NIEMAN REPORTS

COVERING SEXUAL ASSAULT Contributors The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at www.niemanreports.org

publisher Ann Marie Lipinski editor James Geary Michael Blanding (page 34 and 42) is a senior fellow at the senior editor Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis Jan Gardner University. His work has appeared in Wired, Slate, The Nation, Magazine, and other publications. His most editorial assistant recent book “The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Eryn M. Carlson Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps” design was named an NPR Book of the Year in 2014. Pentagram editorial offices Uri Blau (page 8), a 2014 Nieman Fellow, is a One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Washington-based investigative for MA 02138-2098, 617-496-6308, Haaretz. He took part in the Panama Papers [email protected] reporting project and is a grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Copyright 2017 by the President and Fellows of . Periodicals postage paid at Naomi Darom (page 12), a 2016 Nieman Boston, Massachusetts and Fellow, is a visiting researcher at Boston additional entries University’s Elie Wiesel Center. She is a contributing writer at Musaf Haaretz, the subscriptions/business weekend magazine for Haaretz in Israel. 617-496-6299, [email protected]

Subscription $25 a year, Alyson Martin and Nushin Rashidian (page $40 for two years; 14) are co-founders of Cannabis Wire, a news add $10 per year for foreign airmail. outlet that covers the global cannabis industry, Single copies $7.50. and co-authors of the 2014 book “A New Leaf: Back copies are available from The End of Cannabis Prohibition.” Martin is the Nieman office. the national cannabis reporter at BuzzFeed Please address all subscription News and an adjunct professor at the Columbia correspondence to: University Graduate School of Journalism. One Francis Avenue, Rashidian is a fellow at Columbia’s Tow Center Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 for Digital Journalism, where she researches the and change of address information to: relationship between publishers and platforms. P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108 ISSN Number 0028-9817 Sara Morrison (page 22) is a staff writer at Postmaster: Send address changes to Vocativ in . She has been an assistant Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, editor at Columbia Journalism Review and Manchester, NH 03108 a writer for Boston.com. Her work has also appeared on Poynter and Wire. Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published in March, June, Ricki Morell (page 28) is a Boston-based September, and December by journalist who has written for The New York the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street One Francis Avenue, Journal, WBUR’s CommonHealth website, and

Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 The Hechinger Report. MARK BLINCH/ The rights of accusers versus the rights of the accused have become a flash point in debates over sex assault, providing challenges for reporters Contents Winter 2017 / Vol. 71 / No. 1

Features Departments The Israeli Press Under Pressure 8 cover Live@Lippmann How reporters are covering Former Kansas City Star journalist watchdog a combative administration Lewis Diuguid 2 By Uri Blau Covering Sexual Assault 34 Washington Post reporter Reporting on rape and sexual David Fahrenthold 4 Why Cannabis Coverage assault cases challenges Needs to Be a Serious Beat 14 to build trust with sources and Niemans@Work 6 As more states legalize cannabis, the avoid injecting bias into the story Assessing earthquake recovery in Nepal, importance of in-depth reporting grows By Michael Blanding amplifying community radio in South By Alyson Martin and Nushin Rashidian Africa, gathering whistleblowers in Serbia storyboard Re-Starting the Conversation 22 Shifting the Focus 42 nieman journalism lab News outlets are encouraging a higher Establishing an emotional connection Connection and Customer Service 40 level of discourse in comments sections is a key to powerful short documentaries What declining trust in banks says By Sara Morrison By Michael Blanding about declining trust in news outlets By Joshua Benton Better Than Words 28 Attuned to the power of visuals, designers Books 50 are changing the way news is presented “Journalism After Snowden: The Future By Ricki Morell The cannabis of the Free Press and the Surveillance State” beat encompasses By Clay Shirky cover: consumer-oriented Allison Colpoys reporting as well as Nieman Notes 54 Excerpts are from “Sexual assault on campus coverage of a fast- shrouded in secrecy” by Kristen Lombardi, growing industry Sounding 56 page 14 Center for Public Integrity; “An Unbelievable Alisa Sopova, NF ’17 Story of Rape” by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica and Ken Armstrong, The Marshall Project; “Proof” by Erin Rhoda, Bangor Daily News Live@Lippmann

as good, cleaner than clean, and work five times harder to make it in white America. Anything less was just unacceptable. I have tried to instill that sense of on- the-job excellence as a faculty member since 1982 for a journalism academy that the Kansas City Association of Black Journalists annually provides, as a faculty member from 1991 to 2007 for the Maynard Institute for Lewis Diuguid: “Harness the best Journalism Education’s Editing Program fellowship, and with every young person I that our diversity has to offer” encounter on the job, at church, in the com- The former Kansas City Star munity, in journalism schools nationwide, and at journalism conventions. It’s needed reporter on the challenges now more than ever. Here’s why. It’s about more than newspapers, magazines, radio, of being a black journalist, television, and new media journalism. The well-being of the , our democ- the value of integrity, and racy and good government in all countries depends on uncompromising quality being the importance of mentoring maintained in journalism. That’s because people in this country and elsewhere de- pend on accurate, honest, ethical, and time- ly reporting and writing so that they can make the best possible decisions in our free society. That’s at the core of the philosophy, existentialism. ewis W. Diuguid was seat at one of the many tables so that I could When we fail to do our jobs properly as selected by the Nieman class of enjoy a “free” dinner. journalists, we make existential victims out 2017 for the Louis M. Lyons Award All of the canons of ethics in journalism of a population of people who depend on a for Conscience and Integrity in were still swirling in my 21-year-old head free press for good information. So when Journalism in recognition of his from the University of Missouri School of we don’t do our jobs right; when we are Lcommitment to excellence in journalism as well Journalism, the world’s oldest (established unethical; when we lack integrity; when we as his work as a newsroom leader and role mod- in 1908) and (wait for it) still the best school are not honest; when we let racism, sexism, el for young journalists. Diuguid spent nearly of journalism on the planet. So I declined. homophobia, classism, or elitism into our 40 years at as an editor, The host of the dinner was shocked that I copy; when we succumb to pressure to get a columnist, and editorial board member, dis- said no to the free meal. I said I would take story first instead of getting it right, we hurt tinguishing himself as a relentless advocate for a seat by the door and wait to take notes on our country and all of the people in it. newsroom diversity who used his voice to draw what the speaker had to say so I could return I [often think of] a story that singer, ac- attention to social inequities, write about civil to the newsroom to write my story for the tor, and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte rights, and highlight systematic injustices. This morning newspaper. shared at a National Association of Black essay is adapted from his Lyons Award accep- When I returned to the newsroom, I Journalists convention after a big civil rights tance speech: wrote the story, and it ran the next morn- victory. Everyone was jubilant except the ing, and I still refuse free meals, gifts, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Belafonte There are two virtues—conscience other potentially compromising things. said he asked Dr. King why he also wasn’t and integrity—that should never be sub- Strict ethics rules and being above even the happy. King replied, “I fear that we are inte- tracted from the ethical practice of journal- appearance of a conflict of interest caught grating ourselves into a burning building.” ism in order for our now embattled industry up to The Kansas City Star-Times, proving His concern back in the 1960s was that and each of us to maintain an unimpeach- me correct in my early commitment to do- white America was on fire with racial hatred, able credibility. But all of that is constantly ing the right thing in this profession. with war, with social and economic inequal- being challenged now and corrupted. In my career, I have stood up to numer- ity, with sexism, with elitism, with classism, I think back 40 years ago to one of the ous ethical challenges for myself and many and with homophobia, just to name a few, first stories I covered for The Kansas City voiceless others without thinking about and Dr. King was right then just as he would Star-Times as a young general assignment the consequences. I owe that uncompro- be today under ’s occupa- reporter and photographer. My editors sent mising integrity to my mother, my father, tion of the White House (with the help of me to a dinner meeting in 1977 and wanted and the black community in which I was Russian hackers). Belafonte explained that a story on what the speaker said. I got to the raised. My parents, in tandem with other black America had to become the world’s Hilton Plaza Inn early to talk with the orga- African Americans, instilled in every kid best firefighters to douse the roaring flames nizer. We spoke, and then he offered me a they encountered that we had to be twice of social and economic wrongs at home and ABITBOL LISA

2 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Ethics is the and doubted. I’ve had editors in my career rate shareholders, and cash. The reporting, well-constructed canal tell me: “We hired you to be a journalist. editing, and photo-shooting troops on the Leave that black stuff outside” when I in- ground have to be bigger than that—they through which good sisted on better reporting about communi- will have to be like the people of the black journalism must flow ties of color. Because I was relentless—just community that raised me. We have to as I was taught by the black community—I push back. Ethics is the well-constructed prevailed, and the newspaper changed. canal through which good journalism must However, tough economic times keep eras- flow. The heavy downpour of social media ing the advances. We have to fight the un- and the toxic sewage of must abroad. But it’s also from the best of black doing of us, of others, and of our needed never replace the essential information of America, which gave the nation the gifted progress by supporting those journalists good, quality journalism. We have to say no leadership of President , that and otherwise voiceless people in the com- to running with that torrent, and instead our ailing journalism profession also can be munity around us. It is how our journalism stand on the pillars of the best of our pro- salvaged. The diversity of this nation is its constantly gets better. fession, even against the crushing interests greatest strength. More people just need to These are increasingly challenging times. of big money. discover that undeniable truth. Without evidence—which is his hallmark— [Journalists] must be disciples of the Like the black community of my youth, Donald Trump throughout his run for the gospel of journalism excellence. You have each of us has a responsibility to build up White House attacked the ethics, integrity, to embrace your responsibility and go forth others around us to harness the best that honesty, and competence of the news me- from your newsrooms and share with others our diversity has to offer. It is in our own dia, and the gullible public has swallowed it the non-negotiable values of our profession. self-interest to do nothing less. as if it all were true. I am reminded of what the black communi- I tell journalism students that our pro- The next four years will be all about ty instilled in me—it comes from the Bible, fession is built on the sands of doubt—we ethics, integrity, conscience, and hones- instructing that to those whom much is giv- doubt our sources, we doubt our notes, we ty among government officials and those en, much then is expected. It’s greater than doubt what we write, and then our editors in the news media. Our industry—just as Dr. King’s and the civil rights movement’s doubt us and everything that we do. The things were when I started my career—will instruction of “each one teach one.” You ab- doubt is all about making our journalism be pulled to cut costs and cut corners, bend solutely cannot, in these challenging times, better by compelling us to get more sources, and break rules, make unholy alliances and [continue] thinking you have no responsi- ask better questions, and write more fact- compromises, and sell out our integrity and bility to do more than you have ever done based, compelling stories. But the sands ethics in the interest of expediency, corpo- for our profession and for others. P of doubt grind deeply into the skin of our souls and our self-confidence, and that takes “The diversity of this nation is its greatest strength,” said Lyons Award winner Lewis Diuguid a heavy toll on each of us. Keep in mind that it’s worse for journalists of color in this in- dustry dominated by white males because there are still a lot of people who think we don’t have the intellectual horsepower, the necessary skills with the language, and we often lack our colleagues’ trust on whether we will be black first or a journalist on the job in our writing and editing stories. I had one city editor, in discussions about a planned series of stories on African Americans moving to the suburbs that my staff of reporters were assigned to do, tell me that I could not edit that important se- ries because I’m black. To which I quickly re- torted, “So does that mean you can’t edit any stories about white people because you’re white?” He got my point and apologized for making such a racially stupid statement. My dear friend Dr. Peggy McIntosh of the Wellesley College Centers for Women, who did groundbreaking work on white privilege, explained to me that the bigoted mindset that women and people of color constantly encounter is because knowledge in this country is always thought to be male and white. Everyone else is forever tested

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 3 Live@Lippmann

to basically stiff veterans in the middle of a David Fahrenthold: “I learned … Republican presidential campaign, what’s he been willing to do before? how much other people know that One of the things that was amazing about you can tap into with social media” this story was how my conception of what I was looking for at the beginning was at least reporter partially wrong. I started out thinking I was looking for evidence that Trump gave mon- on his crash course in charity ey out of his own pocket. It turned out that the Trump Foundation was a story in itself law and Trump’s foundation, and I didn’t realize that until I started call- ing charities. One example was the Susan the value of his followers G. Komen Foundation breast cancer charity which got a donation of $12,000—sort of an as researchers, and new avenues odd number, so I called them. It was to buy a for covering the president Tim Tebow helmet at a charity auction. This gives you a sense of Trump as a business- man. It’s important to know that, at literal- ly the hour of the auction, Tim Tebow was playing the Patriots and being destroyed. This was the end of Tebow’s ca- reer. Trump paid for the helmet with money ew reporters covering On covering Trump’s charity from the Trump Foundation. the 2016 presidential election had In the middle of a [campaign] rally in If you buy something from a charity for as many memorable scoops and Waterloo, Iowa, Donald Trump gives to your own use, you have to use your own were as successful at using Twitter a veterans group this big golf tourna- money. If the charity buys the thing, it has to crowdsource research as David ment-sized check for $100,000 from the to be used for charitable purposes. So unless FFahrenthold. A reporter for The Washington Donald J. Trump Foundation. I didn’t know he gave it to a street urchin or he used the Post since 2000, he is best known for his ex- much about charity then but I know that’s helmet for something charitable, that was haustive dive into the financial dealings of then illegal. You can’t use your charity to boost an illegal gift. This took something that was candidate Donald Trump’s charitable organi- your political campaign. He had said a few sort of abstract, like Trump breaking charity zation as well as his acquisition of the “Access days earlier that he’d raised $6 million for laws, and put in there a tangible object that Hollywood” videotape in which the candidate veterans. But the big checks only amount- symbolized the story. bragged about sexually assaulting women. ed to about a million dollars. Was it illegal Frustrated in his efforts to find out about that he was doing this? Where’s the rest of On Twitter-aided reporting charitable donations Trump said he had made, the money? So I thought, “I’ll spend a day Trump has said over the years that he’d giv- Fahrenthold turned to Twitter, where he now and figure out where the rest of the money en millions and millions of dollars to charity has more than 300,000 followers. The pictures went.” And it wasn’t a day, it wasn’t a week, and so we’re looking for evidence. You can he posted of handwritten lists from his report- it wasn’t two weeks. Every time I called the call every charity in America but that would er’s notebook told a stingy story, and his follow- Trump people or I called the organizations take too long. And Trump himself wouldn’t ers offered reporting help and tips. One told him that were supposed to have been getting cooperate. So how do I look for evidence about a charity event at which Trump claimed a the money I couldn’t find the answers. In and how do I show people—including seat onstage that had been set aside for a devel- the process I learned more about how char- Trump supporters—how hard I am looking oper who had actually given a donation. ity law works. So finally Trump’s campaign for it? After I called about 100 charities that In January, Fahrenthold was named a con- manager called me and said, “just know he might have been likely recipients of dona- tributor to CNN, where he will appear regular- gave a million dollars away.” I spent a couple tions from Trump, I thought, “I’m going to ly in addition to his role with the newspaper. days checking on that. And that was a lie. We go on Twitter to show people how hard I’m During a recent talk at the Nieman Foundation, caught Trump trying to claim he had given trying and also to solicit advice.” One of the he discussed his approach to reporting and how a million dollars when he hadn’t. After that things I learned was that I didn’t appreciate journalists need to reorient themselves to cover a all blew over, we thought, “well let’s go look how much other people know that you can president like no other. Edited excerpts: at Trump’s charitable giving.” If he’s willing tap into with social media. I got a lot of real- ELLEN TUTTLE

4 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold, right, gets some of his best reporting tips and suggestions from his Twitter followers ly good faith suggestions from people. story of the demise of the Democrats as a On reaching Trump supporters The smallest donation the Trump foun- party. They were withering as a party in the It’s not our job to convince his supporters dation ever made was $7 to the Boy Scouts Obama years. We wrote about it a little bit to give up on Trump. To me the question is, in 1989. I put it on Twitter to amuse peo- but we didn’t explain the mechanics of what what’s the best way to keep their attention, ple. People pick this up and start chewing it they were doing wrong. Now the Democrats to keep them as readers? And I think one over. First the hive mind thinks that maybe have lost power in Washington and they also way is to not be hysterical. Just tell peo- this is for popcorn sold by the Boy Scouts. are way out of power in many states. That ple what Trump is doing and what are the Some people out there on Twitter who were part of politics gets so much less attention results of what Trump’s doing relative to Boy Scouts in the late ’80s remember sell- than the presidential race, which we cover the goals that he has set out. A side issue ing popcorn and they remember the name of like mad for two-plus years and it’s only part is how do we show what we know, how do the popcorn company, but $5 was the most of the picture. we show how we arrived at the things that expensive popcorn you could buy from the we know. Boy Scouts in 1989. People start pulling up On covering Trump I think it’s important to continue writ- archives of newspapers from back in the We haven’t really figured out all the things ing about folks who voted for Trump, what ’80s. They figure out that in 1989 it cost $7 to to be watching. Covering conflicts of inter- they care about and are there things chang- register a boy for the Boy Scouts. That was est was never anything that we ever had to ing concretely in their lives in ways they like. the year that Don Jr. became old enough to cover a president doing before. The places We need to understand the questions that join. He was 11. I don’t know for sure that’s where news could come from are changing, they’re asking and the metrics that they are what Trump did because I don’t have the like yesterday there was a lawsuit connect- placing on Trump’s administration. I think receipt, but it appears that Trump, a mil- ed to Melania Trump planning on launching there’s a lot of unconscious bias especially lionaire at the time, used charity money to a line of fragrances based on her status as among people in Washington. We’re eval- sign up his son for the Boy Scouts. That’s first lady. I didn’t know to look for that until uating him based on the things that peo- something I just never would have figured somebody else beat me on it. There’s also ple around us care about. It’s important out on my own. looking at the Labor Department statistics to understand the ways that people will to see if the Trump winery is applying for judge him. Like with the small number of On new directions for reporting workers from overseas, given the fact that jobs he saved at the Carrier factory. Other I hope we cover state legislatures and state Trump is trying to clamp down on immi- jobs around there were going away. But it races more. I think we missed telling the gration. Before this administration there was him showing that he cared about those had been a centralization of the people who people. And I think that’s an important met- might provide new information. There were ric to watch. Does he do that more often? a few people who had power. We got spoiled How many jobs does he actually save? Does by the fact that there were not that many he create more of a mess by doing that? If To me the question places where news could arrive from. And that’s the metric you care about—him creat- now we’re having to reorient ourselves to ing jobs or saving jobs—is he doing it right? is, what’s the best watch a bunch of different things and to syn- I try to do my job well and to do it without way to keep [Trump thesize a bunch of different stuff that was bringing preconceptions to it about what a supporters’] attention? not part of political reporting before. Trump success is. P

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 5 Niemans@Work

Rubble, Not Relief Lucinda Fleeson, NF ’85, leads a data project in Nepal to analyze delays in recovery from the 2015 earthquake recovery

The seven reporters rode motor-­ bikes and four-wheel-drive jeeps into Nepal’s mountainous districts to interview some of the 1.2 million men, women, and children shivering for a second winter in emergency tents or shacks made of corru- gated metal. These reporters also analyzed more than 6,000 pages of reconstruction grant records. Our goal was to document and explain delays in Nepal’s reconstruction efforts af- ter a devastating April 2015 earthquake. Lucinda Fleeson with “After the Quake” project member Shreejana Shrestha of the Nepali Times In February, our multimedia proj- ect, “After the Quake: Waiting for Relief” cause disorganized and slow-moving Nepali Investigative Journalism, in Washington, went live on the Centre for Investigative authorities have not released funds. Other re- D.C., provided funds for the reporters to Journalism-Nepal (CIJ) website. It is a first porters found that some residents in desper- take extra time to analyze data and travel to in Nepal: seven young journalists from sev- ate need were left off grant lists because their remote areas. en different media outlets collaborating on village governments changed so frequently, We realize that our stories are only part a deep data dive. or because landless villagers were so poor of the earthquake reconstruction story that With the help of software wizards at that they had built on government property. will dominate Nepali news for many years. the volunteer project Open Nepal, our data Stories also revealed a disturbing scarcity But our hope is that we demonstrated that wrangler Arun Karki sorted and analyzed re- of manpower to rebuild houses. A Republica complicated and time-consuming data anal- cords of government reconstruction grants reporter found that a mere 150 masons ysis can be shared collaboratively by multiple promised to more than 700,000 households trained in earthquake-resistant techniques news outlets to document the human cost in 14 earthquake-stricken districts. As a re- were working in the hard-hit Sindhuli dis- of Nepal’s heartbreakingly slow recovery. P sult he was able to create an interactive map trict—so few that it would take them more that shows in granular detail how marginal- than 130 years to rebuild the district’s 34,256 ized ethnic populations are often last on the demolished houses. list to get funds. The project grew out of my desire to While we collaborated on data, each re- return to Nepal after leading journalism It is a first in Nepal: porter produced and published an individu- training programs in the former Himalayan seven journalists from al story for his or her media outlet. A BBC kingdom in the previous three years. A radio reporter disclosed that international Fulbright Specialist grant provided the seven different media charities promised to build 22,000 houses, means for me to team up with CIJ-Nepal outlets collaborating but have completed only 900, primarily be- to coordinate the project. The Fund for on a deep data dive

