving civic discourse) as a specific focus.

Given our goals and what might be on the minds of many stakeholders following the U.S. elections, we wanted to highlight where it has happened.

Below are “bright spots” for this topic specifically.

1) Play matchmaker between news leaders and experts to inform practical resources for the field (Trusting News)

Trusting News helps journalists actively earn trust. It has seen success in connecting researchers with expertise to willing news leaders in its network to study and experiment with ways to depolarize coverage. For example, its “anti-polarization checklist” is one practical resource, informed by these relationships, that other journalists can use in their work.

The organization is currently involved in a project with More Like US and AllSides, along with University of Florida researcher Myiah Hutchens, to test what happens when Similarity Hub data is included in stories. Trusting News is advising those involved. Executive director Joy Mayer has noted the value of that connector and translator role — e.g., helping researchers and journalists communicate in ways that are relatable and understand each other’s needs and obstacles.

2) Introduce non-news experts into news leader conversations about challenges (American Press Institute)

The American Press Institute, publisher of this report, helps local and community-based media foster healthy, responsive and resilient news organizations.

API has seen success in integrating researchers and civil society leaders into invitation-based events for news leaders, called API Local News Summits. For example, a recent summit on election coverage incorporated a polarization researcher from the University of Michigan, and a recent summit on rural journalism engagement included an expert in social psychology and deliberation.

What we are learning and trying to improve upon is detailed in the next chapter.

3) Pair researchers as key partners in cohort programs for news media (Local Media Association)

The Local Media Association and its foundation helps local media share, network and collaborate, with a general focus on reinventing business models for news.

LMA has seen success in including climate and climate communication experts as partners and resources in its Covering Climate Collaborative. Participants have turned to experts from various organizations to aid in how they pursue and present reporting on the climate, including Climate Matters, SciLine and George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication.

“It’s climate reporting ‘plus,’” said Frank Mungeam, chief innovation officer for the Local Media Association and who has run the collaborative. The program helps with “reporting on the science,” but “in a way that’s intended to bridge divides, address misinformation and apply the science of effective communication.” There’s responsibility for not just getting the facts right, but helping it reach audiences, said Mungeam.

Mungeam said monthly calls with various experts on the record help with the appeal of the collaborative, in addition to the community of peers working on the shared beat. As the programs evolve, Mungeam said LMA is exploring additional ways to collaborate with experts to give journalists more practical guidance on effective ways to bridge information divides.

4) Incorporate news leader- and academic-led partnerships into class curriculum (Center for Public Deliberation)

The Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State University helps enhance local democracy through improved public communication and community problem-solving.

The university center has seen success in working with local news organizations and teaching students through firsthand experience within that partnership. For example, when its staff worked with The Coloradoan newspaper to reimagine its local opinion section, students helped with the partnership. Students, trained in helping run productive small groups and in-person meetings, also helped encourage productive discourse in the online forum for the collaboration.

The approach helps students gain experience and provides some scale and capacity to a collaboration. At Colorado State University, a “deliberative journalism” class served as an anchor, with class assignments related to collaborations. Leadership and resource changes at the Coloradoan disrupted the relationship, but organizers continue to work with other local media in Colorado.

For the past year, the Center for Public Deliberation has partnered with Rocky Mountain Public Media, the Colorado Press Association, the Colorado Media Project, and a cohort of over 40 newsrooms to launch Above the Noise, a statewide project focused on helping local newsrooms build civic capacity and engage their communities more productively. As part of that project, the group has supported convenings with 20 showings of the film Undivide Us, followed by community conversations to help residents de-polarize and connect across political differences. Students have again helped facilitate some of the events.

University partnerships for local news remain a growing trend nationally.

5) Focus journalism fellowships on topics that allow for deep news leader and researcher collaboration (Wallace House Center for Journalists)

The Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan fosters excellence in journalism through several programs.

Its Knight-Wallace Fellowships program allows journalists to step away from the newsroom for an academic year to pursue a project with access to faculty and resources at the greater university. The program has specialized fellowships, including the James S. House and Wendy Fisher House Social Science Fellowship; this can attract interested journalists who want to understand and use social science research, including on political polarization.

As part of the overall program, fellows take classes at the university related to the challenge they are pursuing. Some may structure independent studies with reading lists and case studies or reach out to faculty and other experts for informal conversations. Fellows do not report during their fellowship year, so “interactions on campus are all academic,” said Lynette Clemetson, Charles R. Eisendrath Director of Wallace House. “Because it’s not a transactional relationship, then the fellows can relax and the faculty can relax.”

Many scholars involved with the fellowship program appreciate the opportunity it provides to refine how they communicate their ideas. Clemetson expressed similar interest: “Institutional experts are wrestling with the same thing that many news organizations are wrestling with — an erosion of trust from the public . . . I think grappling with it in silos is not the way to do it.”

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The landscape and list above offer guideposts and insights for those who wish to build programs or collaborations that facilitate fruitful exchange between news leaders and non-news experts.

The more the journalism support space discusses the opportunities and challenges in this work, the better. To model that, we are sharing more about our API Local News Summits in the next chapter.

 

This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation (funder DOI 501100011730) to better understand how local news leaders and researchers can learn from the other to improve local journalism and limit polarization in their communities (TWCF-2023-32603). The opinions expressed in this report and its excerpt are those of the organizer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.