“BREAKING NEWS: TELLING OUR OWN STORIES” TELLING OUR OWN STORIES The weekend of May 4–5, 2019, Hawai‘i Council for the We also explored the theme of “telling our own stories.” Humanities partnered with Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival As access to creating and sharing videos, writing, to bring together a weekend of programming titled “Breaking photographs, and other things online increases, how do News: Telling Our Own Stories.” In an era of the growing we tell meaningful and thoughtful stories that matter? power of social media, the increasing corporatization of mass Whose voices are missing from mainstream media, and media, and ongoing debates about “fake news,” what an how do we remedy those gaps? Through hearing from oral important time to reflect on journalism, how we make and historians, young woman filmmakers, Micronesian writers, consume media, and the role of storytelling in community and reading messages from the currently incarcerated, our and political education. community conversation was deeply enriched, thanks to the waiwai shared from many perspectives. A major focus of our program looked at the many facets of “breaking news,” and the changing role of journalism These essays explore further that rich time together, and we in our current political moment. We listened to experts invite you to read them and respond by sharing your own from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hawai‘i News Now, story with us. Civil Beat, Honolulu Magazine, PBS Hawai‘i’s HIKI NŌ, Hawai‘i Public Radio, and Pulitzer Prize winners William Sincerely, Finnegan and Gilbert King. We learned about the deep kuleana of journalists, how hard newsrooms work, and how rigorous research and complex storytelling is necessary to Aiko Yamashiro strengthening democracy. Executive Director, Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities ital content director at television’s Hawaii mayor or we can crowdsource people to in- Why The Future News Now; Suevon Lee, education reporter terview, solicit tips, and brainstorm angles for with the online site Honolulu Civil Beat; Joel stories. The public tells us with a click what it Of Local Kight, engagement editor for the Honolulu likes and doesn’t like, and that helps us refine Star-Advertiser newspaper and website; and the content we produce. myself, news editor with Hawai‘i Public Ra- Journalism, dio. Our audiences are global: Mary said her out- let’s social media has a bigger footprint than If There’s To Be For all our platform diversity, we have simi- the population of Hawai‘i. That kind of reach lar challenges. There is the reality of limited outside of the state presents new opportuni- One, Depends resources, the competition for audiences and ties. the struggle to uphold high journalism stan- dards and fulfill our role as watchdogs and Innovation and creativity can flourish online. On The Public surrogates for the public. For us, this plays We’re able to present information in com- out daily in the face of social media’s dizzying pelling ways, use audio and images, embed By Sandra Oshiro speed and pressures to break news, update documents and create animation that explain quickly, and engage with audiences. complex topics in digestible ways. More importantly, we hear from our audi- Before the Hawai‘i Council for the Human- ences directly and often. There are now mul- ities asked if I could moderate a panel on tiple ways they can respond to the news or journalism and democracy, I had been read- comment on our stories. They can tweet at us ing a book by Alan Rusbridger, the editor of or post on Facebook, and they can still pick The Guardian during the tumultuous years up the phone to complain or send off a letter of the news industry’s digital upheaval. to the editor in praise of our work. In flipping through the pages of Breaking All of this engagement strengthens our con- News: The Remaking of Journalism and nection to the community. Often it pushes us Why It Matters Now, I relived the years that to do better and helps elevate our journalism. Rusbridger described, when the internet In a democracy, that’s important, too, since Constance Hale using her writer expertise to wrangle the crowd and social media were seen as passing fads and lead us in a workshop with Pulitzer winner Bill Finnegan we should be held accountable just as we and print with its millions of subscribers ap- on how to find the good story in a contested issue. press politicians to justify their actions and peared unassailable. challenge them when they deny the facts. Not least of all, whether we are nonprofit or Not long after the web’s ascendance, it commercial, there are bills to pay. A business Periodically during our discussion, we sur- dawned on many journalists that what was model that works for one outlet may not ap- veyed our audience with pop questions— then evolving in our industry was not a tem- ply to another. How can we sustain our local unscientific and broadly worded to be sure, porary spell of bad news but rather some- news operations if journalism is to continue but helpful in understanding who we were thing fundamental and structural. to play its vital role in our democracy and to addressing. In answer to one question, our do so free from the financial influences that audience by show of hands seemed to signal One newspaper after another fired its staff can color or diminish our coverage? It’s a that they trust local media more than nation- and closed its doors, having failed in the question much on our minds. al news sources. midst of an unforgiving recession to transi- tion to a digital world, one where much of As Mary pointed out, the platforms that we But this is not a competition. Without public the content the public paid for in print could rely on to help drive audiences to us are not faith in our journalism, we will lose the au- be gotten elsewhere for free. under our control. If Facebook decides to diences we need to sustain ourselves and are change its algorithm to disadvantage news diminished in our capacity to fulfill our role We remain today in the midst of that trans- outlets, there is a limit to what we can do in in a democracy. formation, still attempting in our newsrooms response. to change the wheels of the truck as it barrels “In the long run, trust is going to override down the freeway. Where we are headed and But the opportunities in this digitally driven everything,” Joel said. what all of it means for citizens who rely on landscape are there as well. We get to reach the news to stay informed is largely a case of out to our audiences across multiple plat- It turns out, we are not unappreciated: a re- “to be determined.” forms, whether from our core channels, on cent Pew Research Center survey of urban social media, through newsletters, or at live Honolulu news consumers indicates they are The four of us on our panel represented a events. We can find out from members of the generally satisfied with the job we do. Fif- spectrum of local media: Mary Vorsino, dig- public what questions they want us to ask the ty-nine percent say local journalists are in 2 touch with the community, 62 percent be- REFERENCES AND than journalists, both Neal and I explained lieve we report the news accurately and 61 RESOURCES how we saw our role as “explainers,” rather percent agree local journalists are transparent than “influencers.” We try to put the breath- about their reporting. Penelope Muse Abernathy. The Expanding less coverage of breaking news stories into News Desert 2018 Report. University of perspective. Catherine, who has extensive ex- But we get lower ratings when it comes to North Carolina School of Media and Jour- perience with social media, noted that many keeping an eye on local political leaders, deal- nalism, Center for Innovation and Sustain- consumers simply don’t know how to evalu- ing fairly with all sides, and including people ability in Local Media, Web, 2019. https:// ate the veracity of stories that appear on their like themselves in their stories—all of which Facebook feeds. What ultimately emerged www.usnewsdeserts.com/about/ should spur us to improve coverage, diversi- from our discussion was that more context, fy our sources and newsrooms, and raise the better data, and less drama would improve CNBC. “Town by Town, local journalism is level of public trust so needed for journalism civic discourse in the United States. dying in plain sight.” CNBC, Web, 10 March to survive. 2019. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/10/ Yet we ran short of time before we could fully town-by-town-local-journalism-is-dying-in- I frame our future in existential terms be- address the question that many in the audi- plain-sight.html cause I do believe that there is an urgency to ence found so troubling: What can the media all of this. Having watched The Honolulu do to resist the current “post-truth” moment Pew Research Center. “What are the local Advertiser sale and merger with its compet- in American politics? news dynamics in your city?” Pew Research itor, reading that more than 1,800 commu- Center Journalism and Media, Web, 26 nities since 2004 have lost all local news cov- I’ve reflected on this a bit since the festival— March 2019. https://www.journalism.org/ erage, and seeing news outlets fumble their and there are no easy answers. Along with interactives/local-news-habits/46520/ attempts to develop sustainable digital strate- many in the media, I’ve been quick to blame gies, I find myself playing the role of Chicken the proliferation of opinion-driven newscasts Little: the sky is indeed falling.