6 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 “The information interview to a member of the opposition. I have worked with Thetha since 2013 floats away…” and my nonprofit, Citizen Justice Network Paul McNally, a 2016 (CJN), helped the station win the award that was vandalized. Based in Johannesburg, Knight Visiting CJN trains social justice activists to be ra- Nieman Fellow, is dio journalists and connects them with lo- working to bring cal stations. Our 16 members have access to people whose stories are seldom told in a McNally (back row, second from right) and community radio country where radio is the dominant media. the Citizen Justice Network team in South Africa to a As a print and radio journalist, I have dealt with government control of commu- coverage of issues, such as human traffick- wider audience nity media. The violence at Thetha is a wor- ing and illegal evictions, to new audiences. risome development, one that I hope my We have been in talks with translation ser- Knight Visiting Nieman Fellowship will help vices and members of Google to help us gain me address. The connections I made and the access to quality tools for African languages. discussions I had while at Harvard provide We will work with PRX in Boston to syn- me with a toolbox of ideas and alliances. dicate programs on African community ra- A laptop was cracked across the A major CJN initiative fueled by my fel- dio stations; currently each station operates reception desk. A hole was put through lowship is bringing community broadcasts independently to fill broadcast hours with the wall. And a 2015 award for best radio to a wider audience. Currently, when the minimal resources. We want the stations documentary, hanging high, was pulled broadcast is over, the information floats to proudly share their best stories. We plan down and the glass shattered. This was away as if yelled on a street corner. Digitizing to work with Sourcefabric to build stream- the scene in September at Thetha FM, a community radio programs will make them ing radio stations for people living beyond community radio station 50 kilometers accessible to more listeners. This is a step transmission range. And finally, we are going outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, af- I’m discussing with the MIT Center for to disseminate more local stories to national ter the station was attacked by members Civic Media. Transcribing and translating and international media so these voices be- of the ruling party because it granted an community content will allow us to bring come relevant and vital for all of us. P

“FOR EVERY TRUTH affected her two children. contributed to Serbia conference said they THERE IS A ” As the shocked audience adopting a whistleblower distrusted the media and VLADIMIR discussed what had been protection law and complained that media in RADOMIROVIC, said at the panel, an upbeat successfully implementing their countries are closed to NF ’15, BRINGS Serbian whistleblower it. One American expert them and their stories. WHISTLEBLOWERS approached me and said: even describes it as the “gold Another first happened AND JOURNALISTS “Now I know I’m not crazy. standard.” in Belgrade in October: a TOGETHER AT A You see these things happen In October, Pištaljka prime minister gave opening CONFERENCE IN all over the world.” hosted “For Every Truth remarks at a whistleblowing BELGRADE This is what we were There Is a Source,” its first conference. In his speech, hoping would happen. international conference on Serbian Prime Minister Pištaljka (“The Whistle”), protecting whistleblowers Aleksandar Vučić praised the investigative journalism and journalistic sources. Pištaljka and its work with website my wife, Dragana We knew this type of whistleblowers (although, Matović, and I founded event was much needed. he said, he did not agree whistleblowers from seven years ago in Belgrade Whistleblowers from with some stories we Serbia, Bosnia, Switzerland, is devoted to whistleblowing different countries rarely published). He stayed on and the Netherlands had just and whistleblower get a chance to talk to each to listen to a speech by shared intensely emotional protection. The focus on other or to journalists, to Serbian whistleblower Borko stories with an international whistleblowing was natural share experiences, receive Josifovski. audience of journalists, for us, as we were fired from support, and possibly Josifovski said that with activists, prosecutors, and a government-controlled come up with solutions. the help of Pištaljka he’s judges. We almost lost newspaper after blowing the The main takeaway from using the new whistleblower English translation to the whistle on censorship and the conference is that we law to sue the government tears of the interpreter as conflict of interest. Our effort also need more discussions of Serbia for inaction in a whistleblower explained over the past few years not between whistleblowers investigating his claims of how she had received death only led to some high-profile and journalists. Most fraud. His speech was met threats and how her being investigations and court whistleblowers from with loud applause—even under police protection cases, but more importantly Western Europe at the from the prime minister. P

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 7 THE ISRAELI PRESS UNDER PRESSURE How Israeli reporters are covering a combative administration and an increasingly polarized public BY URI BLAU

ver the first few weeks of American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. The main topic of discussion: Netanyahu’s 2017, Israeli TV news viewers Multiple investigations are under way decision, in his role as minister of commu- have been exposed to conversa- into the prime minister and his fami- nications, to postpone the launch of the tions Prime Minister Benjamin ly members, ranging from the Yedioth country’s new public broadcasting corpora- Netanyahu has had in recent years Ahronoth inquiry to an examination of the tion for more than a year. “It’s inconceivable Owith Arnon Mozes, publisher of some of the receipt of gifts from foreign businesspeo- that we’ll establish a corporation that we biggest newspapers and websites in Israel, ple. No charges have been brought against won’t control. What’s the point?” asked Miri including the daily Yedioth Ahronoth. The Netanyahu or others, and Netanyahu has Regev, culture minister, according to re- meetings are at the center of a police inves- repeatedly denied the allegations, but the ports about the meeting, including one that tigation to determine whether Netanyahu Mozes transcripts have increased concern appeared in leading Israeli daily Haaretz. attempted to ensure more positive cov- among Israeli journalists that the media may (Disclosure: Uri Blau has been an investiga- erage in Mozes’s publications by offering be subject to political influence. tive reporter with Haaretz since 2005.) to reduce the circulation of its rival, Israel Last July, a weekly meeting of the Israeli Regev’s comments made many journal- Hayom, the country’s leading print outlet, cabinet was more heated than usual, and ists and politicians fear the move was an

distributed free of charge and backed by not just because of the summer sultriness. attempt to prevent the establishment of an PRESS KASTER/ASSOCIATED CAROLYN

8 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 On social media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu often singles out specific Israeli journalists and outlets for criticism independent public broadcaster altogether. who attempt to challenge the public’s rac- rity. Ilana Dayan is one of the leaders of a Gila Gamliel, minister for social equality, ism, the military, or the image of Israel as a concerted frenzy against Prime Minister who attended the meeting, told Israeli Army just and moral state face harsh criticism.” Benjamin Netanyahu, aimed at toppling the Radio, “Some of the statements … were bor- One journalist who has incurred right-wing government and leading to the dering on fascism, no doubt. We should keep Netanyahu’s wrath is Ilana Dayan, a veteran establishment of a left-wing government.” in mind that we are a democratic state and anchorwoman who has led the “Uvda” news Dayan read the statement in full on air, re- that this is the first and foremost element program for over 20 years. Last November sulting in widespread criticism of the prime that outlines our overall conduct.” The polit- “Uvda” broadcast a piece investigating minister. Nevertheless, an evaluation by the ical and public outcry, combined with a lack Netanyahu’s close associates and the role news and entertainment website Mako of of support from some of his coalition part- of his wife, Sara, in appointing officials. social media chatter in the hours after the ners, nudged Netanyahu to revise the time- Netanyahu’s office responded to Dayan’s show estimated that 47 percent of the Israeli table, delaying the launch until April 2017. reporting with a statement that read in public supported Netanyahu’s response and “An atmosphere of fear prevails in part: “The time has come to unmask Ilana his portrayal of Dayan. Israel,” says Oren Persico of the nonprofit Dayan, who has proven once again that she Since then, Netanyahu has continued to media watchdog The Seventh Eye. “Those has not even a drop of professional integ- single out journalists and outlets for crit-

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 9 icism. Like President Trump, he uses so- on journalists’ movements have existed for presidential and congressional candidates. cial media to directly reach audiences. On what Israel defines as security needs since (In 2015, the Adelson family bought the Las Facebook, the prime minister alleges that the establishment of the country in 1948. Vegas Review-Journal, after which many re- there is a coordinated media campaign to Court gag orders are another means to stop porters and editors left the newspaper, not- overthrow his government. He holds few publication: By one estimate, over the past ing, according to an NPR report, “curtailed press conferences and in recent years has 15 years, the number of gag orders issued editorial freedom, murky business dealings granted very few interviews. In this atmo- in Israel has more than tripled. In its most and unethical managers.”) sphere of contempt for the media, lack of recent “Freedom of the Press” report, pub- Critics call Israel Hayom “Bibi-ton,” tolerance for differing opinions has become lished last spring, the nonprofit Freedom combining Netanyahu’s nickname (Bibi) characteristic of the political environment. House downgraded Israel’s status from with the Hebrew word for newspaper Last February, Army Radio presenter Razi “free” to “partly free.” (iton), because of its perceived bias toward Barkai compared the emotions of Jewish and In its analysis, Freedom House wrote the prime minister. Between 2007 and 2014, Palestinian families who had both lost sons that the decline in Israel’s freedom of the the paper lost $190 million, but Adelson’s in the Arab-Israeli conflict. He became the press is also “due to the growing impact financial support means that Israel Hayom target of attacks from both politicians and of Israel Hayom, whose owner-subsidized does not face the same financial pressures the public. Parents of missing Israeli sol- business model endangered the stability of as its competitors. diers and the right-wing group Yisrael Sheli other media outlets, and the unchecked ex- In response to the Freedom House re- (“My Israel”) called on Moshe Yaalon, the pansion of paid content—some of it govern- port, Israel Hayom columnist Dror Eydar, defense minister at the time, to suspend ment funded—whose nature was not clearly who has also been a paid speechwriter for Barkai. Shortly afterward, Yaron Dekel, identified to the public.” the prime minister’s office, wrote, “The head of Army Radio, which is run by the Israel Hayom—with its editorial tagline: truth is that Israel Hayom has made an im- Israel Defense Forces (IDF), apologized for “Remember, we are Israelis”—is a freesheet mense contribution to the democratization Barkai’s comments and halved his airtime. distributed across Israel in a circulation of of media discourse in Israel … The premise In addition to the fear of being target- 275,000 weekday copies and 400,000 copies behind Freedom House’s new designation ed, the Israeli press faces restrictions that during weekends. It was established in 2007 of the Israeli media as only ‘partly free’ is are uncommon in other liberal democra- by Adelson, a supporter of Prime Minister childishly simple: A free press is one that cies. Military censorship and restrictions Netanyahu and a donor to U.S. Republican is aligned with leftist political positions.”

Yedioth Ahronoth, left, and Israel Hayom, right, are rival dailies, the latter criticized for its perceived bias toward the prime minister

10 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 (Israel Hayom’s editor, spokesperson, and “the current reaction against media is dan- leading columnists did not respond to inter- THE ISRAELI PRESS gerous, as it jeopardizes the very existence view requests.) of the press.” Politicians claim social media Yaakov Katz, editor of the English- FACES RESTRICTIONS are a more “authentic” way of communica- language Jerusalem Post, doesn’t buy into tion, Shwartz Altshuler says, but that “com- the argument that there are limits on free- pletely ignores the fact such platforms don’t dom of the press in Israel. “Israel has a vi- THAT ARE UNCOMMON give space to critical questions.” brant and free press that reflects the full Digital start-ups are trying to make their spectrum of Israel’s political landscape,” IN OTHER LIBERAL way in this fraught political and economic he says, “including newspapers on the far landscape. In 2014, journalist Tomer Avital left that oppose Israel’s continued presence DEMOCRACIES initiated a crowdfunded project called 100 in the West Bank to newspapers on the far Days of Transparency. The idea was to use right that advocate strongly to expand that donations from the public to hire private same presence. I view this as a demonstra- detectives and enlist volunteers to investi- tion of Israel’s democracy, which ensures a gate members of the Israeli parliament who free press and encourages news outlets to oppose transparency. express their opinions even when they di- An incident that shook Israel over the Avital’s move was unconventional and, rectly oppose government policy.” past year illustrates the effect public opinion to some, ethically questionable, but stories Israeli’s legacy news outlets face the has on how some outlets navigate coverage. from 100 Days have been regularly picked same commercial pressures as their coun- On March 24, 2016, a human-rights activ- up by the mainstream media. The 100 Days terparts in other countries. According ist in Hebron filmed IDF soldier Elor Azaria project has been so successful and so popu- to business data-information group Ifat, shooting to death a Palestinian, who was lar that it’s now in its second year and last 2016 ad income for print dropped 12 per- on the ground, and unarmed, minutes after year won the DIGIT Prize for Excellence cent compared to the previous year (from trying to stab soldiers. Azaria stood trial on in Online Journalism. Avital was ranked as $212 million to $184 million). Last year 30 manslaughter charges and was convicted in one of the 100 most influential people in percent of total ad revenue went to digital January. In February, he was sentenced to 18 Israeli media. outlets; 18 percent went to print. In this months in prison. Avital, who started 100 Days out of frus- atmosphere—and, in part, because of it— Initially, coverage of the incident in most tration with the increasing politicization of digital start-ups are emerging to provide outlets was neutral or critical. “Soldier was the media, has big ambitions for the site. “We alternative independent coverage. filmed shooting Palestinian terrorist laying will change reality when we break news on a The country is also increasingly divid- on the ground. Military police investigate,” regular basis, each evening at 8 p.m.,” he says, ed politically. The ongoing conflict with reported Ynet, Israel’s most popular digital referring to the broadcast slot for the main the Palestinians and the regular spasms of news site, on the day of the event. evening TV news program in Israel. He sees a violence have split the Israeli population In the days after the shooting, a public hybrid financial model as the way forward for between those who want to evacuate the movement in support of Azaria took shape. A independent news outlets, “an independent settlements built on land Israel occupied social media campaign and demonstrations public broadcasting corporation that will in 1967 and those who want to annex it or against his arrest swept the country. Some work side-by-side with strong crowdfunded maintain the current situation. Over the media outlets changed the tone of their cov- bodies and commercial media.” past 40 years, though most governments erage, with a more empathetic treatment of Another outlet offering a new model have been led by right-wing parties, a survey Azaria and his family. “Weeping sister of the of journalism is +972, an online magazine conducted in 2015 for the Israeli digital me- shooting soldier: ‘You are sentencing Azaria owned by a group of journalists, bloggers, dia conference DIGIT found that 57 percent in a drumhead court-martial,’” Ynet wrote and photographers aiming to provide origi- of Israelis see the media as left-leaning; 10 two days after the shooting. (A “drumhead nal, on-the-ground reporting and analysis of percent see it as right-leaning. court-martial” is a trial held in the field in re- events in Israel and Palestine. “We wanted Almost 20 percent of the Israeli pop- sponse to urgent allegations.) “At home be- to do something a bit more than just aggre- ulation are Muslims who speak Arabic. fore the verdict with mommy’s food,” wrote gation,” says founding editor Noam Sheizaf. They consume local Arabic-language Walla, one of Israel’s leading news sites. To that end, +972 (the name is a refer- media and satellite channels as well as Sharon Gal, a prominent TV present- ence to Israel’s international phone code) Hebrew-language media. According to a er with Channel 20, initiated a successful combines citizen journalism and blogging survey conducted by Israel’s Government crowdfunding campaign to cover the sol- with traditional editing and fact-checking. Advertisement Agency, in 2016, 69 per- dier’s legal expenses and promised donors a The site features original writing by its own cent of Arabic-speaking citizens were tour of the station’s studios. Gal’s colleague bloggers, along with reporting and com- exposed to the Internet, with Facebook Erel Segal said on-air: “I love Azaria. I think mentary by outside contributors. Stories being the most popular site, followed by he is mistreated. I feel sorry for him and from +972 include the first interview with Google and Panet, a local Arabic-language hope he will be acquitted.” Hagai Amir, the brother and co-conspira- site. However, more than a third of Arab- According to Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, tor of Yigal Amir, who assassinated Prime speaking consumers watched Hebrew TV director of the Center for Democratic Values Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. channels, and 31 percent read Hebrew- and Institutions and head of Media Reform Last year, the +972 Hebrew site, Local

THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY IMAGES THOMAS COEX/AFP/GETTY language newspapers. Program at the Israel Democracy Institute, Call, a joint project with the U.S.-based

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 11 nonprofit Just Vision, which works to in- One third of +972’s budget comes from Haaretz published an investigation into crease the influence of Palestinians and readers, with the rest coming from fundrais- Walla that concluded, among other findings, Israelis working to end the occupation, ing and project partners. But Sheizaf doesn’t that some articles on the site were edited published an exclusive on a Jerusalem cine- think Israeli media’s biggest challenge is to include more positive images and quotes ma complex that refused to work with Arab funding. “I think the challenge is more in from Sara Netanyahu. cab drivers, a story picked up by Channel the fields of ethics and politics,” he says. “I At the other end of the political spec- 2 News, Israel’s most watched television am afraid the Israeli media, like many other trum is Boaz Golan, founder of News news program. The site also published the national institutions, has been corrupted by 0404. (The name is a reference to the lo- “License to Kill” series, which examined government policies, especially but not ex- cal phone area code serving the northern cases in which Palestinians were shot dead clusively, on the Palestinian issue. The me- part of Israel, where the site originated.) by IDF soldiers without a clear provocation dia here simply stopped serving its function, Golan agrees with Sheizaf’s premise—that or any repercussions for the shooters. Such which is to provide accurate, in-context in- Israeli media coverage is skewed—but not incidents often go unreported in the main- formation. It’s more in the business of feel- with Sheizaf’s conclusion—that the gov- stream media. good propaganda now.” Last November, ernment is to blame.

What U.S. Journalists almost 2 million followers, have virtually no official Covering Trump launched “Bibi TV”— access. What we have are Can Learn from the regular news updates sources.” Israeli Press presented by Netanyahu Israeli journalists have Having dealt for years with a hostile himself, timed to coincide been operating this way with the evening news. “In for years—though not by and obfuscating administration, Israel, the word ‘lefty’ has choice. The prime minister’s Israeli journalists have a few tips for been stripped of its original office doesn’t have official their American colleagues meaning—it now refers to briefings for journalists. anyone who doesn’t approve Netanyahu will sometimes of Netanyahu. And he has summon certain journalists on january 28th, israeli create a deluge of ‘fake extraordinary popular for off-the-record briefings, Prime Minister Benjamin news’—there’s no other support, no matter how but in general “other than Netanyahu tweeted what word for it.” Netanyahu said many investigations he’s just before elections when seemed like a hearty he was referring to Trump’s under,” says Amsterdamski. briefings abound, there is endorsement of President praise for the barrier Israel Having dealt for almost no access—unless Donald Trump’s plan to constructed along its years with a hostile and they decide to pass on build a wall along the border with Egypt to keep obfuscating administration, information to you,” says Mexican border. “President out migrants. Israeli journalists are able Roni Singer, until two Trump is right. I built a In recent weeks, as to offer insights to their months ago the political wall along Israel’s southern American journalists tried American counterparts. and Knesset reporter for border. It stopped all illegal to figure out how to cover First, don’t rely on those business daily Calcalist. The immigration. Great success. a populist, pugnacious briefings. This lesson prime minister’s office did Great idea.” president who dominates became especially resonant not respond to a request for The Mexican government the news cycle via Twitter, in February, as news outlets comment. quickly demanded a Israeli journalists have such as CNN, The New York Netanyahu gives few “clarification” and apology looked on with a sense Times, and were interviews to Israeli media. from Netanyahu. Jewish of recognition. Shaul excluded from attending a Press conferences with the leaders in Mexico published Amsterdamski, head of White House press briefing. PM are usually given on a statement “forcefully the economics desk at Reuters seems to have foreign trips and limited rejecting” the PM’s the Israeli Broadcasting seen it coming. In January to a couple of questions. tweet. Israeli President Corporation, finds many the news service published “When the PM doesn’t have Reuven Rivlin apologized similarities between on its website a missive to answer questions he is personally to President Trump and Netanyahu. to its journalists titled not being held accountable Enrique Peña Nieto. “For both Trump and “Covering Trump the and it hurts democracy," Netanyahu appeared on Netanyahu the media are Reuters Way.” “Give up says Tal Schneider, a TV to criticize the Israeli an unnecessary and often on hand-outs and worry political journalist and media, which in his opinion harmful middleman, which less about official access. blogger, “but the Israeli created the crisis: “The can be cut off completely They were never all that public has gotten used to leftist media is enlisted in since they are so good on valuable anyway,” Reuters it.” Netanyahu is currently a Bolshevik brainwashing social media.” instructed its reporters. under investigation witch hunt against me and Recently Netanyahu, “Our coverage of Iran has for several counts of my family. They constantly whose Facebook page has been outstanding, and we corruption. But the only PRESS VUCCI/ASSOCIATED EVAN

