While peace journalism dates back to the 1960s, new innovative thinking on how to make journalism more responsible and solutions oriented (similar to peace journalism) has continued to evolve, with some notable success in recent years. With limited interest by mainstream news outlets in adopting peace journalism when reporting conflicts, the Media and Peacebuilding Project (MPP) at the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA), along with partners, decided to investigate what lessons peace journalism could learn from constructive and solutions journalism. To that end, they examined the lessons from these related fields in the 3rd and 4th events of a 6-week webinar series on How to Grow Peace Journalism, on March 13th and 20th, 2024.
The third webinar, held on March 13, focussed on the lessons constructive journalism may have for peace journalism. While it is a separate discipline from peace journalism, it shares a similar mission and basic principles. The first speaker on this panel was Cathrine Gyldensted, a Danish investigative journalist who was one of the first to study constructive journalism. Many of the other speakers credited Gyldensted with developing and defining the concept itself. She described how, after spending the bulk of her career focused on conventional journalism, she began to realize that her stories often reinforced negative domains, with little focus on the positive.
Since she began developing the concept of constructive journalism in 2008, the field has grown and had a positive impact on media, especially in the Scandinavian countries. According to Gydensted, at the core of constructive journalism is the mission of “portraying the world more accurately, by adding what classic news journalism tend[s] to overlook: possible solutions, progress, nuances and complexity, and dialogue with users and audiences.” She discussed several examples of constructive journalism in action, including a Swedish media study examining how coverage of Africa shaped attitudes, and initiatives in Denmark and Norway which led to positive changes in the media landscape.
Gylednsted was followed by Bette Dam, a Dutch author, investigative journalist, and professor at Sciences Po. Dam is best known for her extensive work on Afghanistan, a subject on which she has written three books. Much of her presentation was devoted to the same subject, specifically on a project examining how the New York Times and the Associated Press (AP) covered the long war between the Afghan government, the US, and NATO, and the Taliban and other terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda.
Her research found that both tended to use more Western sources than Afghan ones, and prioritized sources from the security sectors of both Afghanistan and its international supporters. The war and security situation were prioritized, and there was little discussion of peace or early Taliban offers to negotiate. The social and economic context of Afghanistan, including tribal differences and family dynamics, was also ignored. Dam finished her presentation by speaking about how journalism needs to stay distanced from governments.
The final speaker was Tanja Aitamurto, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, formerly a journalist for one of Finland’s leading news organizations. Her reporting brought her to a number of conflict zones and post-conflict areas, including Afghanistan and Angola, but her work focused generally on stories from a military and defense angle. As an academic she has studied how emerging technologies such as augmented reality can be used to improve media and connect with audiences more effectively.
She spoke about journalism from a normative perspective, focusing on what she called the “Western, Anglo-Saxon journalistic norms” of “accuracy, authenticity, objectivity, impartiality/neutrality, transparency …” and others, which separate journalism from other forms of communication. Notably, other forms of journalism, including both peace journalism and conflict journalism follow the same norms. She discussed a major challenge constructive journalism faces – that while it might have a positive impact on consumers emotionally, it risks failing to fully convey information about the topic at hand. Peace journalism faces the same challenge, with the need to balance neutrality with honest reporting on the causes of armed conflicts.
The fourth webinar focused on solutions journalism. The discussion began with Kyser Lough, a professor of journalism at the University of Georgia, where he focuses on visual and solutions journalism. He laid out the four key tenets of solutions journalism, which he defined as “rigorous reporting about how people are responding to social problems”. Solutions journalism should be a response that seeks to address the underlying problem. It should provide evidence of that response, and examine its effectiveness. It should also discuss limitations, and focus on providing real insights.
His own research found that solutions-oriented visual journalism led to more positive feelings in audiences, who found themselves more interested and willing to act compared to visuals from a “problem journalism” approach. Lough spoke about a study of former journalism students, who have gone on to become journalists themselves. They felt that an introduction to solutions journalism and its fundamentals aligned with their values, ideal view of journalism, and was seen as “revolutionary” and “essential”, perceptions that endured once entering the workforce, although they noted that there was a shift in practicality as they encountered more time constraints and resistance to change from editors or organizations.
The next presenter, Keren McIntyre, is a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and was the first to introduce solutions journalism into academic literature in 2015. McIntyre spoke about a model she had developed with Cathrine Gyldensted, where “constructive journalism is like a tree and it has many branches.” Among those branches are solutions journalism, and peace journalism, both of which help to make journalism more constructive. She discussed research carried out with Kyser Lough on nearly 100 articles on solutions journalism and constructive journalism.
They found that there is a need to both internationalize the practice, and fully define solutions journalism as a part of constructive journalism. They observed a focus on emotions, and generally found that audiences felt either more positive or less negative, compared to traditional journalism.
One important question raised by McIntyre’s research, which is also relevant to peace journalism, is whether the engagement of these alternative forms of journalism is solely down to their positive impact they have on audience emotion. In order to address some of these issues, McIntyre surveyed over 400 journalists in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya. She found that over half had heard of constructive journalism, and many were aware of solutions journalism. The vast majority in all three countries said they felt they practiced them, but that there was room for growth.
The overwhelming consensus was that these alternative ways of conducting journalism should be used, and can help to address societal issues and foster hope, but must not be used as a tool for the government, or in a way that overshadows critical reporting and takes up resources.
The final speaker in the fourth webinar was Tina Rosenberg, of Solutions Journalism Network, a journalist and author of hundreds of articles and three books, who has won a national book award for nonfiction. She discussed her organization’s Solutions Story Tracker, which is a collection of solutions journalism stories from around the world. For example, there are a number of stories from a Ukrainian outlet on the tracker, and while many are related to the war – including volunteers evacuating people from cities, or efforts to rescue art and animals – some focus on other subjects. he tracker isn’t used for breaking news, but instead focuses on people finding solutions to pressing problems.
Rosenberg mentioned that a widely shared story may hint at what the wider problems are, and the four qualities of solutions journalism can be used to highlight those working to address those problems. Rosenberg mentioned that there is a large potential audience for these types of stories, and that the growing prominence of Solutions Journalism Network is helping to reach and expand it.
The final webinar in this series is on Wednesday until April 3, 2024, and will focus on recent innovations in journalism and social media, focusing on visuality and virality. Recordings of the past sessions can be found here.
