By Jennifer Brandel and jesikah maria ross
Journalists are curious and excel at asking questions. But given the demands most of us work under – from deadline pressure to distributing our reporting to actively and relationally engaging our community – it’s rare that we deploy the skill set of asking good questions on ourselves. We aren’t the story and there is so little time, and yet exploring questions is one of the best ways to expand our thinking and try on new perspectives. Questions are an act of care, both for our communities, our journalism and ourselves.
Pick a few of these questions we posed during the Care Collaboratory to discuss with a friend or colleague, free-write your responses or maybe just meditate on them. Your answers might change how you approach your journalism.
Personal questions to warm up and connect to your individual experience and purpose:
- If you were a vending machine what advice would you dispense?
- What brought you joy as a kid? What did you love to do?
- Why is care important to you? Why does it matter in your storytelling work?
- What does it feel like when you are cared for? Or when you care for others?
- What helps make you feel emotionally safe? How can you sense it in yourself, or others?
Questions to reflect on the purpose and practices of journalism:
- How do your natural interests and biases influence how much care you take with sources and stories?
- What creative tactics have you used to listen better?
- If care is not part of your institution’s culture, how can you prioritize care work (while keeping your job)?
- An assignment budget is a record of what your newsroom values. Where does care show up in the budget?
- What reporters or kinds of media have you been impressed by in how they care?
Radical questions that may shift how you think about journalism:
- What would it look like to be able to bring WOO WOO (heart, love, etc.) into the newsroom and not have to apologize?
- How, as a source, could you tell your full, true story if you have no connection with the person interviewing you?
- Across the landscape a central feature in care is allowing people to feel seen and feel heard. So in journalism – is the product necessary? Or is the value in the process itself?
- What is another framework that news can use that is not about efficiency, which disincentivizes care work?
- “What if journalism’s responsibility is to distribute responsibility for care?” (Learn more by reading Chapter 4 of Meaningful Inefficiencies by Eric Gordon and Gabriel Mugar)
Dig deeper
More resources for reflecting on the questions journalists ask themselves and their communities:
- I Never Thought of it That Way by Monica Guzman
- 20 Great Open Questions by Lara Hogan
- How community listening can help shape election-year coverage by Susan Benkelman
- Questions to aid your election coverage retrospective by Kevin Loker
- How appreciative inquiry opens us up to experience connections and care by Robyn Stratton-Berkessel at TEDxNavesink
Share with your network
- Journalism With Care
- How journalists benefit from questions, too
- How journalists care: A framework for building trust and relevance
- How to create an emotionally safe space
- How to make room for self-care in your work
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Election-focused flyers, postcards and print voter guides will add to the knowledge of how news organizations can deploy print to reach new audiences and deepen community ties.