12 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 News 0404 “wouldn’t have been born “David the Nahal” campaign in the spring main hub for support of Admov. if the mainstream media wasn’t leaning to of 2014. David Admov was a soldier from With over 400,000 Facebook likes, the left,” says Golan, who set up the site the Nahal brigade. A video filmed in Hebron News 0404 has already surpassed Haaretz in 2012. “I decided to establish News 0404 shows him threatening Palestinian youths in social media popularity and has 20 times when I saw the media isn’t balanced. Stories with his rifle. The soldier was sent to pris- more likes than Avital’s platform. Last June, about what’s happening in the West Bank, on, though, according to the military at the Israeli businessman Avi Bar, owner of oth- about actions Arabs committed, were hid- time, for offenses not related to the incident er right-leaning media outlets, invested den. News 0404 isn’t a balanced news site, with the Palestinians. Following his trial, $500,000 in the site. but unlike other platforms we don’t hide that tens of thousands of Israelis, many of them While most digital start-ups don’t have fact. I am not hiding that we operate for the soldiers, took part in a campaign supporting access to that kind of capital, during a period sake of the land of Israel, the people of Israel, Admov and criticizing the military for pros- of increasing political and social divisions, and its security forces. We will not give space ecuting him. Thousands uploaded photos of the question is whether these sites can do to anyone who operates against us.” themselves holding signs saying, “I too am more than just reaffirm the existing points News 0404 had a leading role in the David the Nahal.” News 0404 became the of view of their audiences. P

commentator at Channel Trump might also come to 10 news. “It is not because enjoy. “Netanyahu has made we’re better but because me a household name and often we have a lower so anyone who has a bone threshold for publishing to pick with him comes a story, in terms of cross- to me, be it with rumors, checking information little leaks or big ones,” and insisting on named he says. “The result is a sources. In my stories I am large pool of high-quality very conscientious about information on my end. acquiring documents and True, some of those sources emails and cross-checking will not be seen with me in testimonies, but of course a public or consent to being we almost never get official interviewed on-record—but briefings or on-record that has never stopped me President Donald Trump speaks in February at a White House press interviews. Often when from getting good stories.” conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu foreign reporters call to How best to react follow up on one of my when you—or your news time he answered questions find mutual acquaintances stories, I can’t give them organization—become a about the investigations and develop informal the names of any sources to target? Drucker says that was during “Question relationships. Some MKs follow up with.” “when Netanyahu attacks Hour” at the Knesset, where and ministers go in and out Since 2011, Drucker me without any factual the interrogators were of the prime minister’s office has published several basis, I tend to not respond members of Knesset (MKs) as part of their job, and can investigations of at all. When he tries to and not journalists. also have valuable intel as to Netanyahu’s conduct, with impugn my facts, I will And so, reporters have what’s going on there.” two recent reports leading correct him publicly.” to look for information However, reporting to full-blown criminal Investigative journalism elsewhere. Like Trump, from behind-the-scenes investigations of the PM has become increasingly Netanyahu is surrounded briefings and off-the-record and people close to him. harder to perform in recent by staunch loyalists, who talks may lead to an over- Netanyahu in turn has years—a lament which tend to share his suspicion reliance on anonymous often attacked Drucker would sound familiar to of the media. “There’s no sources. “I have seen personally on social media American journalists—but use calling up the people American journalists in and in official responses. Drucker’s final bit of advice around Netanyahu to try and summit meetings [between Drucker’s investigations is simple: “Work hard, do recruit them as sources— international leaders] have made him a target a good job, and do not be even his spokesman coming to the media center for threats, at one point afraid. Try not to become will never just schedule at 9 a.m. and sitting there prompting the network belligerent or go for the an appointment with a until the evening—but to consider hiring him jugular because this is not journalist,” say Singer. often the most talked- a bodyguard, but he personal, and we will have Her strategy for acquiring about stories would come discovered that being to continue doing the work sources: hanging around from the Israeli media,” attacked by the PM had an even when those people are the Knesset cafeteria. “Eat says Raviv Drucker, unexpected upside—which gone.” with members of Knesset, investigative reporter and journalists targeted by —naomi darom

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 13 JOE AMON/THE DENVER POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

14 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Preston Watson, shown here with his grandfather, and his family moved to Colorado seeking cannabis to control his extreme seizures

Why Cannabis Coverage Needs to Be a Serious Beat As cannabis is legalized in a growing number of states, the need for in-depth reporting is urgent BY ALYSON MARTIN AND NUSHIN RASHIDIAN

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 15 DURBAN POISON GORILLA GLUE HARLEQUIN WHITE WIDOW SUPERDURBAN LEMON HAZE POISON GORILLA

Now that cannabis n early 2014, John Ingold, a seizures a week to only a couple of small ep- for recreational longtime reporter for The Denver isodes a month after she starts taking CBD. and medical use Post, noticed that the number of While clinical trials related to CBD are is legal in Colorado, parents of young patients registered currently under way in the U.S., there is no many varieties are available with the state to gain access to med- conclusive evidence that CBD is effective ical cannabis had grown from doz- in Dravet Syndrome cases. In some cases, ens to hundreds. They came from there might be a placebo effect. Indeed, across the nation and the globe— Ingold reported on a study that found that Oklahoma, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, even families who migrated to Colorado were Ireland. They sought an oil created from a three times more likely to say cannabis Ihigh-less compound in cannabis, cannabidi- helped their kids than those already living ol (CBD), which parents hoped would con- in the state. trol their children’s seizures, which were Seeking not a story only of science but resistant to other medicines. one of human longing for a medical miracle, What more than anything else pro- Ingold, photographer Joe Amon, and video- pelled the influx of desperate parents into grapher Lindsay Pierce collaborated on a fea- Colorado was “Weed,” a documentary by ture about one family reflected in the soar- CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay ing number of minors registered for medical Gupta that aired in the summer of 2013 and cannabis. Ana Watson, a mother moving her was watched by an audience of 1.21 million. family from North Carolina to Colorado to In it, Charlotte Figi, a then 6-year-old girl pursue treatment for her 12-year-old son, with a severe form of epilepsy called Dravet Preston, who also had Dravet Syndrome,

Syndrome, goes from having hundreds of agreed to give them access. GILLES MINGASSON/GETTY IMAGES

16 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 and federal levels, and among states, report- of the smartest minds in media, which in- ers are left with little precedent and no cen- cludes Hoyt, Emily Bell of the Tow Center tral authority to turn to for data, sources, for Digital Journalism, and Barin Nahvi and research. Many journalists find them- Rovzar of Hearst, among others. selves in new or unfamiliar roles, sometimes Just five years ago, the bulk of cannabis taking positions, sometimes becoming part coverage came from advocacy publications of the story. like High Times, the Village Voice Media Cannabis also intersects with other is- Group’s Toke of the Town, SFGate’s Smell sues, like criminal justice and business. Even the Truth, or from cannabis beat reporters before California voted in November to le- at alternative weeklies. When coverage did galize cannabis use, the cannabis industry reach mainstream publications, there was was already booming. In 2016, legal cannabis a tendency toward bad puns, like “Rocky sales in North America totaled $6.7 billion in Mountain high” and “gone to pot” and plen- revenue, according to a report from Arcview ty of stoner or ’60s-era references. Market Research. Cannabis tax dollars are Since 2013, though, local and national a windfall for state and local governments, publications have invested in the cannabis going toward things like school construc- beat and coverage is slowly maturing. The tion and cannabis research, substance abuse Denver Post created a digital publication prevention, and education. In 2014, more called The Cannabist. The International than 600,000 Americans were arrested for Business Times hired a cannabis reporter, cannabis possession, but that number is ex- who has since been laid off. The Chicago pected to drop as more states allow adults Sun-Times launched a cannabis vertical to consume cannabis. called Extract. Vice expanded its cannabis “The country is in the midst of a ma- coverage with the TV series “Weediquette.” jor cultural, legal, and economic shift on NowThis has NowThis Weed, BuzzFeed cannabis,” says Mike Hoyt, former exec- News hired a drugs reporter (and also re- utive editor of the Columbia Journalism cently hired Alyson Martin, co-author of this Review and current adjunct professor at article, to cover cannabis), and Mashable has the Columbia University Graduate School a page devoted to stories from High Times. of Journalism. “What are the implications But quality doesn’t always follow quan- of this shift—for the economy, for the cul- tity. Not all journalists take or have the ture, for our health and safety? How should time to sort through the labyrinthine world this stuff be regulated and what are the po- of cannabis to tell fact from fiction. For ex- tential costs of poor or nonexistent regula- ample, when a company called Potbotics tion? Who is getting rich and who is getting suggested its EEG brain scans could rec- jobs? There are a million stories, many of ommend cannabis strains to users, The Over the course of nine months, a team them complicated, that all cry out for sharp Guardian gave the company press, includ- of 12 at the Post came together to produce arm’s-length journalism.” ing the company in a list under a header: “Desperate Journey,” a three-part series that Our involvement in cannabis journalism “Looking to invest? Try these for size.” also included photos, videos, and illustrations started when we took off in a red Beetle in Popular Science took a different approach to tell the Watson family’s story. The Pulitzer 2010 to report for our book, “A New Leaf: and questioned whether the product could Prize Board in 2015 selected “Desperate The End of Cannabis Prohibition” (The work, quoting experts who suggested that Journey” as a finalist, saying the series was New Press, 2014). Wanting to continue doc- the claims were unfounded. “an intimate and troubling portrayal of how umenting the story, we launched Cannabis Alison Holcomb, who authored Colorado’s relaxed marijuana laws have drawn Wire, a digital publication focused on the Washington’s legalization initiative and led hundreds of parents to the state to seek miracle cannabis industry, in October 2015 with an the campaign for it when she was head of cures for desperately ill children.” innovation grant from the drug policy for the American Civil Liberties At a time when roughly 200 million Mayor’s Office on Media and Entertainment Union of Washington, says she’s grateful Americans live in a state with some form of le- and a Magic Grant from the Brown Institute for coverage as an advocate, but thinks galized cannabis, the need for in-depth report- for Media Innovation, a collaboration be- that, in general, journalists tend to laser in ing about the drug is urgent. Patients, doctors, tween the Columbia University Graduate on the same click-worthy issues, like how researchers, regulators, recreational consum- School of Journalism and the Stanford much money states are making, or who is ers, and industry members are arguing over University School of Engineering. The getting rich. “There’s a titillation factor whether to focus on the plant’s pharmaceutical Made in NY Media Center, a City of New in most places where it’s new,” she says. potential or to treat cannabis like alcohol, all York initiative to help Brooklyn-based start- “Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of that is the while vigorously debating regulations that ups, offered us office space, and training to pretty superficial and there aren’t enough dictate how the plant is grown, tested, pack- transition from journalists to people who reporters that are digging in.” aged, and sold. As a result of the discrepancy could drop an elevator pitch. We built out A small but growing number of news- between the legal status of cannabis at the state Cannabis Wire’s advisory board with some rooms and journalists are spending valuable

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 17 SOUR DIESEL SKYWALKER GHOST TRAIN TANG BLUE WIDOW HIGH AND MIGHTY

resources, in a time of layoffs and buyouts, couldn’t lift Preston on her own. Amon I thought that not only did it seem to offer to cover the less buzzy but essential canna- stepped in. “Joe picked him up and carried benefits, for some situations it was the only bis issues around safety and efficacy, science him to the couch and afterward said, ‘Oh, thing that offered benefits. So in part as a and health, and the booming industry. The you know, I probably shouldn’t have done journalist, but also as a doctor, I thought it Oregonian published two investigations that.’ But sometimes you just got to be a per- was an important message to get across,” that prompted better cannabis quality con- son,” Ingold says. Gupta says. trol in its state after it found high levels of One piece of information Ingold did The one-hour documentary “Weed: Dr. pesticides in cannabis products and edible not have to hold back was that CBD might Reports” was the most com- potency mislabeling. And New York Times not work; Ana knew, but the chance that prehensive piece of primetime broadcast columnist Maureen Dowd’s first-person ac- it could made it worth trying, not just for journalism ever produced about medical count of a bad cannabis trip, while fodder her, but for hundreds of other families. The cannabis. And Gupta went on to produce for Internet hot-takes, changed the conver- piece ultimately juxtaposed Ana’s anecdot- two more one-hour documentaries on med- sation around edibles regulations across al-based hope and the skepticism of medi- ical cannabis. The first two hour-long parts the U.S. And The Denver Post’s “Desperate cal professionals. In one section, Ana wrote of the “Weed” series won a duPont Award Journey” presented the difficult reality that on Facebook, “Cannabis oil doing amazing ( judges said he parsed “the science and pol- hundreds of families might have uprooted things for Preston! Singing [“Big Green itics of a divisive issue”). their lives because of false hope. Tractor”] and no a.m. seizures!” In other Denver Post photographer Joe Amon sections, Ingold would quote researchers turned to Facebook to find a family that he, urging caution. Ingold, and others on the team could follow. For his documentary, Gupta spent 18 ew York Times columnist Intimacy and trust were necessary to get the months traveling the world to distill and Maureen Dowd is another jour- story, but, over the course of nine months, make sense of the fragmented but poten- nalist with a national platform this closeness also presented ethical dilem- tially revolutionary cannabis research taking who influenced cannabis policy. mas. Should Ingold advise the family he was place. And it brought him to the conclusion She didn’t intend to write a story reporting on, sharing his knowledge of the that both he and the federal government about herself when she flew to cannabis bureaucracy in Colorado to make were wrong to suggest that cannabis wasn’t Colorado in January 2014 to cov- their lives easier? medicine when, in fact, it could be. er the first legal recreational use Throughout the story, Ana, Ingold’s sub- The change of mind came for Gupta when Nof cannabis sales in the world. “For some- ject, stumbled through the process of con- he looked abroad. While more than a thou- thing that is such a profound social revo- vincing a doctor to recommend cannabis sand cannabis studies have taken place in the lution that’s going to spread to the rest of as a treatment, finding the right strain and U.S., he says, most look at harm potential. the country very quickly, you have to cover preparation of cannabis, a reliable supply, He argued in his documentary that it might it,” she says. and learning how to administer the canna- have something to do with the fact that the Dowd wrote two columns at the end of bis oil, which isn’t always easy. Ingold, after research supply of cannabis, and much of the the month, but they left out perhaps the covering cannabis for the Post for years, funding for such research, was overseen by most important part of her visit. Dowd pur- knew all about the patchwork of state laws the National Institute on Drug Abuse. But chased a THC-infused caramel chocolate bar and the changing nature of rules within his when he took an international view of the re- and took a couple of nibbles in her Denver state. But Ingold didn’t want to alter or be- search, “I realized it was a different picture. I hotel room. Later that night, she ended up come part of the story. thought, there’s something new here, some- curled into herself for eight long hours, “It could be really difficult for somebody thing that I didn’t really know, and I think certain she’d be arrested—and certain she coming in from out of town to understand maybe a lot of people who are viewers didn’t might die. She had way, way too much THC. what the hell all of this means,” Ingold says. know either. And I thought it was worth re- Excessive amounts of THC, the primary “You just kind of want to help. But you porting on,” Gupta says. psychoactive component of cannabis, can kind of need to stand back when you know In addition to interviewing doctors about result in agonizing paranoia. But exactly something about how the law applies or how both the medical and abuse potential of what is a standard dose, or how to convey the law works. You need to be able to see cannabis, Gupta talked to a researcher who comparisons to commonly known intoxi- them struggle because you’re trying to get said federal officials were “stonewalling” cants like alcohol, is still being sorted out in an idea of what a family goes through when research, and a federal official who said the this brand new industry. they come here. Not what a family with a re- criticism was unfair. He traveled to states Initially, Dowd didn’t write about the porter who can help them out goes through like Colorado and also as far off as Israel, incident because, she says, “I was trying when they come here.” a place he called in the documentary the to figure out: to what extent should I have Ingold says that as he watched Ana learn “medical marijuana research capital,” where known that edibles, which I’d never had more about the legal bureaucracy over time, THC was first discovered and CBD was first before, were metabolized differently?” But the desire to offer information lessened. He extensively studied, and where medical then, a student visiting Denver jumped to decided that it would be okay to step in if cannabis is legal at the national level. “I had his death from a balcony after eating a cook- an action he took wouldn’t alter the natural been reporting on this issue for some time ie that contained 65 milligrams of THC. The course of the story. One day when Ana ran and had written articles saying that I was next month, a man ate a piece of cannabis errands and left Preston with her mother, not impressed by the potential medicinal candy with 100 milligrams of THC, along

Milly, Preston had a big seizure and Milly benefits. And yet, after looking at this data, with some painkillers, and shot and killed DENVER POST JOE AMON/THE

18 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Ana Watson examines the CBD oil she hopes will help control her son Preston’s seizures

his wife. State officials now recommended sidering she supports legalization. “Now a lack of data behind this core regulatory a first serving closer to 5 milligrams of THC. lot of those people had dollar signs in their question when she was assigned a story on Dowd called Andrew Freedman, eyes, so they went from kind of fun-loving stoned driving in early 2012, months be- Colorado’s director of marijuana coordina- hippies to billionaires,” Dowd says. “What fore Colorado’s vote to legalize cannabis. tion, to discuss her experience. He says her I was talking about was a speed bump, but Wyatt’s piece, “New wrinkle in pot debate: decision “to air her foolishness” was both they treated it like I was building a Trump stoned driving,” opens with a character who “brave” and “beneficial.” “I felt like I had wall.” captured the debate that erupted around learned something really important and I Still, Dowd’s column, and the online the issue: a medical cannabis patient in wanted to share it,” Dowd says. “I wanted chatter, helped transform edibles regulation Colorado who said that the limit her state to warn people that the consumer tips that in Colorado at a time when edibles popular- was considering would take away her right should be there and labeling and instruc- ity and cannabis tourism were on the rise. to drive because she’d always be above the tions were not yet there.” Almost half of all cannabis sales involved ed- threshold. So Wyatt set out to answer some Not everyone shared Freedman’s view of ibles in 2014. And a Colorado Tourism Office questions: how high is too high to drive? And Dowd’s column, “Don’t Harsh Our Mellow, survey of more than 3,000 individuals found how dangerous is driving while high? Dude,” in which she detailed her experi- in 2015 that 23 percent of those asked said Wyatt thought she’d call some experts, ence in Denver and highlighted efforts to legal cannabis factored into their decision to read some research, and write the story. improve packaging and labeling for dose- visit. Freedman says, “People started to un- But it wasn’t that easy. Wyatt went to the based cannabis edibles in the face of in- derstand more that you could actually have obvious sources—the National Highway dustry pushback. Some joked that Dowd’s a pretty bad experience with marijuana, par- Traffic Safety Administration, the National experience with cannabis was going to ticularly marijuana edibles.” As of February Institute on Drug Abuse, some academic “break the Internet,” with journalists, ad- 2015, in Colorado, each 10 milligram canna- research databases—but found that “there vocates, and cannabis industry members bis edibles serving must be wrapped individ- was so little credible information that it was posting a slew of tweets, satire pieces, and ually or somehow sectioned. almost impossible.” Research so far suggests critical hot takes. There is still, however, no definitive an- cannabis intoxication begins anywhere from Dowd says she was also surprised by the swer to one issue that comes up in each and 2 to 10 nanograms of THC per milliliter of “vitriolic reaction” by some cannabis indus- every state that legalizes cannabis: stoned blood; there simply isn’t a national agreed- try members toward her because of the call driving. Denver-based re- upon equivalent of the .08 percent blood al- in her column for increased regulation, con- porter Kristen Wyatt was unaware of the cohol content that defines drunken driving.

