So much is happening that people should know about. But why do so many news stories put us to sleep instead of wake us up? What is the journalist trying to do?
A young girl reads a disturbing story. Photo credit: Marcy Burstiner
The article below is adapted from material created as part of News Decoder’s EYES project —Empowering Youth through Environmental Storytelling, in collaboration with the Climate Academy and the Young Educators European Association, co-funded by the European Union. It is part of News Decoder’s open access learning resources. You can find more of our learning resources here. Learn how you can incorporate our resources and services into your classroom or educational program.
A journalist is the eyes and ears of the public. Given the time, skills and tools needed, journalists go out into the world to ask questions, observe what is happening and gather factual information to report it all to the public.
They tell this information through stories in written publications or in other ways like podcasts or videos. The public can access these stories on news sites, or on podcast and video platforms. Sometimes they are free and sometimes they are behind “pay walls” — they require payment fees or subscriptions before you can read or download them.
Journalists tell stories in different ways:
● News stories inform the public about current events or issues. They report important facts and provide readers with the context to make sense of them. A reporter gathers information for a news story by doing research and conducting interviews.
● Investigative reports and feature stories go deeper and are based on interviews and research. What distinguishes them from news stories is their purpose, and often their length. Rather than simply informing the public about current events, investigative stories expose an issue — like corruption, corporate wrongdoing, or systemic problems — that affects the public in some way, while feature stories go deeper into a topic and explore a new angle.
● Opinion stories are written from one person or group’s perspective, so while they can be interesting and spark debate in a community, they do not include the “objectivity” that is central to regular journalism. We often call this advocacy journalism.
● Native advertising is advertising that resembles journalism in style, tone and format so to sell readers on an idea, product or service without readers realizing that there is a commercial agenda behind the message. By making an ad seem like the news organization’s editorial content, readers are more likely to accept the ad’s claims as true.
Helping people make sense of the world
Good quality news and investigative stories are accurate, authoritative and balanced and they help readers make sense of events. To tell these stories, journalists must first make sense of events themselves and they do that by asking questions that people have and getting answers to those questions. Sometimes that means asking questions that seem basic or seem to come from ignorance. In other words, journalists often ask the questions many people might be embarrassed to ask themselves.
But that’s the way they end up with an informative story that is well reported. Here are some ways to tell if a journalist has succeeded in doing that:
● They use authoritative and clearly identified sources that enable readers to have confidence in a story’s accuracy.
● They use quotes to bring a story to life and give it balance.
● They provide readers with enough context to help them make sense of the event in question.
● If a story portrays a some person or organization in a negative way, it should be clear they were given an opportunity to comment.
Using sources and quotes and providing context and opportunity for comment allows a journalist to tell the truth, be fair and serve the public.
Take climate stories. When journalists cover the environment, the first truth is that climate change is happening.
Facts versus truth
Telling the truth of what and whom climate change is impacting and why it is important means that a journalist must use facts, provide a source’s quotes in context and explain what the data says.
But what are facts? Facts are information that can be verified through data that is collected scientifically rather than based purely on opinion. When stating facts, a journalist should be able to back up those facts with data from a verifiable source and let you know when they can’t do that. They should also tell you the source of all the information in the story and what makes the source credible — their record of expertise or experience on the matter.
How do you know if a journalist has been fair?
In any story produced by a journalist, there are stakeholders — these are the people affected by a problem or involved in a story. To be fair, the journalist gives all the major stakeholders — the perpetrators and victims — a voice in the story.
At the same time, the journalist should hold stakeholders accountable for their actions.
The victims should be given the chance to tell their stories but the journalist should explain the context — why someone might believe what they do or have acted in the way they did so that the audience can form an understanding of the stakeholders and their actions.
Journalists and the public they serve
Ultimately journalism should serve the public. The journalist should provide news consumers with enough information to form an educated opinion, without being swayed by a journalist’s bias. To do that, the information should be easily understood and accessible — not bogged down with jargon or made overly complicated.
A story also needs to be newsworthy. It must be worth a person’s time to read or listen to or view it. That doesn’t mean that it has to be about an event that happened today or yesterday, but it should be relevant or interesting to the news consumer in some way. In journalism we call this “compelling.” Maybe what makes a story compelling is that it is about an event that has just happened or is about to happen. Maybe it is about something happening near your audience.
Or maybe what is happening or happened is significant — it will affect people in important ways.
But even if the story is about something happening now, is important and affects people in significant ways, the audience for it won’t find it compelling if it is told in a boring way.
Telling stories worth hearing
Journalists often look for three things to make an important story compelling:
Human interest: The story focuses on the emotional or personal aspects, evoking empathy, compassion, or curiosity.
Conflict: There are people who are for and against something happening or have competing claims on something. We often see this in stories about politics.
Novelty: Something makes the story new or different.
How can all this help you find and tell compelling stories? Let’s take a look at possible environmental stories.
Ask yourself: What types of things are happening around you regarding the weather, the air you breathe, the water around you, the land you live on and the food your region or country grows and eats? Are any of these things threatened? Do you know of any communities suffering?
Do you know of any individuals or organizations who are standing up against these impacts? What are they doing and why? And have there been any big successes in terms of climate change that you can think of? Have you heard of any good news about the environment in your area?
You can think about your neighbors, your school, your friends, your family, or anyone you know! It doesn’t have to be something that seems big and someone can be an expert without a fancy title.
Why tell true stories?
Storytelling is the way that journalists can convey complex information in a manner that is relatable and accessible to an audience.
Ultimately, good journalism is not only about gathering information that is verifiable, it is also about telling stories about what is happening in a way that is relatable and accessible to its audience.
If a journalist shines light on a problem or reports on an event, they can show through storytelling why it is important, who is affected, what solutions are out there and who the solutions benefit and what is delaying the solutions.
It is the quilt of these stories, sewn by the audience’s understanding, that forms the blanket of our reality. Like any good quilt, it includes the light and the dark, the details and the bigger picture, patterns and contrast.
Storytelling is the context that gives a journalistic product meaning and purpose.
Questions to consider:
1. Why might an important story put someone to sleep?
2. What does it mean to make a story “compelling”?
3. In what ways do journalists serve the public?