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 19 H.P. LOVECRAFT LAND OF THE PINES HAYZE BLUEH.P. LOVECRAFT LAND DREAM CHEM VALLEY KUSH

The story changed, and so did Wyatt’s regulated cottage industry for testing was “Pesticide-laced pot reaching patients.” role. She quickly found that she needed to born. This meant that there was a potential- Following The Oregonian’s investigations, take a “totally different approach” to how ly huge consumer story because there was published in March and June 2015, respec- she reported and wrote the piece, which she no central authority to verify for the nearly tively, some companies consulted their says happens often on the cannabis beat. 70,000 patients, or the upcoming hundreds lawyers, and two told Crombie they pulled Instead of stating how high is too high to of thousands of consumers in the recre- their products off the market. Some prod- drive, Wyatt presented the research under ational market, whether cannabis products uct manufacturers blamed the labs for inac- way to address the unknowns, and spoke had unsafe levels of pesticides, or whether curate results, while others pointed fingers with people on all sides of the debate. She a product’s potency matched the label. It’s at the growers from which they sourced says that her job was made more difficult like a patient taking an Advil and not know- cannabis with pesticides. “Readers were by advocates on both sides of the issue ing whether it’s 50 milligrams or 500. alarmed. Consumers were alarmed. I think who misrepresented what little statistics “The state really had no idea what was it added to the sense of urgency among or data there was to make their own case. coming or going through labs, what stan- regulators that they needed to tackle this “We are so used to, as journalists, going to dards labs were using. It was a really hands- issue,” Crombie says. the government and if the government says off system that’s really hard to make sense Other news organizations, including it, then that’s what it is,” Wyatt says. “It’s a of without data,” Crombie says. Her solu- The Denver Post and The Globe and Mail, really uncomfortable spot for a journalist to tion? “We created our own data.” Crombie have since done their own testing of can- find yourself when the government doesn’t brought the idea of testing cannabis to her nabis products. The first recall on canna- know something and you feel like, ‘I am editors, who jumped at it. bis products in Colorado happened after not comfortable telling people when you’re No newsroom had done this sort of can- the Post’s own investigation, for which too high to drive.’ And if the government nabis testing, and some editors were uneasy. Crombie’s work was an inspiration. “The doesn’t know, how the heck am I supposed This story presented a number of legal and regulators don’t necessarily know the land-

to know?” ethical hurdles for The Oregonian. First, scape as well as we would expect them to PRESS JOHN MINCHILLO/ASSOCIATED Journalists will soon have more data to only medical cannabis patients could buy inform their reporting. States like Colorado medical cannabis. Who from the newsroom and Washington have begun to collect data could buy and handle the supply that would specifically about cannabis-impaired drivers be tested? Even if they could procure it, to determine if stoned driving is increasing, many conventional agricultural labs weren’t and a July report from the National Highway testing cannabis, since it is still federally ille- Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gal. How could they get quality data? found an increase in THC-positive drivers Editor Mark Katches, who was particu- in Washington after legal sales began. The larly enthusiastic, consulted Poynter ethi- NHTSA is conducting its most comprehen- cist Bob Steele, who had previously advised sive research yet to determine the exact ef- the newsroom. First, they decided, it would fect of cannabis on drivers. be okay if a staffer with a qualifying med- ical condition became a medical cannabis patient for the purpose of buying canna- bis products to be tested. The newsroom he Oregonian’s main canna- could cover the costs of getting a medical bis reporter, Noelle Crombie, set cannabis recommendation, the cannabis out to understand the unregulat- products, and the testing. The newsroom ed landscape of cannabis quality needed to document the “chain of custody” control in Oregon as the state around the cannabis and every step it went crafted its own regulations for through during the testing process. They’d the medical and recreational use need to be transparent with readers about industries in 2014 and 2015. As their methodology. And they would need to Ta result of federal prohibition, there is no “bulletproof the findings,” Crombie says, by top-down regulation on things like organic doing multiple tests. standards for cannabis, which would come Crombie convinced a scientist at a con- from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ventional agricultural lab (who expressed or guidelines for appropriate pesticides wanting nothing to do with cannabis) to test for cannabis, which would come from the the same products after the first battery of Environmental Protection Agency. States tests from a lab that did test cannabis. She are, one by one, figuring it out. And this recommends that journalists who plan to means that sometimes, reporters on the test cannabis products do the same. “You Ohio is among cannabis beat are connecting dots before can’t really argue with the science.” the states where their state governments. Armed with data, Crombie wrote one cannabis is legal The state did not yet oversee testing for piece entitled “Potency of edibles doesn’t for medical, not cannabis potency and pesticides, and an un- match labels,” followed by another, recreational, use

20 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 with a more mature industry. So journalists Colorado, and what they would leave be- treat this as a business story, the more you are identifying those issues and putting a hind. By looking at these two very different open your eyes to the different aspects that spotlight on them,” Crombie says. “You’re places, he found, for example, that while you’re going to have to look at: the taxation, explaining those issues not just to readers Colorado has seen lobbying by the canna- regulation, the safety standards.” who are interested, but to the people who bis industry, marketing through discounts Now that cannabis is legal, he says, news are responsible for regulating the industry.” and loyalty programs, and increasingly so- organizations, including his own Economist, The Economist’s Tom Wainwright phisticated branding, especially by celeb- will have to continue to think about how sought—for his piece, “Reeferegulatory rities like Snoop Dogg, Uruguay intended to cover the beat. The Economist used to challenge,” included in the global edition to keep the profit motive low and was tend to have the same people who covered with the cover story, “The right way to focused on curbing the black market and crime and terrorism cover cannabis. That do drugs”—to provide an international associated crime. has changed. Now it’s the responsibility of view of the different ways that countries Wainwright realized early in his report- the journalists who cover retail, including were thinking about cannabis regulation. ing that legal cannabis should be covered as alcohol and tobacco. While most pieces about legalization tend a business story. After three years in Mexico This is a question that an increasing to focus on one jurisdiction, Wainwright reporting on the drug war and the illegal number of newsrooms face, as California, understood that a wide angle look at how drug trade for his book “Narconomics,” the nation’s most populous state, and sev- jurisdictions influence each other would be during his time as The Economist’s corre- en other states voted in November to legal- useful to the reader. spondent there, he was used to covering the ize cannabis. Wainwright traveled to Denver to get cannabis trade through that context. But he Wainwright predicts that as the indus- under the hood to understand how the needed to change his mindset to get the sto- try changes and becomes more powerful, state’s regulatory structure worked. He ry right. “If you just cover it like a war or a “Journalists are probably going to find spoke with officials in Uruguay to out- crime story then you end up getting a lot of themselves asking themselves different line what they’d borrow from states like stuff wrong,” he says. “I think the more you questions.” P

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 21 22 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 (RE-)STARTING THE CONVERSATION

Newsrooms are rethinking comment sections—long reviled as a place for toxicity and trolls— to add value to stories and enhance audience engagement BY SARA MORRISON

Illustration by Pep Montserrat NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 23 separate surveys, FiveThirtyEight and the University of Texas’s Engaging News Project asked thousands of commenters—more than 9,000 between the two—why, when, and how they comment. The Financial Times overhauled its comments strategy last spring and, in January, The Washington Post launched a weekly newsletter showcas- ing the best conversations and comments from online articles. For most outlets, these efforts are part of a larger strategy to listen more to their readership and ultimately give the audience a product worth paying for. Following the election of a candidate few journalists saw coming and many of whose supporters eschewed traditional journalism for hyper-partisan publications that told them what they wanted to hear instead of what was demonstrably true, this kind of hen many news web Hulen describes it, dominated by angry men thinking is more important than ever. sites were shutting down shouting each other down and leaving racist “We do have a complicated relationship their comments sections, and sexist comments. “All the usual stuff.” with our audience,” says Mónica Guzmán, Alaska Dispatch News And then came the spam. ADN had co-founder of Seattle-focused newsletter executive editor David switched to Facebook’s commenting plat- The Evergrey and an early proponent of Hulen was determined to keep his. Like every form in the hopes that commenters having comments and community in journalism. Wnews site, ADN’s comments had problems, to use their real names would keep them civ- “And I think we’re learning how valuable but Hulen had also seen the good that com- il. It didn’t. Now the comments were getting deeper connections can be and how valuable ments could do, as well as how they could carpet-bombed by fake Facebook identities incorporating contributions can be. For so serve as an important community forum for urging readers to click on their links for long, we were the ones talking and they were a large state that often feels like a small town. amazing weight loss secrets or information the ones listening.” Six years ago, when he was an editor of on how to work from home and make six fig- That’s not good enough anymore. the Anchorage Daily News (purchased and ures a year. Moderators couldn’t keep up. It Neither are the comments sections that do absorbed by Alaska Dispatch in 2014), Julia was time for a change. little more than give trolls another pulpit. O’Malley wrote a seven-part series about In the past few years, how newsrooms But effectively giving those communities a heroin addict’s journey toward recovery. think about comments—which had re- away to social media isn’t a solution, either. Concerned that someone who exposed mained largely unchanged since outlets be- “There are ways that we can lead and guide such intimate details of her life for readers gan introducing them in the mid-2000s—has our own community and design whole would be attacked in the comments, editors changed as well. While many have elected to spaces that do that for them,” Guzmán decided to ask specific questions of com- kill comments sections, ceding that commu- says. “That’s part of the service we provide. menters—“Has your life been affected by nity to third parties such as social media, oth- It’s a responsibility.” heroin?”—to guide the discussion, deleting ers are looking at them as a key part of their That service may be made easier with new anything that was off-topic or abusive. audience engagement strategies—and seeing technology. Civil Comments puts the onus The result, Hulen says, was many insight- their audience engagement strategies as a key on commenters to moderate each other by ful, informative, and touching comments part of their business model. forcing them to rate randomly selected com- that added to the overall series and showed Several publications, including The ments before they can comment themselves. that giving a comments section a little more Guardian, have taken deep dives into their The Coral Project, a Knight Foundation- direction could improve discourse, as long comments sections for a data-centered funded collaboration between The New York as the newsroom had the manpower to weed look at what their future should be. In two Times, The Washington Post, and Mozilla, out the comments that didn’t. But that lack of manpower was the problem. ADN is the biggest paper in Alaska but it’s still comparatively small, with a staff of 60. There are no dedicated comment moderators, so several staff members split those duties, and they increasingly found A STRATEGY OF DIRECTING COMMENTS SUCH themselves losing a game of whack-a-mole with abusive comments and trolling com- AS ASKING “HAS YOUR LIFE BEEN AFFECTED menters. By the end of 2015, ADN’s com- ments sections were a “rough dudespace,” as BY HEROIN?” IMPROVED THE LEVEL OF DISCOURSE

24 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 is beginning to test it out with The Guardian, SURVEYS SHOW THAT READERS WOULD LIKE The Economist, and Wikipedia, in addition to the Times; other publishers can request REPORTERS TO RESPOND TO COMMENTS AND free access to Jigsaw’s API. As for the human moderators, they will THAT DOING SO INCREASES THE LEVEL OF CIVILITY be able to spend less time making sure commenters are behaving themselves and more time on community-building and en- gagement tasks like curating comments to feature in ’s reporting. “The best thing you can do for a communi- hopes to introduce a suite of tools that will with annotations. The Washington Post and ty is to actively show people that somebody unify and integrate audience engagement, have partnered with the at the organization is listening,” says Times including comments, across news sites. annotation platform Genius to add context community editor Bassey Etim. “The more Some publications have partnered with from journalists and readers to transcripts you do on that end, the less intense moder- annotation platform Genius, which allows of speeches by politicians and actors. The ation you need to have.” reporters and readers to place line-by-line Los Angeles Times annotated actor Jesse Though the workload of managing com- notes directly next to a webpage’s content Williams’ speech when he accepted the ments can be significant, newsroom en- and have a focused discussion about it. The humanitarian honor at the June 2016 Black gagement can have a positive effect—and New York Times is working with Google on Entertainment Television Awards. Readers commenters are often hoping for journal- technology that uses machine learning to ad- didn’t do much annotating but instead re- ists to join in. A recent joint survey by The vance automated moderation. sponded to the Times’ annotations, sharing Coral Project and the University of Texas’s In 2006, The Washington Post became their own experiences with racism, noting Engaging New Project, which garnered more the first major United States news site to the distinct lack of minorities in their histo- than 12,000 responses, found that more enable comments on articles. (It allowed ry textbooks, and recommending works that than 75 percent of commenters on news comments on its starting in January expanded on points Williams had made. sites would like if reporters clarified factu- 2005.) Jim Brady, then executive editor of While most places are looking at ways to al questions in the comment section, and WashingtonPost.com, says the impetus combine humans and technology to create nearly half said they’d like it if newsrooms behind the decision was seeing how many better comments sections—with an em- highlighted quality comments. According to Post articles were being discussed on other phasis on better human moderation—The another survey, from 2014, by the Engaging people’s blogs. New York Times is taking a slightly different News Project, the likelihood of an “unciv- While comments did give readers an on- tack: teaming up with Google’s Jigsaw incu- il” comment decreased by 15 percent when site place to discuss articles, Brady acknowl- bator to create technology that may be able journalists participated in comments sec- edges that it was a tough sell to reporters to moderate comments for the same things tions. Even so, participation like that is rare. to convince them to join in. Most were just that it was assumed only humans could do, That same study also cited a 2010 survey fine keeping their readers at arm’s length. such as tone or going off-topic. The Times’s that found that, while 98 percent of news- Brady cites as a journalist who, biggest problem with its comment sections paper reporters said they read comments, through his “The Fix” and under his ar- is that its hands-on approach to moderating 80 percent of them said that they “never” ticles, was responsive to and involved in com- doesn’t scale; its moderators are only able or “rarely” responded to them. ments from the beginning, though he’s since to look at approximately 11,000 comments This attitude appears to be changing, changed his mind. “It turned into the loudest each day, which is why commenting is cur- slowly but surely. A 2016 Engaging News and most obnoxious person on your block rently available on only about 10 percent of Project survey of 34 journalists found that appointing himself mayor,” says Cillizza. the paper’s online articles. If this partner- they all read comments at least occasionally, He now favors eliminating comments ship works, that problem will be solved and and a majority, viewing engagement as part sections under politics articles—he thinks the Times will conceivably be able to open of their jobs, responded to comments. people are too passionate about the subject all of its articles to comments. Guzmán remembers what a key role matter to have productive and interesting The New York Times’s moderators comments (and the audience that left them) discussions—though he believes that com- have been tagging disapproved comments were when she worked as an online report- ments sections under stories about other with reasons for their rejection for years. er at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Though subjects can still work. He’s also a fan of Unbeknownst to them at the time, those tags she received her share of mean comments, Quora, a question and answer site that has came in handy when they decided to work the constructive ones were a regular source partnered with outlets like and with Jigsaw to develop Perspective, software of ideas for her columns. “Half the time my Slate to publish particularly illuminating or that uses machine learning to predict which next story would come from the comments interesting answers on their sites. So far, comments would and would not be ap- on the last one,” Guzmán says. though, this is more of a syndication deal proved by a human moderator. This goes way She says her experience with comments than an engagement strategy, as the audi- beyond how technology assisted moderating and community has inspired The Evergrey, a ence doing the interacting is Quora’s. in the past, which mostly relied on filters to newsletter that incorporates feedback from One way that outlets can use a third par- catch comments with bad words in them. its audience into stories, from a love letter ty to engage with their actual audience is Jigsaw released Perspective in February, and to Seattle aggregated entirely from reader

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 25 But, Pilhofer says, these projects are usually WOMEN BEAR THE BRUNT OF ABUSIVE one-offs. He wanted a platform that would be a “toolkit for newsrooms to do this kind COMMENTS ONLINE, A PROBLEM of collaborative journalism." The New York Times teamed up with THE GUARDIAN IS LOOKING TO ADDRESS The Washington Post and Mozilla to try to create this kind of community platform. In June 2014, the Knight Foundation awarded what would become known as The Coral Project a $3.9 million grant over the next three years. Project lead Andrew Losowsky suggestions to sections that answer reader blocked comments. Only a small minority of says their tools will be open source—free to questions, such as how to know what makes the 70 million comments had been blocked: any newsroom that wants them. a credible news site in an age of “fake news.” 1.4 million, or 2 percent. But social minorities The first tool to be released, Ask, allows Yet comments sections still tend to be bore the brunt of those abusive comments. reporters to ask readers for contributions or neglected. An Engaging News Project sur- Articles written by women had a higher per- answers to questions. It made its debut on vey, published in 2016, of 525 editors and centage of blocked comments than those Philly.com for the election, where it was used news directors across all mediums showed written by men, and articles about feminism to solicit reports from citizens on polling ex- that, 10 years after comments became wide- and rape were among those with the high- periences and then to collect and publish spread on news sites, only 61 percent had est percentage of blocked comments. Of the reader responses to the presidential election staff moderators for their comments sec- top 10 authors who received the most abuse, results. ProPublica has been doing something tions and only 22 percent had written pol- eight were women, four were white and four similar as part of its “Get Involved” initiative, icies on how they should do this. The bright were of color. The two men were black, and asking readers to submit information, for ex- spot: 87 percent said they responded in one was gay. All 10 of the writers who re- ample, about apartment rentals as part of an comments sections and/or on social media, ceived the least abuse were men. investigation into New York City landlords. though the survey didn’t make a distinction This deep dive is part of editor in chief Talk, which is in beta testing, is, at its most between on-site comments and those made Katharine Viner’s strategic vision for how to basic level, a comments section. Losowsky on Twitter or Facebook. increase audience loyalty, and convert that says Talk gives moderators much more data In her report on audience engagement loyalty into paying customers. Commenters, about the community, which could then be for the American Press Institute, released Hamilton says, tend to be the most invested used to identify troublemakers and sources. last May, Guzmán stressed the importance and dedicated of all readers: “Even though For example, community editors can look of creating collaborative and mutually ben- they might be a very small proportion of the for commenters with higher percentages eficial relationships with readers—“making readership, that readership is some of the of flagged comments or comments deleted sure your work matters to your audience,” most loyal. That method of engagement, if by moderators. More positively, the filters which then, for the business side, “helps done well and if done with commitment and could be used to find commenters who ensure that work finds the public support understanding of where it fits specifically, tend to leave longer and possibly more sub- it needs to endure.” Comments are part of can be hugely valuable to the organization.” stantial posts. If a journalist is looking for an audience engagement strategy that many Aron Pilhofer, who was The Guardian’s a source who has personal experience with news outlets are finally starting to realize is executive editor of digital before join- or is an expert on the article or its subject, editorially and commercially essential. ing the faculty of the School of Media and these filters could make that process faster. The push to make comments a free Communication at Temple University, Of course, this tool is only as effective speech zone where all viewpoints are wel- considers audience engagement—of which as the newsroom’s moderation team. “It’s come may have had the opposite effect. comments are a part of but, he stresses, not not a ‘set-it-and-forget-it, this is going to do “Sometimes we have erred on the side of all of—to be “fundamentally core to any all the moderation for us,’” Losowsky says. allowing everybody to speak without real- publication that considers conversion to be “It’s a way of making your moderation ac- izing that that effectively silences certain an important thing. By that I mean paywall, tions scalable and predictable.” groups of people,” says Mary Hamilton, The subscriptions, membership, or donations.” Civil Comments, in which commenters Guardian’s executive editor for audience. Before moving to The Guardian in 2014, have to rate other comments on the site for The Guardian is in the midst of exam- Pilhofer was The New York Times’s asso- quality and civility before they’re allowed ining its own approach to comments and ciate managing editor for digital strategy. to post their own, is another approach to community. Last April The Guardian re- He’s seen the Times experiment with its streamlining the moderation process. “We vealed the results of its analysis of 70 mil- commenting policies and platforms as well just need to find ways to correct the small lion comments left on its site between 1999 as with other ways to engage its audience, minority of bad actors who are ruining and 2016 (the vast majority of which were citing its annual “The Lives They Loved" the experience for everybody else,” says made after 2006) for a series called “The feature—where readers can submit photos Christa Mrgan, who co-founded Civil with Web We Want,” which looks at online abuse. and stories about people they know who Aja Bogdanoff in January 2015. The data team looked at how many com- died in the past year—as one example of Civil chooses comments at random for ments had been blocked and which sections an “amazing piece of collaborative journal- a user to rate, which prevents them from and authors tended to attract the most ism” that can result from such initiatives. upvoting their friends and downvoting

26 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Disqus after six months with Civil, saying there was a decrease in the number of com- ments as well as user engagement. A month after it installed Civil Comments, ADN ran a story about a man looking for his birth parents after he was abandoned in a cardboard box as a baby. It was both an update of what had been a ma- jor Anchorage story when he was first found and a story of a man who desperately want- ed to know something about his origins. It was also a story that could have attracted a lot of toxic comments. For the most part, it didn’t. Hulen thinks the new platform had something to do with that. He points to two comments that stood out to him. One commenter remembered going to church with the man and his foster family, and babysitting him after he was adopted. “You and my daughter loved playing togeth- er," she wrote. “I have thought about you SO MANY TIMES over the years. Sending love and prayers for success.” Another woman said she was 17 years old and seven months pregnant when the baby was found, so his story hit home for her. “I sobbed for that baby,” she wrote. “I prayed, and thanked God I was blessed with a safety net, my mom.” She said she would contin- ue to pray that he would find “the answers you deserve, and desire, so that you may feel some sort of closure.” And there were others who suggested websites that might help him find his biolog- ical family, or who shared their own stories of being adopted and looking for their birth family. There was no spam, and, aside from a few exceptions, “the comments were just sweet,” Hulen says. “Just more human.” These new comments platforms may make moderation a much easier task, but that’s only a start. Winning back the good commenters who may have abandoned sections when they were at their worst, identifying and punishing toxic community members, and convincing journalists and their outlets to play a bigger role in shaping these communities must happen, too. The entire culture around comments their enemies. If users give too many out- isting comments. This makes it infinitely sections has to change, from those who lier scores, their accounts will be flagged, scalable, and frees up staff moderators or leave them to those who moderate them. as will comments whose rating dips below community editors to work on other audi- The result is a product valued not just for a certain threshold. But Bogdanoff sees it ence engagement strategies. the information it delivers but also for the as more of a behavior modification system ADN, David Hulen’s newsroom, is one community it provides. than a filter. Not only does this force com- of the largest outlets to try Civil. Other “You see the diverse revenue streams, menters to think twice about civility before publications include The Register-Guard you see sustainability, and you see a great submitting, it also makes them moderators in Eugene, Oregon, Honolulu Civil Beat, community," Guzmán says of the publica- themselves. The more comments a site and Canada’s The Globe and Mail. A sixth tions that have done this successfully. “It’s gets, the more ratings it also gets on ex- publication, Willamette Week, went back to not a coincidence.” P

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 27 28 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 BETTER THAN

WORDSHow innovations in design are changing the way news is presented BY RICKI MORELL

The Society for News Design’s 2016 award to The Marshall Project highlights the clarity and simplicity of the design for “The Next to Die”

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 29 problems, while also appealing in its design quest for a map to accompany a November to the underlying data in a way that moves 2015 feature story about last-minute holiday you with its clarity and simplicity.” shopping. The piece focused on how pro- The final product is more than a piece of crastinators could buy gifts on Amazon and reporting. It’s data visualization as interac- get them delivered the same day. The map tive tool, and it sits squarely at the intersec- needed to show areas around the country tion of storytelling, technology, and design, where delivery service was available. says Mario García, one of the media indus- To create the graphic, Ingold teamed up man in silhouette, try’s top design consultants. “Design, in the with Adam Pearce, a coder who now works head bowed, stands era of the journalism of interruptions and at The New York Times. They devised a pro- against a gray back- mobile platforms, is that which lures us to gram that automatically logged every U.S. ground. A dark shadow content,” says García, whose consulting firm zip code into Amazon’s zip code entry box, extends below the sil- has worked with more than 700 media com- then overlaid it with U.S. Census Bureau houette, and the chill- panies around the world. “We are no longer data. After the original map ran, Ingold be- ing words underneath just manipulating and presenting content gan noodling with the data—starting by put- proclaim in simple white type: “Ronald Bert but also helping to imagine new ways to de- ting in Chicago’s zip codes—and found that Smith, Jr. is scheduled to be executed in 7 liver it and new ways to make money from some parts of got same-day delivery Ahours and 48 minutes.” The clock counts it. All of this for the same old goal: Reach the and some didn’t. down in real time, and as the date of the ex- audience and compel them to give a damn.” “It took about five seconds of looking ecution nears, the background darkens and Design has always been crucial to the pre- at the Chicago map to see there was some- the shadow lengthens. sentation and the reception of news. But with thing funny about it,” Ingold says. They This is The Marshall Project’s “The Next 72 percent of Americans consuming news on then looked at other big cities, such as to Die” homepage. Click on the red “Read a mobile device, up from 54 percent four years Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York more” link, and a summary of this Alabama ago, according to a July 2016 Pew Research City, and realized: “They were not delivering case by an Alabama Media Group reporter Center report, the visual aspect of journal- to black people.” appears. An update shows Smith’s execu- ism has become increasingly important. In They ended up with a story, “Amazon tion is temporarily stayed—twice—but the addition, the proliferation of platforms— Doesn’t Consider the Race of Its Customers. execution eventually proceeds. Smith is de- from Facebook to Twitter to Snapchat to Should It?”, and a series of maps. Amazon clared dead shortly after 11 p.m., so another WhatsApp, not to mention a publication’s didn’t respond to requests for comment name replaces his on the homepage. The own print product and website—means that about the article. The maps depicted , names change in real time, but the page’s one-size-fits-all designs just don’t work. In Boston, Dallas, Chicago, New York City, and stark design remains constant. this environment, newsrooms are compelled Washington, D.C., with shaded areas showing Gabriel Dance, who at the time was man- to integrate designers from the very start of Amazon’s same-day service area and islands aging editor, came up with the idea with projects, rather than dumping pictures and of blank space where it didn’t deliver. Those colleague Tom Meagher. Dance designed text on their desks after the story has already blank spaces represented the zip codes of the site, while Meagher recruited local news been written. “One of the reasons we got predominantly minority neighborhoods. organizations to provide context and a caught so flat-footed [by the digital opportu- Within days, under pressure from elected of- backstory for every execution in the United nities for journalism] was that we were treat- ficials, Amazon expanded service to Boston’s States. The simplicity of the design—a ing designers and coders as people who just Roxbury neighborhood, and soon after, to the person in the middle of the page and little put our stories up on the web, instead of peo- Bronx in New York City and Chicago’s South else—conveys the emotional weight of each ple who might change the whole way we con- Side, two neighborhoods that had been ex- execution, without taking a political stance ceive of our mission,” says Nicholas Lemann, cluded. (The population in the Bronx is 55 on capital punishment. Scroll down, and a Columbia Journalism School dean emeritus percent Hispanic and 43 percent African- stylized map in lighter and darker hues of and a New Yorker staff writer. red depicts states by number of executions. Bloomberg News no longer treats design Reporters from around the country can as an afterthought. David Ingold, a graphics log in and update the site with new names, reporter, is part of a team that includes com- states, and execution times. “The Next To puter programmers and coders as well as Die” also has its own Twitter feed that users more traditional designers. Team members AS NEWSROOMS can follow for updates. not only illustrate other people’s articles, The Marshall Project, which reports on but also come up with their own story ideas. GRAPPLE WITH TROVES the criminal justice system, in 2016 tied “There used to be a word person or a graph- with Quartz as the “World’s Best Designed ics person or a photo person, but those divi- OF RAW DATA, Website” in the Society for News Design sions don’t really exist anymore,” Ingold says. competition. Judges praised the investiga- “We’re all kind of freed up to do anything.” A GRAPHIC OR A MAP tive start-up’s website as “audience-first That freedom let Ingold follow his design at its best” and “The Next to Die” reporting instincts to examine Amazon CAN OFTEN TELL A STORY project in particular for “using a social Prime’s free same-day delivery service. He channel to inform on important, timely began by simply fulfilling a reporter’s re- BETTER THAN WORDS PEARCE/BLOOMBERG INGOLD AND ADAM DAVID

30 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Bloomberg’s city maps of shaded areas eligible for Amazon’s same-day delivery service tell a story about minority neighborhoods

American; the South Side is overwhelm- emotional power. “To make sure that our Deforestation? The questions keep appear- ingly African-American.) Without the map, readers understand the gravity of this story, ing, and the graphics keep showing that then-Bloomberg Businessweek editor Ellen they had to find themselves within that data these factors have had little effect on global Pollock says, the story would have garnered set,” Syed says. warming. Finally, this headline appears: “No, far less attention: “You have to see the graph- Syed stresses the importance of “user It Really Is Greenhouse Gases,” as an ani- ics to really understand what’s going on.” onboarding,” which refers to the process of mated fever chart rises above the world tem- Increasingly, the old newsroom adage helping users feel at ease with new digital perature line. The next headline brings the “show, don’t tell” is being taken literally: products. Apple pioneered this approach user even closer into the piece with an invi- As newsrooms grapple with overwhelming of creating intuitive and user-friendly tech- tation: “See For Yourself.” The user can then troves of raw data, a graphic or map can nology with its consumer products. In visual highlight each possible cause individually by often tell a story better than words. But the journalism, exploring new ways to tell a sto- clicking on rectangles of different colors. same technology that allows data journal- ry often means presenting information in a Syed says this type of design is essen- ism to flourish also creates new challenges way that may be unfamiliar to the audience. tial for audience engagement because “it’s for presentation. Syed says data journalists must “empathize actually teaching users how to read the When data journalist Moiz Syed was with users and understand how they will be piece. If you don’t do that, you lose them.” working for The Intercerpt on an investiga- interacting with information” so the audi- Bloomberg’s own tracking seems to back up tion into water contamination near military ence can focus on the story and not on the this assertion: According to a Bloomberg sites, he had to merge complicated data sets mechanics of a novel presentation. He cites spokesperson, the graphic was the most from the Environmental Protection Agency a Bloomberg News animated graphic on cli- read article in 2015, with 89 percent of the and the Department of Defense. The proj- mate change called “What’s Really Warming views coming through social media. ect, written by health and environment re- the World?” It works so well, Syed says, be- The link between audience engagement porter Sharon Lerner and called “Poisoning cause the graphic takes the reader step-by- and good design has never been stronger, and the Well,” chronicled how toxic firefighting step through the piece. it’s becoming ever more crucial to commer- foam used on military bases had contami- The “What’s Really Warming the World?” cial success in the digital age. “The absolute nated drinking water. Syed’s mission was to graphic begins with a fever chart showing single word that would connect up design illustrate this trend for the online investiga- how much the world has warmed between and business performance is engagement,” tive news site and make it feel accessible. He 1880 and 2014. Click on the big arrow at the says news industry analyst Ken Doctor. created an interactive map that let readers bottom of the screen, and a new question ap- Legacy media outlets migrating to digi- find the levels of contamination in their own pears: Is It the Earth’s Orbit? A second fever tal still make most of their money through communities just by holding their cursors chart showing the effect of the Earth’s orbit advertising and subscriptions. In a crowd- over the map. He could have saved days on world temperature rolls out through ani- ed online marketplace vying for readers’ of work by merely presenting a color-cod- mation, but doesn’t cross the warming line; attention, gripping design can foster audi- ed map, but it would have lacked the same it’s clear the answer is “no.” Sun? Volcanoes? ence engagement, which can lead to more

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 31 revenue. Still, the relationship between Slate, which redesigned its site a few years Espen Egil Hansen, CEO and editor in engagement and revenue is difficult to ago to make it less cluttered and more re- chief of ’s Aftenposten, has spent gauge because media companies gener- cently instituted “infinite scroll.” Infinite much of the last year thinking about the con- ally don’t release that information. Amy scroll displays an article on a single page nection between audience engagement, jour- Mitchell, director of journalism research so that the reader doesn’t have to click to nalism, and design. He enlisted García to help at the Pew Research Center, says tracking move forward; when the reader reaches the him “rethink” the 157-year-old daily. “From the effects of audience engagement is con- end of one story, another story immediately a design perspective, what we have been fusing because the industry hasn’t adopted appears below it. In a March 2016 blog post working with for the last 20 years is not good a standard definition of engagement or a about Slate’s design changes, David Stern, enough,” Hansen says of the paper’s website. standard way to measure it. director of product development, said Slate In the past, a reader would seek out a Print media tracks circulation, and tele- was prioritizing “time on site” over “page trusted newspaper and its content. Now, the vision news uses ratings, to tout their au- views” so that users would be “more like- content has to find the reader. Only 60 to dience to advertisers. Now, digital news ly to view more ads while they’re reading, 70 percent of readers enter the Aftenposten organizations that started out measuring they’ll be more likely to share our content, site through its homepage, Hansen notes. “clicks” or “page views” have started timing and they’ll be more likely to join our mem- “You cannot design and try to create a prod- how long a reader spends on a website, says bership program.” Stern said that infinite uct anymore,” he says. “Each atom of con- Sachin Kamdar, CEO of Parse.ly, a data ana- scroll increased the time a test group spent tent is actually the design.” lytics company with clients that include The on the site by 9 percent. To put into practice this new way of Huffington Post, Condé Nast, Mashable, Columbia Journalism School recognizes thinking about news presentation, Hansen New York Daily News, and Slate. This met- the relationship of design to engagement by redeployed his design staff. He moved a ric, called “engaged time,” shows advertisers requiring students to learn how to use social group who spent most of its time designing that a site can deliver a loyal audience that media not only for reporting and publishing the static front page into a group aimed at is reading an article, not just clicking on it. but also for audience building. “We believe designing individual articles for Facebook. According to a 2016 Parse.ly report, readers it’s a gamechanger so it has to be taught at He used audience research data to figure out spent a median time of 46 seconds on ma- the same time as we are teaching the funda- what happened to the people who first en- jor news and lifestyle stories and a whole mentals of reporting,” says Sheila Coronel, countered Aftenposten through Facebook. minute on science and technology news. the school’s dean of academic affairs. The The goal was to see if giving users a free “Fourteen seconds may seem insignificant,” reason is simple: economic viability. As taste would lead them to the full website, says Kamdar, “but for advertisers, that’s a lot news becomes “unpackaged” and consumed where they could become subscribers. of time per article.” individually, “each article is on its own, trav- Hansen says the new emphasis broke a 17- Color, typeface, and placement on the eling around in cyberspace, and you have to year subscription decline and resulted in a screen can entice a reader not only to click find an audience for it,” according to emer- 9 percent increase in subscriptions over the on a story, but to linger over it. Kamdar cites itus dean Lemann. past year: “It gave us the confidence that we

Election 2015: What Are the Parties Offering You? A guide to how the political parties’ promises may affect the lives of residents in Britain

Which of these target voters do you think you are?

Starting out Getting by Comfortable Retired Starting out in life to well-off in life

The Guardian created an interactive graphic so readers of different ages and circumstances

could see how their lives would be affected by the policies of the political parties vying for votes THE GUARDIAN

32 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 have all the answers,” she writes in a paper people has essentially turned journalism JOURNALISM IS NOW published in July by Columbia Journalism into a conversation.” School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism. When he was executive editor of digital A CONVERSATION, (This past fall the New School received $2.6 for The Guardian in London, Aron Pilhofer million to expand its Journalism + Design experienced firsthand the power of audi- THANKS TO INSTANT program to other journalism schools.) ence-centered thinking when he designed Design thinking, according to a guide coverage of the 2015 British general election. published by Stanford’s Institute of Design, Newsroom leaders invited a user-experi- COMMUNICATION comes down to five steps: empathize, de- ence team to research what people actually fine, ideate, prototype, test. Essentially, that wanted from election coverage. “It totally means before embarking upon the physical changed how we designed around the elec- task of designing something, you begin an tion,” says Pilhofer, a former editor of digital intellectual exercise of understanding the strategy at The New York Times and now a could actually be radical in throwing con- user’s perspective. That perspective be- journalism professor at Temple University. tent out there and still get people to pay.” comes the driving force behind your design. For example, The Guardian’s team mem- Hansen now thinks of his job as produc- The process involves iteration: sketching bers started out thinking they would kill ing “millions of front pages every day” while out ideas, offering them to users for their in- what they thought of as a boring, reductive working toward a goal of personalizing a put, and changing the ideas until you come question-and-answer issues grid for candi- front page for each reader. “We still have up with something that works. dates. Audience research, however, showed many newspaper editors who come to work Among the benefits of a design-thinking that voters actually found the grids helpful. thinking primarily of tomorrow’s newspa- mindset, Chaplin says, is working direct- Still, readers of different ages had different per,” García says. “That’s the kiss of death. ly with communities in “civic journalism” interests. The solution: an interactive graph- Think of the next 15 minutes.” projects that are relevant to people’s lives. ic called “What Are The Parties Offering Heather Chaplin, the founding director “The idea of designing along with stakehold- You?” that could be customized based on of The New School’s Journalism + Design ers resonates strongly with the work being factors such as age, family status, and living program, suggests the Silicon Valley staple of done in journalism today under the label of situation. Readers could enter their data and “human-centered” design thinking can help audience engagement,” she writes in the the graphic would display policy positions refocus a news industry disrupted by tech- Tow paper. “Audience engagement is more relevant to their concerns. “The lesson we nological change. She credits Jamer Hunt, than just a marketing ploy. It’s the acknowl- took away from that,” Pilhofer says, “is that associate professor at the Transdisciplinary edgment of a shift in power dynamics.” when you actually start from the proposi- Design Program at Parsons, for this defini- Says Gabriel Dance, who left The tion, you’re there to help to solve problems tion: “Human-centered design starts with Marshall Project to work for The New York for readers and you actually ask readers, the premise that you as the designer don’t Times: “Instant communication between magic occasionally happens.” P

Do you have What’s your living We’ve found 83 policies relevant to you children? situation?

No, maybe one day Looking to buy

How do you get What else around? interests you?

Bicycle Economy

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 33 Nieman Watchdog COVERING SEXUAL

ASSAULTReporting on rape and sexual assault challenges journalists to build trust with sources and avoid injecting bias into the story

BY MICHAEL BLANDING PRESS CAMERON/ASSOCIATED ROSS D.

34 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 At Stanford University commencement in June 2016, a student carries a sign commenting on a recent high-profile rape case at the school

ouise doesn’t usually been contacted a few months earlier by Cara to a place where we could better understand remember her dreams. But the Courchesne, communications director of how to write about and frame stories.” day her father was to visit her at the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Often by the time a victim reports a crime, college, she woke up, remember- asking for advice on a media kit the organi- she learned, little physical evidence remains ing. She had been in the country- zation was putting together. They started a to prove it occurred. The fear they won’t be Lside in her dream, and there was a poisonous conversation that ended up with Rhoda and believed sometimes keeps victims silent snake about to bite her dad. She knew then she another reporter registering for a 40-hour for years. “Not to have any way of proving would tell him she had been raped. She was 19. training offered at night by a local rape crisis it adds so much to the hurt,” she says. “We It would break his heart. organization to learn how to talk to victims wanted to find a way to make that clear.” As soon as she started writing, Erin Rhoda of rape and sexual assault. Rhoda brought that concept back to the knew exactly what the focus of the project “It was such an important learning ex- newsroom, where she and the rest of the

would be. Then-editorial page director for perience for us,” says Rhoda. “Putting our- staff devised “Proof,” a multimedia story PRESS CAMERON/ASSOCIATED ROSS D. the Bangor Daily News in Maine, Rhoda had selves in the community, it brought us down that combines text, photos, graphics, and

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 35 Nieman Watchdog videos to tell the stories of three rape vic- view sources outside of the criminal justice tims—two women and one man. system, and look at how victims recover and UNDERGOING TRAUMA Among them is Louise, the woman who heal from acts of violence a year or more af- agonized about telling her father about her ter they occur. The “Proof” series from the MAY DISTORT THE assault. After having drinks at the house of Bangor Daily News is a good example; it in- an acquaintance, she woke up to find him on cludes contact information for a statewide MEMORY OF A SEX top of her, raping her. “I knew that I had been sexual assault hotline and video interviews drugged,” she said. Ashamed, Louise never with victims describing how they began to reported the rape to the police—and only recover from the pain of abuse. ASSAULT VICTIM saw a doctor a week after the incident, when As high-profile cases of sexual assault physical evidence had already disappeared. continue to make the news with depressing According to one study by the University regularity, learning how to cover the issue of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public well is more important than ever. In the past Service, 13,000 instances of unwanted sex- several years, cases like the campus sexual written by T. Christian Miller of ProPublica ual activity occur in Maine annually, but assaults at Stanford and Baylor universi- and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project only 3,300 of them are reported to police. ties; the 58 women and counting who have in 2015. The story follows the travails of In showing the voices and faces of victims, come forward to accuse Bill Cosby; and the Marie (not her real first name), a woman Rhoda and her colleagues hoped to highlight “Access Hollywood” tape of Donald Trump in Washington who was raped at knifepoint a challenge that bedevils reporters as much bragging about committing sexual assault by an intruder who broke into her home. as victims: How to talk about something you have increasingly made the topic of national When she told police, they refused to be- can’t prove happened? “That’s what makes concern. As demonstrated by the Women’s lieve her, charging her with false reporting this issue of proof so important,” Rhoda March the day after Trump’s inauguration, and criticizing her publicly for perpetrating says. “Because if they can’t prove it, I can’t there is worry that his administration will roll a “hoax.” Her attacker, meanwhile, moved prove it—but we still have to be able to talk back women’s rights, including programs and to Colorado, where he raped several more about it. So how do we talk about it?” funding aimed at stemming sexual violence. women before he was tracked down. Figuring out how to talk about rape and No story illustrates the pitfalls of re- Miller began reporting about the work sexual assault is one of the biggest challeng- porting on sex assault better than “A Rape of Colorado detectives Stacy Galbraith and es a journalist can face. The lack of proof on Campus,” by Sabrina Erdely, an article Edna Hendershot, while Armstrong inves- that accompanies the crime is only one about an alleged gang rape of a student she tigated Marie’s ordeal and the botched in- difficulty of covering an issue that is inti- called by the pseudonym Jackie at a fra- vestigation by Washington police. The two mate, intense, and emotional for victims. ternity house at the . crossed paths during their respective inves- The shame and stigma they feel can make The story was published by tigations and, instead of competing, col- it difficult for reporters to build trust with in November 2014. Shortly afterward, The laborated on a 12,000-word story—a tense sources, to properly report on the severity Washington Post raised concerns about the dissection of the consequences of sexual of crimes without being gratuitous, and even story’s veracity, ultimately leading the mag- assault and its effects on victims, and how to choose the very words they use to avoid azine to retract the story and commission a police can both succeed and fail in investi- injecting bias into the story. report, led by Columbia Graduate School of gating it. The article won the 2016 Pulitzer “This is one of the most pervasive Journalism dean Steve Coll, to investigate Prize for Explanatory Reporting. forms of violence in our society, and yet it its failures. Among its findings, the report Earning the trust of the victim in order is one that has been historically silenced determined that Erdely relied almost entire- to tell the story, however, was not easy. and carries the greatest stigma for victims,” ly on Jackie’s version of the story, failing to Armstrong wrote letters to Marie through says Bruce Shapiro, executive director of corroborate it with witnesses or confirm the her attorney for six months before she Columbia University’s Dart Center for identity of her attacker, much less interview agreed to an interview. That’s not unusual Journalism and Trauma. “As reporters, we him. This November, a federal jury ordered for journalists approaching victims of sex- are confronted not only with the suffering Rolling Stone and Erdely to pay $3 million to ual assault, who may feel a conflict between of the survivor, but also our own prejudices a University of Virginia administrator who wanting to tell their story and shame about and preconceptions, fears, past experiences, was defamed by the story. The magazine is exposure. Journalists must carefully think and ethical conflicts.” appealing the award. through how to approach a subject—cold A study released in 2015 by the Berkeley “The high-profile failures of the Rolling calling them, reaching out through an at- Media Studies Group found more than half Stone story might persuade some editors torney, or contacting them through a fam- of stories about sex assault focused on a that these stories are risky and we shouldn’t ily friend who might not even know the criminal justice milestone, such as the arrest take them on,” says Shapiro. But, he says, assault occurred. or trial of an accused perpetrator. By con- “We know how to do hard-hitting, ethical, “There is no easy way to approach a trast, only 6 percent mentioned treatment relatable, fair reporting on sexual assault, victim of sexual assault,” says Miller. “But for survivors, and 8 percent discussed is- and in particular on institutional failures. you can’t let the understandable impulse sues of prevention. The report recommends We need to be looking at examples of how not to hurt someone interfere with your journalists spend more time looking at the to do it right.” journalistic sensibilities that this is a per- “landscape” of sexual violence rather than Thankfully, such examples abound. son whose story is important, and he or she solely focusing on specific incidents, inter- Exhibit A is “An Unbelievable Story of Rape,” might want it told.” MARSHALL PROJECT RASMUSSEN/PROPUBLICA/THE BENJAMIN

36 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 For their story, Armstrong and Miller perience with an unflinching commitment their experiences of assault. In each case, she thought carefully about how to keep the to verifying facts. Since sexual assault by began by allowing them to tell their story be- focus on Marie’s experience, as she recov- definition means a loss of control, journal- ginning to end, with few questions or inter- ered from the trauma of both the rape and ists might consider giving some agency back ruptions. “That way they got their version out the subsequent prosecution for allegedly to subjects by extending more choices than and they felt heard and listened to,” she says. making a false accusation. Even though it they ordinarily might, such as allowing them Establishing that trust early on, however, also took them another six months to secure to set the time and location for the inter- helped in cases when she found omitted or a prison interview with her rapist, the re- view, or to bring a friend or family member. contradictory facts and needed to ask tough porters only quote him once. And unlike At the same time, journalists must set questions. “They weren’t seeing me as doubt- the Rolling Stone story, which opens with ground rules early in the process about the ing them necessarily, because we had built up a lurid account of the supposed gang rape, need to ask uncomfortable questions and more of a rapport.” the description of the rape only comes at the corroborate aspects of the story through Discovering information that contradicts a end of the story. While the details are chill- documentation and other interviews. victim’s chronology doesn’t necessarily mean ing, the tone is restrained. “We made a very “Survivors need to know that there is no such the person is lying, since studies have shown deliberate decision that this is not a story thing as a risk-free interview,” says Claudia that undergoing trauma can distort a victim’s about him,” says Miller. Garcia-Rojas, co-coordinator of the Chicago memory. “A survivor may tell a story three The writers were particularly conscious Taskforce on Violence Against Girls & Young different times and each time the details are of their position as two male journalists Women and editor of a guide for media on different because she is trying to recuperate writing about violence against women. As reporting on sexual assault. “Reporters need the experience for herself,” says Garcia-Rojas. part of the writing process, Armstrong and to know that simply because an individual However, it makes it doubly important that a Miller showed drafts of the story to wom- has survived a trauma doesn’t mean one has journalist is not afraid to challenge inconsis- en in the newsroom as well as to women in to tiptoe around them or not fully disclose tencies and point out the moment at which their families. After some were concerned what the role of a reporter is.” different accounts disagree. about the graphic nature of the final scene, After setting ground rules, reporters and Cases in which an act of sexual assault is the writers prepared an alternative end- advocates say the most important thing a re- in dispute can be among the most difficult ing. Ultimately, they shared the story with porter can do, at least initially, is to actively for reporters to cover. A rape by a stranger Marie, who felt the scene should stay. While listen to his or her story without judgment. breaking into a home with a knife is the ex- Miller says they didn’t give her veto power According to law enforcement statistics, few ception; most rape cases involve people who over the story, he and Armstrong did feel it people lie about having been raped; Jackie know each other, and sometimes may have was important to get her approval. “This is notwithstanding, it takes a lot of courage for had consensual sex before or after an assault about one woman’s painful experience, and someone to come forward and tell their sto- occurs. On college campuses, the typical we were prepared to get to a place where she ry, knowing how much scrutiny they'll face. case is confounded by the fact one or both was comfortable with it,” he says. Center for Public Integrity reporter parties are drinking alcohol and memories Once a victim agrees to participate in a Kristen Lombardi, who in 2009 spearheaded are incomplete or confused. story, journalists must balance their empa- one of the first major stories about campus Few cases in past years have become thy for someone discussing a traumatic ex- rape, interviewed dozens of students about more of a flash point for controversy than that of Emma Sulkowicz. A Columbia art Colorado detectives Stacy Galbraith and Edna Hendershot joined forces on a serial rape case student, Sulkowicz accused fellow student Paul Nungesser of anally raping her; when Columbia dismissed the charges, she began carrying a 50-pound mattress around cam- pus with her as a senior art thesis—includ- ing on stage at graduation in May 2015. Some commentators, such as Cathy Young writing in , found her story unbelievable, citing friendly Facebook messages and texts between Sulkowicz and Nungesser that seem to belie her story. “These conversations felt spontaneous and lighthearted without any sign of awkward- ness between them,” says Young. “It really completely defied credibility.” Young inter- viewed Nungesser for her piece, concluding that he was the victim of a trial-by-media after the college had cleared him. In response, Sulkowicz spoke with Jezebel’s Erin Gloria Ryan, contending that some of the messages had been taken out of context and out of chronology, including

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 37 Nieman Watchdog some that occurred months before the night story.” Instead, she ended up writing a can- she says she was attacked. In annotations to did assessment of her own difficulties de- COLLEGE HEARINGS her messages, Sulkowicz contends that she termining the truth in the midst of a system was being conciliatory in order to maneuver that ultimately serves neither accused or MAY NOT ADHERE him into a conversation about what had hap- accuser. “The swirl of accusations and coun- pened, and didn’t want to scare him away. teraccusations, and the reaction to them,” TO COURTROOM Including details such as those are as es- she wrote, “reflects the current moment—a sential a part of a journalist’s responsibility transitional period in the evolution of how as chronicling the events that happened, universities handle sexual assault. It is a mo- RULES OF EVIDENCE says Katie Feifer, leader of CounterQuo, a ment in which, as the tumult at Columbia national coalition of groups that works with shows, we can’t afford to stay for long.” media to change the way sexual violence Exacerbating the situation in those cas- is covered. “Her belief or interpretation es is the fact that colleges have their own is another fact that as a journalist you can internal process for investigation, where Among the stipulations pushed by the choose to include or not,” she says. “By not the conventional rules of evidence may not administration were orders that schools including it, you are coloring the facts in a apply. After investigations by the Center for move to investigate claims within 90 days different way.” Public Integrity and National Public Radio and adopt a standard of “preponderance of Writing a few months later, The New found failings by colleges in addressing sex evidence” in proving guilt, rather than the York Times Magazine staff writer Emily assault, the Obama administration issued higher standard of “beyond a reasonable Bazelon tried to weigh the opposing view- a “Dear Colleague letter” in 2011 advising doubt.” While procedures differ among points of Sulkowicz, Nungesser, and the me- colleges to adopt more rigorous standards campuses, some further diverge from dia interpretations of the case. “I went into in pursuing their own investigations under standards of a court of law—for example, that case hoping to find out if Columbia had Title IX, which prohibits sexual discrimina- students may not be allowed lawyers and done its duty or not, but I couldn’t write that tion in education. hearsay evidence may be permitted. the linguistic pitfalls of writing about sexual assault when it comes to Similarly, writing that thinking the victim was perpetrator”—revealing writing about sexual assault, someone “performed” or doing it willingly.” an implicit bias that the journalists face a difficult “engaged in” oral sex can The word “victim” allegations are true. The balancing act. In addition make the victim sound more itself can be problematic words “alleged victim” to how they frame a story— like an active participant. for some people who have can be just as problematic, whether focusing on the This is especially prevalent experienced assault, since subtly casting doubt on the victim, the perpetrator, or for males experiencing it can imply weakness or a story of the person who says institutions such as the assault. The Berkeley permanent loss of agency. he or she was assaulted. police, university, church, or Media Studies report found They prefer the word The best strategy may military—journalists must that 22 percent of articles “survivor” in order to stress be to avoid such words carefully consider the words it examined with male their strength in overcoming entirely, replacing “alleged” they use. Advocates warn victims used “language that the abuse. That preference with constructions such that oftentimes reporters minimized the abuse or is by no means uniform, as “the university says” unconsciously slip into the implied consent” versus 4 however. “There are quite a that attribute it back to the language of consensual sex, percent of those with female few people who say, ‘I was a source, and finding more saying someone “had sex victims. Claudia Garcia- victim of a crime, and I want generic terms for the parties with” or even “fondled” a Rojas, co-coordinator of to acknowledge that,’” says in the case, such as “the victim, rather than using the Chicago Taskforce on Feifer. She suggests asking football players” or using words like “raped” or Violence Against Girls & if a person has a preference, a name or a pseudonym. “molested.” “As a litmus Young Women and editor whether or not as a “It does not aid in the test, if you would use words of a guide for media on journalist you ultimately flow of the story,” admits with your intimate partner, reporting about sexual decide to use it. New York Times reporter do not use those words to assault, suggests following Sometimes neither who has describe sexual violence,” the lead of the courts, word is accurate, as in a investigated campus sexual counsels Katie Feifer, leader which use very specific disputed case where guilt assaults. “Sometimes you of CounterQuo, a national descriptions. “Saying ‘He or innocence hasn’t been really have to contort coalition of groups that forced his penis into her determined. In those cases, yourself.” But it’s worth works with media to change mouth’ is explicit,” she says, sometimes articles even it, he adds, for the sake of the way sexual violence is “but it’s also accurate and refer to a “victim” at the accuracy. covered. doesn’t mislead people into same time as an “alleged —michael blanding VIA GETTY BOITANO/LIGHTROCKET IMAGES STEPHEN J.

38 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 they changed their stories over time. Yet, throughout, the story cleaves close to the record, refraining from making an indepen- dent judgment about guilt or innocence. “I make it a point not to make a judgment on who’s right and who’s wrong, because I wasn’t there,” says Bogdanich. “I’m more interested in how the university and law enforcement handled it.” In another story he published in 2014, Bogdanich shows that police may not be any better at investigating crimes of assault. He flew down to Tallahassee, Florida to in- vestigate a case in which a student accused football quarterback Jameis Winston of rape. When he got off the plane, however, he found a message telling him the school was no longer talking, and had cancelled all of his interviews. During a press conference, however, the state prosecutor made a comment criticiz- ing the police investigation, which he found highly unusual. “I talked to the prosecutor, and boy did he unload,” says Bogdanich, who was able to obtain the police file through Florida’s open records laws. Though the The Women’s March in D.C. in January protested, among other issues, violence against women case received endless amounts of publici- ty, no journalist had taken time to investi- That has led a small but vocal group of dents who participate in hearings, and are gate the police record. Bogdanich’s story, journalists and advocates for the rights of sometimes included in complaints filed to “A Star Player Accused, and a Flawed Rape the accused to charge that the pendulum the Education Department under Title IX, Investigation,” detailed multiple errors and has swung too far the other way, and there albeit redacted to hide the names of the ac- sloppy investigating, including a failure to is a rush to judgment that has caused some cused. For her reporting, Lombardi had her obtain security camera footage from the students to be found guilty of sexual assault subjects sign privacy waivers so she could campus bar where the student and Winston despite a lack of evidence. request unredacted Title IX complaints and met that night; and a delay of almost a year Under the Family Educational Rights hearing documents from the schools, argu- before interviewing a key witness. and Privacy Act, schools are expressly for- ing it was in their benefit for her to have as By examining how rape and sexual as- bidden from divulging personal information complete information as possible. sault are handled by institutions including about students to reporters, making it dif- New York Times reporter Walt universities, police, and the courts, jour- ficult to tell whether the system is serving Bogdanich won’t say how he obtained the nalists can shed light on processes that the accusers or the accused. “You have a transcript—for a school disciplinary hearing ordinarily operate out of sight of average system operating utterly in the dark,” says at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in up- citizens—yet can have tremendous impact KC Johnson, whose book, “The Campus state New York—which he makes the cen- on justice for women and men who have Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at terpiece of his 2014 story “Reporting Rape, been subjected to sexual violations. America’s Universities,” was published this and Wishing She Hadn’t.” But the story it That debate is likely to intensify with the past January. “It can be very difficult to per- reveals is a stinging indictment of the disci- new administration. Education Secretary form the task that journalists normally do to plinary procedure, which calls into question Betsy DeVos in her confirmation hearing provide an objective viewpoint.” whether it is treating either party well. did not commit to keeping the current Reporters investigating these cases are First-year student Anna (who agreed standard of evidence in campus sex assault not completely without recourse. There are to be identified by her first name only) disciplinary hearings. She has donated funds other ways to corroborate the timeline of says she was raped by one football play- to an advocacy group that sued the U.S. a story, including text and telephone calls, er and sexually assaulted by two others, Department of Education, arguing that the posts to Facebook, , and other so- just two weeks into the start of the school current standard violates the due process cial media sites, and friends who may have year. Based on hundreds of pages of doc- rights of the accused. been told about an attack after the fact. “All uments, Bogdanich’s story reveals a pro- Journalists have a role to play in helping of those can be used to get beyond, ‘he said, cess ill-equipped to adjudicate the case, the public understand the complexity of sex she said,’” says Feifer. with panel members frequently asking dis- assault cases. Their examination of cases, in In addition, transcripts of college disci- jointed questions and failing to cross-ex- turn, can inform debate over how to create a plinary hearings are often accessible to stu- amine the football players about the way system that is fair for all involved. P

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 39 Nieman Journalism Lab

Connection, by half from 53 percent in 2004. And just Many can’t afford regular banks. as some share of Americans have checked They’ve been burned by banks’ increasing Community, and out of the traditional journalism ecosys- hunger for fees and penalties, much of which Customer Service tem—happy to dine on partisan clickbait, focuses on people who can least afford it. A Facebook fake news, or the airy meringue of Pew study of low-income households in Los What declining 2017-vintage Internet #content—many have Angeles found that 18 percent of consum- trust in banks dropped out of the banking system. ers had paid an overdraft fee in the previous says about The term of art in that industry is “the year, and about a third of all those who’ve unbanked”—usually defined as people who overdrafted closed their account as a re- declining trust in don’t have a traditional checking or savings sult. In 2009, 76 percent of banks offered news outlets account. Instead, they rely on some as- a free checking account; by 2016, that num- semblage of informal service providers— ber had dropped to 38 percent. The average BY JOSHUA BENTON check-cashing centers, payday lenders, ATM fee increased 131 percent between 1998 neighborhood loan sharks, prepaid debit and 2016; over that same span, the average cards, pawnshops—to do some of the work overdraft fee moved from $21.57 to $33.04. that most Americans trust a big bank or a lo- Banks have chosen to extract more money cal credit union to do. (The “underbanked” from those at the low end of their customer omething sometimes have a bank account, but still also use some base, and many walk away rather than face forgotten in the endless hand- of these informal services.) Estimates vary, a barrage of fees. wringing over the decline in but a 2015 FDIC report found that approx- trust in the media is that we’re imately 9 million American households The unbanked have customer service hardly alone. Over the past were unbanked and another 24.5 million needs that aren’t well met by tradition- Sdecade, Americans’ trust in many of the were underbanked. They’re more likely to al banks. Some of this is practical: For poor country’s most prominent institutions has be low-income and low-education. Americans, check-cashing centers are in been shrinking. Just as many journalists remain puz- their neighborhood; the big retail banks are Trust in organized religion? Down. Trust zled by the media diets of their aunts and often farther away. Thirty years ago, banks in public schools? Down. Trust in the presi- uncles back home, some in the banking were typically locally owned and based; to- dency? Down even before the current occu- industry wonder why anyone would prefer day, five giant banking corporations control pant. Trust in Congress? They barely make to use what they see as obviously inferior nearly half of the industry. That increased numbers low enough to show how far down. services. If you don’t have a bank account, distance makes it both easier and more ac- In 2001, a few months before 9/11, Gallup traditional American goals like saving up curate to think their interests diverge from surveyed how people felt about 14 major for a house or building a credit history be- your own. American institutions. On average, each come almost impossible. Luckily, there’s was trusted by 43 percent of Americans. By been some good research on why the un- But part of it is also that people want more 2016, that had slid down to 32 percent. It’s banked do what they do. Here are a few of from a financial relationship than a state- not hard to connect that growing distrust the reasons that have surfaced: ment whose numbers add up correctly each to Donald Trump’s electoral success, or to month. Lisa Servon, a professor of urban some people’s seemingly increased capacity Many think they don’t need a regular policy at the New School, spent time actual- to believe factually untrue things. If an insti- bank and that banks don’t want them ly working at check-cashing centers in New tution—the media, political leaders, a gov- anyway. The most common reason cited in York and California to better understand ernment agency—tries to dissuade you from one study for not having a bank account was a factual belief, it’s unlikely to be effective if that they didn’t have enough money to both- you don’t consider that institution’s stand- er. If someone doesn’t see any potential re- ing to make a truth claim at least a little ward to engaging with the industry, it’s hard higher than some comment-section rando’s. to convince them otherwise. Particularly if Customers’ decisions Lately I’ve been thinking about the cor- they believe that the other side of the re- aren’t driven solely relations between the media’s audience lationship isn’t interested either. An FDIC by perceptions of problems and those of another not-so-be- study found that 55.8 percent of the un- loved national institution: banks. As of last banked surveyed said the Wells Fargos and “quality.” Feelings of year, just 27 percent of Americans said they JPMorgan Chases of the world are “not at community and personal

had confidence in the nation’s banks, down all interested” in serving people like them. connection matter, too ELAINE PRESS THOMPSON/ASSOCIATED

40 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 The so-called “unbanked” often rely on informal services like payday lenders, such as this one in Seattle why their customers were loyal to them. an increasing share of the best have put up former—just like a VP at Bank of America While cost was an overriding factor, she paywalls. Swapping mass for niche media might wonder why anyone would use some also found that personal relationships and a means there are plenty of top-notch news place called EZChekNow instead of his feeling of connection with the centers’ staff outlets targeting well-off, highly educated tastefully appointed branch a couple strip was critical for many. Tellers remembered people, or demographically appealing young malls over. But the decisions of customers customers’ names and built up relationships people—but fewer targeting everybody else. aren’t driven solely by perceptions of “qual- that weren’t institutional; as one regular put And as people feel increasingly disengaged ity”; they’re also derived from more prosaic it, “We can be family. We know all of them.” from traditional institutions, the incentives factors like customer service, cost, feelings Does any of that sound familiar to those to invest time in high-quality news shrink. of community and personal connection, of us in the media? The decline of print If you can’t really make a difference by be- and a sense that both sides of the transac- newspapers has replaced a set of trust- coming more informed, why not just take in tion have similar interests at heart. In an ed local businesses with distant giants in “news” that’ll flatter your existing notions environment where trust is no longer the places like New York and D.C. The power and give you the jolt of rage/pity/victim- default—where reading your local daily in of personal relationships means the quali- hood/schadenfreude you want? the morning and watching a news broadcast ty of the friend sharing the news story on One lesson I learned early on in news is at night have moved from standard to niche Facebook can seem more important than that what journalists value and what their behavior—doing great journalistic work the quality of the news outlet producing it. audiences value are often frustratingly isn’t enough. P The price of reading a print daily newspaper misaligned. We see high-quality news out- has soared as customer bases have shifted lets and low-quality ones and wonder why Joshua Benton, a 2008 Nieman Fellow, is the upmarket; most news sites are still free, but anyone would choose the latter over the founding director of the Nieman Journalism Lab

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 41 Nieman Storyboard Shifting

theShort, powerful documentaries Focus are on the rise as news outlets compete for hearts and minds BY MICHAEL BLANDING

a swirling pinkish orb, emerging out of the void. Voiceover: “Hundreds of years down the line, who’s going to know who was the president of the United States, or something?” Solar rays over a vast planetary surface. Close-up of Ryan: glasses, nerdy, but with a self-aware glint in his eyes: “But everyone will remember who was those first four people who stepped on Mars.” The documentary “If I Die on Mars” sets up an irresistible prem- ise in its first 15 seconds. Over the next 45, it seals the deal, with stock footage of colorful dust clouds swirling on the surface of the Red Planet cut with flashes of three unlikely candidates to be its first colonists: Ryan, a central-casting Oxbridge astrophysicist; Dina, a confident and athletic refugee from Iraq; and Jeremias, an earnest young man from Mozambique. In a series of titles that accelerate like a countdown, the film explains that a nonprofit called Mars One plans to colonize Mars by 2024, that more than 200,000 people applied—and that those who are chosen will never return to Earth. Then the kicker, in a voiceover from Jeremias, shown staring out at the African sea: “If I die on Mars, that would be great.” AThe documentary wasn’t a feature-length film, and didn’t air on the big screen. It was just 11 minutes long, and debuted in 2015 on the website of the British newspaper The Guardian. Yet it earned an audience vaster than the number who would have seen it at any film festival, garnering more than a million views in its first week alone.

42 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Illustration by Alex Nabaum

Nieman Storyboard

them want to go to Mars because they are unhappy on Earth. “Once you realize that, you get this mountain of melancholy that is counterintuitive,” says Charlie Phillips, The Guardian’s head of documentaries. “It’s not the film you expect.” Rather than being a downer, however, the twist makes the film a powerful reminder of what it means to be human in a vast uni- verse we are only just starting to explore. “One of the things we’ve learned from mak- ing movies is that people don’t so much want analysis or news or argument, they want to feel something strongly,” says Peter Savodnik, founder of Stateless Media, which produced the film. “They want so much to connect with other human beings.” The film is one in an explosion of short nonfiction films that have increasingly pop- ulated the channels of mainstream news sites, connecting human beings with true stories from around the world. Call them mini-documentaries. From three to 12 min- utes in length, they have all of the quality and production values of a Hollywood film, contained within a bite-sized narrative watchable on a phone during a bus com- mute. Since The New York Times started focusing on the form in 2011, other media companies have quickly piled on, includ- ing The Atlantic, The Guardian, , Vice, Al Jazeera, and Vox. They are capitalizing on the changing ways that consumers, particularly young- er ones, take in the news, shifting from print and television to online and mobile. Facebook recently reported that users watch 100 million hours of video per day, many of them on mobile platforms. In re- sponse, the company has begun prioritizing video in News Feeds and launched Facebook Live, competing with the likes of Snapchat and Twitter’s Periscope to stream video 24/7. The current ubiquity of video in our culture has played a major part in creating news, with the recent live transmissions of police shootings bringing an urgency to that issue it might not otherwise have had. Revealing interviews with Ryan, among others, are key to the success of “If I Die on Mars” Mini-documentaries offer audiences deeper, more emotional storytelling that is consum- Part of the appeal of the film is the way position, so we asked, How can we really get able on the go. that it immediately subverts expectations. to the point where there is some real depth “We consume so much news and infor- Within minutes, the filmmakers are asking and poignancy?” mation in short snippets, there is a desire to intimate questions about sex, masturba- The answer was to focus on the emotion- spend more time and really get in-depth,” tion, love, and loneliness. “Our approach al decisions to leave one’s family—and plan- says Stacey Woelfel, associate professor at was very much to find emotional shortcuts et—behind in search of an uncertain future. the Missouri School of Journalism and di- to get to the nub of the human side of this,” As Ryan talks about being abandoned by his rector of the Jonathan B. Murray Center for says Ed Perkins, the film’s London-based father at age two, and Dina admits she’s nev- Documentary Journalism. “But you can’t

director. “We don’t have time for long ex- er felt love, it becomes clear that all three of consume a 90-minute documentary on your KAREN ROBINSON

44 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 phone. So we get the best of both worlds in While there haven’t been any recent con- policy on allowing transgender individuals these five-, seven-, 10-minute videos that troversies over short online documentaries, to serve openly, telling the Times editorial are more in-depth than what we’d read on a there have been plenty of charges of decep- board that the video played a part in its deci- Facebook newsfeed, but don’t require com- tive editing on feature documentaries, in- sion. “The personal stories,” said one senior mitting to a sofa at home.” cluding Netflix’s series “Making a Murderer,” defense official publicly, “helped shape what Media outlets are responding by hiring which has been accused of leaving out in- is otherwise an abstract concept.” staff and expending significant resources criminating evidence, and executive pro- The keys to producing a successful both to create documentary films in-house ducer Katie Couric’s documentary on gun mini-documentary for the web are in some and contract with filmmakers to show control, “Under the Gun,” which edited an ways the same as a full-length documentary: their work as a way to attract new audi- interview to appear as though gun advocates having unique access to a subject and telling ences and—possibly—create new revenue lacked a response to a key question. his or her story in a strong narrative style. streams. Web video advertising is projected For that reason, documentaries accepted In other ways, however, the short attention to be $11.43 billion in 2017, more than eight by Op-Docs go through the Times’s regular spans of online viewers, who at any moment times the $1.4 billion in 2010, according to fact-checking process, and producers are can open another tab, create unique chal- industry analyst eMarketer, which predicts not afraid to suggest edits and changes if the lenges. “It’s not like in the first five seconds it will continue to rise by double digits an- films don’t adhere to their standards. While someone has to bleed or die, but in the first nually throughout the decade. It now rep- that kind of back and forth may be expect- five seconds something visually or infor- resents 14.3 percent of spending online, ed with a print journalist, producers tread mationally has to bring someone in,” says up from 12.8 percent in 2015. At the same lightly with directors who may not be used Lingo. The transgender video, for example, time, news organizations are struggling to that kind of scrutiny. “It’s not dictatori- opens with Logan Ireland, a baby-faced to translate the documentary form, which al, it’s a democracy,” says Lingo. “It’s more American airman in Kandahar, Afghanistan, lends itself to slow, nuanced storytelling, for about a collaborative process.” That’s not to flubbing his introduction with a loud bleep platforms and audiences largely focused on say that the films need to be completely un- as he curses the camera, then flashes a dis- quick hits. biased; by labelling them as opinion pieces arming grin. Mission accomplished: You rather than straight news, the publication want to know more about him. allows the films to express a strong point of Having strong, fully-drawn characters— he New York Times led view in advocating on an issue. whether a transgender military couple or a the way in 2011 with Op-Docs, “The thing that unites all of our films surprising cadre of would-be astronauts— which took the model of the is that they are provocative and can start a is key to drawing viewers into the docu- Op-Ed page as a way to dis- conversation,” says Lingo, who judges the mentaries, says NYU’s Rock. “It’s more tinguish documentaries by success of videos by how many comments character-driven than information-driven,” Toutside filmmakers from its regular video they get. “The point isn’t to change people’s she says. news content. Traditional news stories on minds, it is to cause a reaction.” Equally important are strong visuals that the site range from 30 seconds to just a One good example of that kind of reaction can grab a viewer’s attention in the first few minutes in length, offering fast-paced is a video aired in 2015, titled “Transgender, place. Editors think long and hard about information on breaking news stories. Op- At War and In Love,” which tells the story choosing a visually arresting thumbnail im- Docs, by contrast, provide context, opinion, of a transgender couple serving in the Army age that will cause potential viewers to click and color on issues of the day. “In the same and Air Force. The couple risked expulsion on a piece. way we have outside writers submitting for openly revealing their status; transgen- Much of the initial appeal of “Angola For opinion pieces on diverse topics, we have der people were prohibited from serving by Life,” a film released by The Atlantic in 2015, outside filmmakers submitting videos with the Pentagon at the time. Instead, after an comes from the arresting opening shots, a strong point of view,” says Op-Docs ex- outpouring of positive public reaction to which resemble a plantation from more than ecutive producer Kathleen Lingo. The site the video, including over 100 comments, 150 years ago: Black inmates standing waist- runs the gamut of topics, with videos on President Obama invited the couple to the deep in the fields, while overseers with guns surveillance, immigration, and being 35 and White House. Six weeks after the film aired, watch them from horseback. “Before the single in the city. the Pentagon officially moved to change its Civil War, Angola was a plantation,” narrates For news organizations, there’s a natural Jeffrey Goldberg, now The Atlantic’s editor give-and-take in working with documentary in chief. “Today, there’s a reasonable chance filmmakers, who come from a different tra- that some of the men working this farm are dition of storytelling with its own rules. “The descendants of the slaves who once picked ethics that would kick in are about not stag- “The point isn’t cotton here.” ing things or manipulating the editing. Non- The Atlantic released the video along fiction filmmakers play around with that a to change people’s with a magazine exposé Goldberg wrote bit,” says three-time Emmy-award winning about Angola, in Louisiana, where 75 per- documentary producer Marcia Rock, who minds, it is to cent of its 6,000 prisoners are serving life directs the News & Documentary program sentences. As the video unfolds, it focuses at New York University (NYU). “Being on cause a reaction” on the efforts of the warden who has trans- a site like The New York Times, you don’t —Kathleen Lingo formed the prison, focusing on rehabilita- want any confusion about the truth.” Op-Docs executive producer tion, even though most of the inmates will

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 45 Nieman Storyboard

The Atlantic’s film on Angola prison includes interviews with Warden Burl Cain, a strong believer in the role of faith in rehabilitating inmates

never leave the prison. As Goldberg nar- it?” says video producer Kasia Cieplak-Mayr readers for quality video content as people’s rates the story and interviews the warden von Baldegg, whom The Atlantic hired in news habits become ever more fragmented and the inmates, the hopeful message con- 2011 to create a video channel for documen- and increasingly mobile,” says Guardian trasts with the bleak visuals—the punish- tary content. “The catch was, there was no News and Media commercial director ing Louisiana sun, inmates struggling in the budget,” she says. Over the next two years, Nick Hewat. Across the industry, demand fields, barbed wire and prison bars—em- she and her colleagues licensed some 1,000 for video advertising is currently outstrip- phasizing the full extent of the challenges short videos from around the web, and post- ping content supply. In a New York Times that face the prison. ed them to the site. The magazine saw the Company earnings call in 2016, president “When I look at investing our time and videos as a way to drive traffic—and adver- and CEO Mark Thompson specifically sin- effort and resources for documentaries, I tisers—to its website and give its writers gled out video and mobile advertising as ar- am always asking what is the bigger story, and editors another platform to get them- eas of “very strong” growth, even as digital and how does the visual medium help tell selves and their stories in front of audiences. display advertising has declined. Moreover, In 2013, the magazine doubled down with these video documentaries give outlets an- a new in-house department to make films; it other opportunity to shore up their brands now has a staff of 12 who often collaborate in a visual and highly engaging way, allow- with The Atlantic’s print writers. “It’s really ing them to differentiate themselves from exciting for us as a magazine with more than other publications. “I am always 150 years of history to see that we can bring Outside of the common elements of asking what is our journalists to a new platform,” says strong characters and visuals, the documen- Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg. In fact, she says, taries produced by each media outlet have the bigger story the video “Angola for Life” reached a larger their own sensibilities. The Guardian’s vid- audience than the accompanying magazine eos, for example, are often international and and how does piece by Goldberg. political in nature, while The New Yorker ex- Mini-docs are becoming a major part of tends its in-depth, narrative storytelling to [a documentary] news sites’ online strategy. The Atlantic’s video in features such as “The Journey from viewership has risen 78 percent in the past Syria.” For that six-part series of 10-minute help tell it?” year; The Guardian’s has more than dou- videos in which the magazine partnered —Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg bled over the past two years. “There is an with First Look Media’s documentary unit

Executive producer, The Atlantic increasing demand from advertisers and Field of Vision to record a refugee’s harrow- WILLIAM WIDMER/REDUX

46 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 A selection of stellar short documentaries

AJ+ was denied her crown because “Armed and Vigilant: she was deemed “too black” In Fear of a Muslim Uprising in Texas” “Putin’s Angels” Correspondent Tania Rashid’s A film about a biker gang in confrontation with an anti- Ukraine serving as a private Muslim hate group in Texas that vigilante group for Vladimir takes target practice with semi- Putin automatic rifles in the woods THE NEW YORK TIMES “Power Girls: Fighting “Animated Life” Rape in ” A series using paper puppets to A look inside the fight against illustrate breakthroughs in the “Birdie” follows a homeless street vendor and his two beloved dogs rape and sexual harassment by history of science a determined group of women in the wake of a gang-rape “A Conversation with fatality on a bus in 2012 Asian-Americans on Race” One in a series of films in THE ATLANTIC which different ethnic groups “The Enduring Myth discuss racial stereotypes of Black Criminality” An animated video with VOX national correspondent Ta- “Rapping, Deconstructed” Nehisi Coates accompanying A breakdown of how hip-hop a cover story on mass artists construct rhymes, using incarceration of African on-screen lyrics from rap songs Americans “Speaking is Difficult” uses 911 recordings to examine mass shootings “Proof of Evolution “Can Magic Mushrooms that You Can Find on Your Cure Addiction?” Own Body” An investigation by staff One of Vox’s most popular writer Olga Khazan on videos, with 22 million views research using psilocybin, the and counting, this explainer active component in magic offers a tour through vestigial mushrooms, to cure smoking body parts that help provide and other addictions evidence of evolution

FIELD OF VISION VICE NEWS “Birdie” “Blackout” A moving glimpse into the life A series investigating the of a homeless street vendor in intersection of technology and In “Animated Life,” scientific breakthroughs are depicted with puppets Rio de Janeiro and the two dogs free expression, including a look he’s adopted at the underground LGBT scene in Pakistan and a crackdown on “Speaking is Difficult” journalists in Belarus A mesmerizing examination of mass shootings in America “Poisoned by the told exclusively through images Gold Rush” of shooting locations and 911 A harrowing look into the Wild recordings from attacks West atmosphere of Colombia’s gold trade, along with the THE GUARDIAN disastrous side effects of “Too Black for TV” mercury used to process gold An investigation into the Brazilian carnival queen who —michael blanding “Power Girls” focuses on a female brigade fighting rape in India

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 47 Nieman Storyboard ing trip from Damascus to the Netherlands, at the same time telling the story of the fam- ily left behind in Syria. “Everyone is telling a refugee story,” says New Yorker senior video producer Sky Dylan-Robbins. “We wanted to find a great story that was true, and told in a beautiful and cinematic way, but that also had an unexpected angle.” By showing the lives of those left behind as well as those who left, the film humanizes and adds depth to the stories of both groups. Vox has developed its own style of ex- plainer videos that employ graphics, anima- tions, and news footage to translate a current issue. “There are a lot of 90-minute films that have a cast of 10 talking heads that guide you through a story, and then in the middle there is a three- to five-minute explainer that is hugely critical to explaining the whole thing,” says director Joe Posner. (Think Al Gore’s presentation in his global-warming film “An Inconvenient Truth.”) “What we are doing is liberating that to stand on its The New Yorker chronicles the harrowing trip of a refugee in “The Journey from Syria” own.” A recent popular video, “Syria’s War: Who is Fighting and Why,” explains the con- content depending on where it appears officials at a community meeting and ends flict in five minutes with color-coded icons online. Al Jazeera, which launched AJ+ in unresolved, with a warning of new pipeline representing Assad, ISIS, Hezbollah, and September 2014 specifically to produce projects and new blockades being planned other groups moving around a map. on-demand content for social media, cre- in the woods. Animation-heavy videos are particular- ates three different video formats: newsy A second part to the film, released 10 ly suited for sharing via social media, plat- “reaction” videos to quickly respond to cur- days later, continues the story, with direct forms that present unique challenges to rent events; 2- to 3-minute videos it calls “In confrontations between armed police and producers of online mini-documentaries. Context,” which feature interviews and ani- activists at the blockade, during which the Recent surveys have found that up to 85 mations for more in-depth analysis; and lon- indigenous defenders refuse to back down. percent of Facebook video is viewed without ger documentaries in the 10-minute range The film ends with the news that one of the sound. “We started subtitling our YouTube for more character-driven feature stories. natural gas companies has chosen a new videos early on as an accessibility tool,” says While AJ+ shares the first two formats on route that will bypass the activists’ camp. Posner, “and then it became completely in- Facebook, it reserves its documentaries for Throughout the film, the point of view stays dispensable when Facebook video became a YouTube and Vimeo. squarely with the activists, with no attempt big thing.” Now that Facebook has set videos Executive producer Michael Shagoury to explain the position of the other side. to play automatically as users scroll through defines AJ+’s style as “speaking truth to “We are choosing issues our audience cares their feeds, it has put even more pressure on power,” unabashedly appealing to the 18-34 about,” says Shagoury, “that reflect their documentaries to strongly draw in viewers age group with videos strongly advocating own identity, and their own beliefs and po- in the first few seconds. “We used to think on issues. “Our stories definitely have con- litical leanings.” about the thumbnail, now with Facebook, flict in them, clearly divided into two sides we think about what are the first three sec- that are visually represented in the piece,” onds that will sell it to the audience,” says he says. “Ideally that comes with some sort he new challenge for Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg. of confrontation between them.” A good ex- media sites is to retool An Atlantic video about the elements that ample is “How To Stop a Pipeline,” a tense mini-documentaries for view- make up the human body begins with a NASA documentary about an indigenous group in ing on the small screen of a astronomer lifting herself up into the frame Canada confronting oil and gas companies smartphone. A 2015 study by in a campy jerk—that’s enough to cause trying to build across their land. Tthe Interactive Advertising Bureau found viewers to pause while scrolling through The video establishes the conflict early, that 58 percent of users watch short videos their Facebook feeds, enough at least for Dr. showing the indigenous protesters setting of under 5 minutes on their phones, while Michelle Thaller to reel them in over the next up a blockade at a bridge along a wood- 36 percent watch longer videos—and the few seconds of her intro: “So what is human ed section of road. “We are going to go numbers only seem to be increasing. Since existence? How can we sum it up? It turns out through all the peaceful avenues we can,” AJ+ launched less than three years ago, says it’s pretty simple: we are dead stars.” says one leader. “When all those fail, it’s Shagoury, there has been a 50 percent drop While most producers put the same war.” The film builds towards a tense con- in desktop viewing and a corresponding 50 videos on different platforms, some target frontation between activists and industry percent rise in mobile viewing. According to TIMES OP-DOCS OPPOSITE: THE NEW YORK BEHRAKIS/REUTERS; YANNIS

48 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 “We are choosing cofounder of Short of the Week, which Debeij supplements his creative work has been curating short films online since with client work, in his case creating issues our 2007. Phillips, who himself was previously commercials for the likes of JetBlue and deputy director at Sheffield International the Sacramento Kings. Other filmmakers audience cares Documentary Festival, understands such have used the short documentary form concerns but ultimately rejects them. as a launching pad to documentary features. about, that “There is a frustration among non-narra- An Op-Docs film “Notes on Blindness,” tive filmmakers or those making aesthetic a haunting evocation of the notebooks reflect their own documentaries, because we don’t do films of a writer gradually losing his vision, won like that,” he says. “Any platform has to re- an Emmy in 2015. Afterward, British film- identity” act to its audience.” At the same time, he’d makers Peter Middleton and James Spinney —Michael Shagoury hardly call online documentaries “dumbed expanded the film into a feature documen- Executive producer, AJ+ down.” “This is an informed and intelligent tary of the same name. It won awards at audience,” he says. “They are craving infor- Sheffield International Documentary mation and they are craving story.” Festival and the San Francisco International Making films for news sites also provides Film Festival, and was released in theaters “instant gratification,” says Joris Debeij, a in the U.S. in November. Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg, The Atlantic now filmmaker from the Netherlands who has The current wave of mini-documentaries sees a near even split, with 46 percent desk- lived the past seven years in Los Angeles. A is providing new opportunities for filmmak- top, 45 percent smartphone, and 9 percent few years ago, he bought a camera and start- ers and media sites. “We are the forefront of tablet. Sites and filmmakers have been slow ed making short films of the characters he this really amazing moment,” says The New to adjust to the switch, with most admitting met in L.A., often tackling themes of social Yorker’s Dylan-Robbins, who in 2015 started that they don’t change the way they are mak- and economic inequality, posting them on- a collective of visual journalists called the ing the films for mobile viewing, outside of line on his website I Am Los Angeles. One Video Consortium that has already swelled increasing the size of the subtitles. of them, “The Bull Rider,” was acquired by to more than 1,000 members. “People are Some feel the switch to the small screen Op-Docs, an honor he equates with “the realizing that video is an amazing medium is hurting quality. “There is a real worry [in same level of prestige as getting into a good to get across important stories in a quick the film festival community] that content festival” without the long wait that can fol- way that matches with the attention span of is being dumbed down,” says Jason Sondhi, low submission. people in today’s world.” P

Acquired by The New York Times’s Op-Docs, “The Bull Rider” profiles former world champion bull rider Gary Leffew and his bull riding school

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 49 Books

in which injunctions on publication can be served, while the balance of competition and collaboration between organizations re- moves the risk of an editor unilaterally killing newsworthy coverage. Now and for the fore- seeable future, the likelihood that a leak will appear in a single publication, in the country in which it is most relevant, will be in inverse proportion to the leak’s importance. The Shadow of the Future These two changes—the heightened leverage of sources and the normalization of An essay in “Journalism After transnational news networks—are threaten- Snowden: The Future of the ing even to democratic states with constitu- tional protections for the press (whether de Free Press in the Surveillance jure, as in the United States, or de facto, as in the United Kingdom). Those governments State” examines the changing always had significant extralegal mecha- nisms for controlling leaks at their disposal, power dynamics between but empowered sources and transnational networks threaten those mechanisms. reporters and governments This containment of journalistic outlets BY CLAY SHIRKY inside national borders resembled a version of the prisoner’s dilemma, a social science thought experiment in which each of two people is given a strong incentive to pursue significant short-term gain at the other’s expense. At the same time, each participant has a weaker but longer-lasting incentive to create small but mutual, longer-term value. The key to the prisoner’s dilemma is what In the age of heightened surveillance, the need fter [Edward] Snowden, Robert Axelrod, its original theorist, calls for—and threat to—watchdog journalism we see how much power now “the shadow of the future.” The shadow has intensified, with Edward Snowden’s 2013 lies with the leaker. Snowden of the future is what keeps people cooper- leak of classified documents signaling what demonstrated that the prin- ating over the long term—in friendships, may become a new norm in national secu- cipal value WikiLeaks had businesses, marriages, and other relation- rity coverage. The impact of surveillance on providedA was not in receiving the source ships—despite the temptations of short- investigative journalism is among the topics materials but in coordinating a multination- term defection of all sorts. explored in the anthology “Journalism After al network of publishers. Snowden himself News outlets and governments ex- Snowden: The Future of the Free Press in took on this function, contacting Laura ist in a version of the prisoner’s dilemma. the Surveillance State,” edited by Emily Bell Poitras and directly. Publications have a short-term incentive to and Taylor Owen and published by Columbia The potential for a global news network publish everything they know, but a long- University Press in February. It includes a has existed for a few decades, but its prac- term incentive to retain access to sources conversation between Bell and Snowden and tical implementation is unfolding in ours. inside the government. Governments have an essay by former Guardian reporter Glenn This normalization of transnational report- a short-term incentive to prevent news Greenwald who in 2013 broke the news of the ing networks reduces the risk of what engi- outlets from discovering or publishing any- Snowden revelations. neers call a “single point of failure.” As we thing, but a long-term incentive to be able to In “Political Journalism in a Networked saw with Bill Keller’s craven decision not to bargain for softening, delaying, or killing the Age,” Internet and society scholar Clay Shirky publish ’s work on the National stories they really don’t want to see in public discusses what actions journalists and publi- Security Agency in 2004, neither the impor- (as happened with Keller). cations must take to augment their ability to tance of a piece of political news nor its exis- report newsworthy stories while minimizing tence as a scoop is enough to guarantee that government interference. An edited excerpt: that it will actually see the light of day. The global part is driven by the need for leak- Excerpted from “Journalism After Snowden: ers to move their materials outside national The principal value The Future of the Free Press in the Surveillance jurisdictions. The network part is driven by of WikiLeaks is State” edited by Emily Bell and Taylor Owen, the advantages of having more than one or- published by Columbia University Press 2017. ganization with a stake in publication. in coordinating Used with permission. All rights reserved. The geographic spread of the informa- a multinational

tion means that there is no one legal regime network of publishers IMAGES FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP/GETTY

50 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 As long as both institutions have an while publications outside the vindictiveness became obvious extended time horizon, neither side gets United States will not be con- to all. The heroic work of The all of what it wants, but neither side suf- strained by legal challenges, Washington Post is the stuff fers the worst of what it fears, and so the threatened loss of insider ac- of journalistic lore, but the relationship bumps along, year after year. cess, or appeals to patriotism. mechanical nature of the tape (There have been a few counterexamples: There is one final pattern that recorders actually made them I. F. Stone did all his work for his weekly the Snowden leaks make visible. the most trusted reporters on newsletter by researching government data, In the middle of the twentieth the story. never interviewing politicians or civil ser- century, mainstream news both As the quality and range vants. He reasoned that the quid pro quo relied on and produced cultural “Journalism After of reporting by objects has in- of increased access but reduced ability to consensus. With the erosion of Snowden: The Future creased, it has had the curious publish would end up creating more restric- the belief that mainstream me- of the Free Press effect of making the partisan tions than it was worth.) dia speaks to and for the general in the Surveillance nature of both reporters and The shadow of the future has meant that public in an unbiased way, the State” edited by publications a less serious issue. Emily Bell and Taylor even in nations with significant legal pro- presumed lack of objectivity of Owen (Columbia If Mother Jones, predictably lib- tections for free speech, the press’s behav- any given news organization University Press) eral, had been able to report Mitt ior is considerably constrained by mutual has become a central concern. Romney’s remarks about the 47 long-term bargains with the government. Alongside this change, however, we are wit- percent only because a bartender heard and Empowered leakers and transnational publi- nessing the spread of a new form of objective repeated them, the story would have circulat- cation networks disrupt this relationship. A reporting: reporting done by objects. ed among the magazine’s left-leaning readers leaker with a single issue—the world should There are, of course, precedents to ob- but no farther (as with most stories in that see what the State Department or the NSA is ject-based reporting; tape-recorded con- publication). That bartender recorded the doing, to take the two obvious examples— versations in Nixon’s White House ended conversation, however, and the fact of the has no regard for the shadow of the future, his presidency, as his foulmouthed, petty recording meant Mother Jones’s reputation

The publication of the classified NSA documents released by Edward Snowden helped usher in a new era of national security coverage

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 51 Books

didn’t become a serious point of contention. disarming attempts by the government or Because people had to trust only the record- partisans elsewhere to deny the accuracy ing, not the publication, the veracity of the of present or future stories generated from remarks was never seriously challenged. those documents. This pattern of objective recording In past leaks—the Pentagon Papers, trumping partisan reputation is relatively Watergate—it took the combined force of new. Indeed, in the 47 percent story, other- leaked information and a mainstream pub- wise sophisticated political observers like lication to get the public’s attention, and Jonathan Chait predicted that Romney’s mainstream publications were, almost by remarks would have little real effect, be- definition, the publications most invested cause they didn’t understand that the ex- in the shadow of the future. Meanwhile, istence of a recording simply neutralized more partisan publications of the twentieth much of the “out of context” and “he said, century were regarded with suspicion; even she said” posturing that usually follows. accurate reporting that appeared in them Mother Jones no longer had to be main- rarely went beyond niche audiences. After stream to create a mainstream story, pro- Snowden, the world’s governments are of- vided that its accuracy was vouched for by ten denied even this defense. This creates a the bartender’s camera. novel set of actors: an international partisan In Snowden’s case, many of the early rev- press that will be trusted by the broad pub- elations about the NSA, and especially the lic, as long as it traffics in documents that wholesale copying of data flowing through announce their own authenticity. various telecom networks, had already been There will be more Snowden-style leaks, reported, but that reporting had surprisingly because the number of people with access to little effect. The facts of the matter weren’t vital information has proliferated and can- enough to alter the public conversation. not easily be reduced. Even one-in-a-million What did have an effect was seeing the doc- odds of a leak start to look likely if a million uments themselves. people have access, as was the case with the All inter-office PowerPoint decks are State Department’s cables. So what should bad, but no one does them as poorly as the journalists and publications do to maximize federal government. The slides describing their ability to report newsworthy stories the PRISM program were unfakeably ugly, and minimize government interference? visibly made by insiders talking to insiders. Three broad skills are required. As with Romney’s remark about the 47 per- First and most important, reporters have cent, the NSA never made a serious attempt to get good at encrypted communication. (It to deny the accuracy of the leak or to cast would be useful if news organizations began aspersions on the source, the reporters, or encrypting even routine communication to the publications. avoid not just signaling to the governments Like the Nixon tapes and the Romney they cover when something particularly im- video, the existence of the Snowden docu- portant is happening but also to provide cov- ments also gave Glenn Greenwald, one of er to sensitive sources.) Encryption is not the most liberal journalists working today, a an IT function; individual reporters have to bulwark against charges of partisan fabrica- become comfortable sending and receiving tion. Indeed, he didn’t just publish his work encrypted e-mail, at a minimum. And, as was in The Guardian, a liberal U.K.-based paper; the case with both Manning and Snowden, he took the data with him to an Internet it’s important to recognize—and to get the startup, , believing (correctly) source to recognize—that encryption is no that the documents themselves would act as guarantee that a source won’t eventually be a kind of portable and surrogate reputation, identified. It is a tool for buying time, not paper can’t be successfully pressured to guaranteeing anonymity. withhold them. (This “doomsday switch” Second, journalists and institutions in scenario seems to have been used by John contact with leakers need to have a plan for McAfee, in his fight with the government involving other journalists or institutions of Belize, an indication that the pattern ex- Brave sources are located in a different jurisdiction. While the tends beyond journalism.) going to require brave leaks that get the most attention are nation- And third, both journalists and publica- journalists and brave al scale, we can expect additional leaks from tions should figure out to whom they might inside businesses and local governments. It be useful as a third-party recipient of some publications—and lots may be valuable to have a New Jersey news- other journalist’s or publication’s secrets. In of technical expertise paper holding vital documents about a sher- moments of crisis (and important leaks tend and cooperation iff in Colorado to make sure the Colorado to precipitate crises), those in need of back- EDDIE KEOGH/REUTERS

52 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Graffiti art in England plays on British fears that the nation’s eavesdropping agency shares information it intercepts with its U.S. counterpart up will turn to people they already trust. If face of this threat; the Obama administra- Brave sources are going to require you are a journalist, an editor, or a publisher, tion has become the greatest enemy of press brave journalists and brave publications. ask yourself which other publications, any- freedom in a generation (a judgment made They are also going to require lots of where in the world, would turn to you if they by James Risen, the man whose NSA story technical expertise on encryption among needed backup? Bill Keller quashed). reporters and lots of cooperation among These leaks are far more threatening to Leaks will still be relatively rare. But be- sometime competitors. The job of pub- secretive organizations when perpetrated cause they can happen at large scale, across lications is to air information of public by clerks instead of chiefs and distributed transnational networks, and provide doc- concern, and that is increasingly going outside the bounds of local jurisdiction; uments the public finds trustworthy, they to mean taking steps to ensure that no they are also harder to question or deny. We allow publications some relief from extra- one government can prevent publication. are already seeing the world’s democracies legal constraints on publishing material in Nothing says “We won’t back down” like behave like autocratic governments in the the public interest. burning your boats on the beach. P

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 53 Nieman Notes

“A great editor, a gentle and genial mentor” Peter Binzen, NF ’62, a dean of Philly journalism, as remembered by Bill Marimow, NF ’83

Peter Binzen, a 1962 Nieman Fellow who covered for more than half a century, died in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on November 16 from complications of a stroke. He was 94. Binzen spent more than 30 years as a reporter, columnist, and editor covering education and urban affairs at The Evening and Sunday Bulletin. After the newspaper closed in 1982, Binzen was recruited by his Nieman classmate, Philadelphia Inquirer executive editor Gene Roberts, to join the Inquirer as a business columnist. It was at the Bulletin that Nieman Bill Marimow, now editor of The Inquirer, met Binzen:

It was spring 1970, and I was a wide-eyed, inexperienced talk, he asked me to write a story on the differences between newsroom staffer at The Philadelphia Bulletin, then one of the hitchhiking in Europe in the summer of 1969, which I’d done for largest evening newspapers in the United States. A note on the three months, and hitchhiking in Philadelphia during a transit newsroom bulletin board from Peter Binzen, metropolitan editor, strike that had just ended. When the piece was complete, Binzen invited one and all to provide him with ideas for “enterprise himself did the editing, gently but firmly improving key lines and stories.” I vividly recall tremulously typing up—yes, we had only tightening up my sprawling narrative with skill and precision. typewriters back then—a list of more than a dozen story ideas. That was Peter Binzen: A great editor, a gentle and genial I walked into his office and asked if I could share them with mentor, a wonderful colleague and, as I learned later, an equally him. Binzen, who was 48 at the time, greeted me like an old skillful reporter and writer. As Gene Roberts, Peter’s Nieman friend. As I sat there, he read the entire list, offering a comment classmate, told The New York Times, “If there were such a thing about several ideas he considered promising. At the end of our as dean of Philadelphia journalism, Peter would have been it.”

Springsteen’s first wedding to for creating positive work 1953 1961 the energy industry in Alaska. environments for women. William “Bill” Steif died John Herbers, a longtime at his home in Blythewood, New York Times reporter, Barbara Reynolds 2003 South Carolina on October died March 17 in Washington, collaborated with Coretta Susan Smith Richardson 15 from respiratory failure D.C. He was 93. Reporting for Scott King on her memoir, is the recipient of a 2016 related to dementia. He was United Press International “My Life, My Love, My Legacy,” Justice Leadership Award 93. Steif spent most of his before joining the Times, published in January by Holt. from the nonprofit Treatment career at Scripps-Howard Herbers covered racial turmoil Alternatives for Safe Newspapers, joining the in the 1950s and ’60s. He 1996 Communities for her work national news organization’s retired from the Times in 1987 Timothy Golden is one as the editor and publisher of Washington, D.C. bureau in after spending nearly 25 years of six recipients of the The Chicago Reporter, which 1962, where he covered politics. with the paper. He authored inaugural Whiting Creative focuses on race, poverty, and He later became a foreign a number of books, including Writing Grant from the income inequality in the city. correspondent, reporting from “The Lost Priority” (1970), Whiting Foundation, which Europe, the Middle East, and about the decline of the civil awards $35,000 to authors of 2005 Africa before returning to rights movement. A currently works in progress. Golden’s Louise Kiernan is the first Washington in 1977. untitled memoir is expected to is a narrative history of editor in chief of ProPublica be published next year. Guantanamo detention camp. Illinois, the nonprofit’s first 1955 state-based expansion. Selig S. Harrison died in 1972 2000 Camden, Maine on December Gerald Meyer is the author of a Dennis Cruywagen is the 2008 30 due to complications from new book, “The World Remade: author of “The Spiritual Jenifer McKim, a senior a blood disorder. He was 89. A America in World War I,” Mandela: Faith and Religion reporter for The Eye at the New leading foreign correspondent published by Bantam in March. in the Life of South Africa’s England Center for Investigative in Asia during the 1960s, Great Statesman,” which was Journalism, has been awarded Harrison was hired by the Post 1977 published by Penguin Random a McGraw Fellowship for as bureau chief in New Delhi John Painter Jr., a longtime House in December. Business Journalism to support in 1962, and later served as the Oregonian reporter, died an investigation of foreclosures paper’s bureau chief in Tokyo. on November 18 from 2001 and elderly homeowners. In the 1970s, he became an complications from pancreatic Sayuri Daimon, the executive important liaison with North cancer. He was 78. Painter operating officer and managing Fernando Rodrigues has Korea and was granted many spent nearly four decades editor of The Times, is launched the website Poder360 interviews with Kim Il Sung, at The Oregonian, where he a recipient of Forbes Japan’s to cover the ins and outs of

the father of Kim Jong Il. covered everything from Bruce Women of 2016 award, Brazil’s government. TEMPLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES URBAN ARCHIVES / PHILADELPHIA EVENING BULLETIN

54 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 “#ZuptasMustFall, and Other How Israel Became a High- 2009 Rants,” published by Penguin Tech Military Superpower,” 2016 Hannah Allam has joined Random House in December. It published by St. Martin’s Press Cansu Çamlibel has been BuzzFeed News as a national is a compilation of his writings in January. named Washington, D.C. reporter covering Muslim life. on South Africa. correspondent for the Turkish 2014 newspaper Hurriyet. 2011 Adam Tanner is the author Flavia Krause-Jackson is Deb Price is the new Beijing- of “Our Bodies, Our Data: the London-based European Anastasia Taylor-Lind was based managing editor of the How Companies Make Billions government editor at a fellow in the fall at the Carey English newsroom of Caixin, a Selling Our Medical Records,” Bloomberg. Institute for Global Good. She financial publication. which was published by Penguin worked on a book proposal Random House in January. Ravi Nessman is regional about the visual representation 2012 news director for the U.S. of contemporary warfare. David Joyner has been named 2013 South for the Associated Press. executive editor of The Eagle- Laura Amico has joined Mary Meehan covers health Tribune, in North Andover, Harvard Business Review as a 2015 for Ohio Valley ReSource, a Massachusetts, and the North senior editor working on digital. Melissa Bailey has joined regional journalism collaborative of Boston Media Group. Kaiser Health News in Boston, reporting on economic and Yaakov Katz is co-author writing about end-of-life and social change in Kentucky, Ohio, Fred Khumalo is the author of of “The Weapon Wizards: other health topics. and West Virginia.

2017 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellows Named

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism has selected 11 journalists and media executives as Knight Visiting Nieman Fellows for 2017. Each is working Trushar Barot, London-based Sandra Barrón Ramírez, a Raheel Khursheed, head of on an innovative project to mobile editor for BBC World designer at Borde Político and news partnerships for India advance journalism across Service, will research how Transparencia Mexicana, will and Southeast Asia at Twitter, multiple platforms. audio AI assistants can help create an index of disappeared will examine the feasibility of a news audiences. and missing people in Mexico. micropayments platform.

Malin Dahlberg, digital editor Nina Lassam, director of Lewis W. Diuguid, most Nicholas Quah, founder of for SVT, Sweden’s largest TV ad product at The New York recently an editorial board Hot Pod, a newsletter about network, will develop a strategy Times, will look for ways to member at The Kansas City podcasts, will explore how for fact-checking services to encourage female engagement Star, will examine diversity and podcasts can help strengthen better connect with audiences. in comments on stories. equity in journalism. local public radio stations.

Jane Elizabeth, a manager at Nikki Finke, senior editorial Stephanie Reuter, managing Carlin Romano, critic-at- the American Press Institute, contributor for Penske director of the Rudolf Augstein large for The Chronicle of will study how social media Business Media, will explore Foundation in Germany, will Higher Education, will organize teams might evolve as part of best practices in reporting and research how foundations can clinics for citizens who want to accountability journalism. analysis in a 24/7 media world. best support journalism. bring stories to the media.

NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 55 Sounding

When War dier, is imprisoned and tortured by the in- each other they ultimately are. Then you try surgents? This was a situation my colleague to get the idea of reconciliation, not hate, Comes Home faced. These are the complicated choices across to your readers. In Ukraine, Ukrainian journalists are facing. Nor is be- While staying in Donetsk, I was in con- ing on the other side any easier. How can stant fear of being arrested, like some of my journalists who you remain an objective journalist and a loy- colleagues, for working with foreign media remain neutral al citizen of your country after you work in and for traveling to the Ukrainian side. On the face formidable Donetsk observing civilian neighborhoods Ukrainian side the methods are more humane being shelled by government forces? though the attitude is similar. In May 2016 challenges It’s easy to be a person of principle in a the website Mirotvorets (“Peacekeeper”), peaceful and democratic environment. But notorious as the unofficial platform of the as soon as the situation becomes emotional- Ministry of Interior, published a list of over ly charged for a journalist—when things get 4,000 journalists who had applied in the last hree years ago I worked personal—then a discourse of “truth above two years for DPR accreditation. “We con- as a news editor at Donbass, neutrality” prevails. This is when we realize sider it necessary to publish this list because the largest newspaper and that truth is never simple. these journalists are cooperating with the news website in my native city My house in Donetsk was shelled by militants of the terrorist organization,” the of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. governmental forces. This is true. It was introduction said. Among the “collabora- TThe governor’s weekly press conferences, shelled by retaliatory fire, because an hour tors” were journalists from The Associated construction of a new hockey arena, sever- earlier rebels—trying to use my family as Press, Agence France-Presse, BBC, Reuters, al scandalous crimes a year—that was my human shields—had shelled government Al Jazeera, and The New York Times. journalistic routine. It felt like nothing un- forces from my backyard. This is also true. But the ones truly impacted by this offi- expected could happen in my life. Supporting one or another side, you can cially sanctioned leak were local journalists But it did. In the spring of 2014 war came choose your truth. Journalists in DPR men- who, often risking their lives, dared to cover to my city. Tanks and armed people showed tion only the first. Ukrainian journalists the conflict on both sides. Among the people up on the streets of Donetsk, which suddenly mention only the second. Being neutral, you hounding us were many of our former col- turned into the capital of the self-proclaimed have to mention both. leagues who had proudly become soldiers Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). My neigh- I chose to be neutral and never regret- of the disinformation war, putting “patrio- borhood became a battlefield. My newspa- ted it. Talking to people on both sides of tism” above objectivity. per was forced to suspend its activities. But the frontline, you realize how similar to Being in the U.S. for the shocking pres- I didn’t stay unemployed for long. Because idential election, I have had a unique op- of the armed conflict, our region attracted Alisa Sopova portunity to observe conflict in American the interest of the international media, and society and in the journalism community. I started working for them—first as a fixer, I am pleasantly surprised to see many col- then as a reporter for The New York Times. leagues grappling with the situation in all its My fancy office dresses were replaced complexity, asking vexing questions such as by a flak jacket and a helmet, as I spent two how did the country become so polarized years covering the conflict. I’ve seen people and where do we find a common language. fighting, surviving, and dying. My colleagues Journalists in the U.S. have a responsi- and I often found ourselves under shelling. bility beyond their nation. Thousands of my I came to realize that the biggest chal- colleagues in post-Soviet countries (not to lenge for a journalist in a situation like this mention the developing world) look up to is not even the physical danger, but the American journalism as a model. I hope that moral and emotional dilemmas of cover- journalists in the U.S. will sustain enough ing extraordinary events in your homeland. professionalism and democratic instinct to Should you write about corruption in the come out of this crisis stronger, wiser, and army, knowing that your story will eagerly Talking to people on both with answers to these ethical issues. We still be picked up by the Russian propaganda need a good example. P machine and used against your country? sides of the frontline, you How do you balance opinions about the realize how similar to each Alisa Sopova, a 2017 Nieman Fellow, is a reporter

conflict while your brother, a Ukrainian sol- other they ultimately are and producer for international media in Ukraine MAGAZINE CARMICHAEL/HARVARD LYDIA

56 NIEMAN REPORTS winter 2017 Nieman Online

From the Archives “The Captive Press: How a Senator Can Monopolize the Loudspeaker,” published in the July 1950 issue of Nieman Reports, ended on a chilling note: “The advent of McCarthyism has thrown real fear into the hearts of some of what a demagogue can do to America while the press helplessly gives its sometimes unwilling cooperation. Perhaps Joseph McCarthy, Senator from Wisconsin, is not a demagogue. But who knows? One greater than McCarthy may come.”

“The Future of News” As part of “The Future of News: Journalism in a Post-Truth Era,” held at Harvard in January, Nieman Lab posted an overview as well 2017 Nieman Fellow Lolly Bowean issued a rousing call for journalism that highlights the as full transcripts and videos from “The extraordinary acts committed by ordinary people Future of News: Journalism in a Post-Truth nieman.harvard.edu/events Era.” Nieman curator Ann Marie Lipinski led a conversation with Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker, New York Times op-ed columnist David Leonhardt, and Huffington Post editor in chief Lydia Polgreen. Other speakers included , founder of The Weekly Standard, and CNN senior media correspondent .

MisinfoCon At the MisinfoCon summit in February hosted by the Nieman Foundation, First Draft Coalition, and Hacks/Hackers, the focus was on an immediate and executable range of actions designed to stop the spread of misinformation.

Weekly Newsletter “As journalists, This email features new Storyboard posts, narrative news, and links to some of the we have the power best literary journalism on the Internet. One Great Sentence Another new weekly feature spotlights one to empower.” really great sentence. Recent sources range —LOLLY BOWEAN from Outside magazine to Esquire and The CHICAGO TRIBUNE REPORTER American Scholar.