NIEMAN REPORTS

WHAT MUST DO NEXT Danielle Allen • Perry Bacon • Joshua Benton • Michael Calderone • Jeff Jarvis • Mark Jurkowitz Jill Lepore • Matt K. Lewis • • Diana Marcum • Nicco Mele • Michael Oreskes • Ricardo Sandoval Palos • Wendi C. Thomas • Keven Ann Willey • Jeff Young Contributors The Nieman Foundation for at www.niemanreports.org Keith O’Brien (page 6) is a former reporter for , a for National Public Radio, and author. He has written for The Times , , and Slate, among other publications.

Gabe Bullard (page 12) is the senior publisher producer, digital and strategy, for , a new Ann Marie Lipinski public radio show launching in 2017 on editor stations across the country. A 2015 Nieman James Geary Fellow, he is the former deputy director of senior editor digital at National Geographic. Jan Gardner editorial assistant Carla Power (page 20) is the author of the Eryn M. Carlson 2016 Pulitzer finalist “If the Oceans Were design Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to Pentagram the Heart of the Quran,” about her studies ’s rise to the presidency is being viewed by journalists and historians as an important time to reflect on the best way to move forward editorial offices with a traditional Islamic scholar. She is a One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, former correspondent for . MA 02138-2098, 617-496-6308, Contents Fall 2016 / Vol. 70 / No. 4 [email protected] Naomi Darom (page 26), a 2016 Nieman Copyright 2016 by the President and Features Departments Fellows of . Fellow, is a visiting researcher at Boston Periodicals postage paid at University’s Center. She is a storyboard cover Live@Lippmann 2 Boston, and contributing writer at Musaf Haaretz, the The Power of Oral Former New York Times editor What Journalists Must Do Next 30 additional entries weekend magazine for Haaretz History as Journalism 6 In the wake of the presidential , in Israel. First-person reports are bringing new journalists are exploring the issues, subscriptions/business attention to an old form of storytelling Niemans@Work 4 617-496-6299, [email protected] challenges, and opportunities that will By Keith O’Brien Teaming up with a four-legged friend, inform political reporting going forward Adrienne LaFrance (page 48) is a staff crafting the quasi-memoir, guiding Subscription $25 a year, By Danielle Allen, Perry Bacon, Joshua writer for . Before that, she was Crowdfunding the News 12 toward reinvention $40 for two years; Benton, Michael Calderone, Jeff Jarvis, add $10 per year for foreign airmail. a at the Nieman Journalism Gaining what and so Mark Jurkowitz, Jill Lepore, Matt K. Lewis, Single copies $7.50. Lab, an investigative reporter at Honolulu often take away: the crowd and the funding Books 56 Ann Marie Lipinski, Diana Marcum, Back copies are available from Civil Beat, and a news anchor at Hawaii By Gabe Bullard “The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide Nicco Mele, Michael Oreskes, Evan Osnos, the Nieman office. Public Radio. to Digital Change” Ricardo Sandoval Palos, Wendi C. Thomas, Reporting on Islam 20 By Bharat Anand Please address all subscription Keven Ann Willey, and Jeff Young correspondence to: How journalists are stepping up efforts to One Francis Avenue, provide nuanced coverage of Muslims Nieman Notes 60 Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 By Carla Power watchdog and change of address information to: Access, Accountability Sounding 66 P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108 Reporting and 48 Andrea Bruce, NF ’16 ISSN Number 0028-9817 The award of Covering the tech sector presents a the 2015 profound accountability challenge Postmaster: Send address changes to in Literature to Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, By Adrienne LaFrance correction Svetlana Alexievich Manchester, NH 03108 has elevated the Due to a reporting error in “Pulitzer’s Forgotten Classics” in the profile of Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) Summer 2016 issue, Herbert Bayard Swope was erroneously credited oral history is published in March, June, with winning the first for Public Service. It was the first page 6 September, and December by Pulitzer Prize for Reporting that he won in 1917. the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, Due to an error in “Pulitzer’s Power Struggles,” a photo of One Francis Avenue, Hank Williams Jr. was identified as his father. It was the elder Williams

Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 who received a posthumous Pulitzer in 2010. BOTTOM: PRESS; REUTERS/ OPPOSITE TOP: JULIO CORTEZ/ASSOCIATED Live@Lippmann

parts of my leadership were flawless by any writing this, it was becoming untrue, slowly, Jill Abramson: “You’ve got to means, but I thought that was a much bigger but if you graphed the highs and lows, it was deal than most of my colleagues did. starting to go down. What I’m trying to do get a younger generation in in the time frame that I picked— from 2006 the habit of reading that On the importance of diversity to now—is chart the transition from a print There’s not enough diversity in most news- world to a digital world. highest-quality journalism” rooms. That’s something I admire about I’m mimicking Halberstam. I’m looking . Their is very diverse. at four institutions, and how they weath- The former New York Times They have succeeded. It can be done. You have ered those times. Why 2006? Because the Jill Abramson said the rise in makes raising awareness of articles part of publishing to have leadership at the top who really cares iPhone was about to be introduced, Google executive editor on why she about it. bought YouTube, so video was really start- On the shift in publishing on. Vice’s pieces for HBO are like mini-doc- If you have a diverse business, you ing to become a big news conveyor. In the old days, which are really fairly recent, umentaries. They go and cover places that admires BuzzFeed, misses get more customers. If you use diverse started in 2006. The Facebook when something went up on the web or no one else goes to. , and the public holds suppliers, you have a stronger business. It began in 2006. It’s a totemic year. It’s when rolled off of the presses, that was publishing. directly impacts the audience, because it BuzzFeed started, and it’s when Vice, which That was the end. It was a finite point. On the low public trust in journalists the press in such low regard means that, with stories affecting women, is another institution that I’m looking at With the rise of social media, raising the “Why?” is hard. It requires a many-faceted you won’t have so many that talk about, closely, was becoming the cool brand. They awareness of the work is part of the actual answer. A big reason for it is the dumbing dwell on, appearance. You won’t be slow were very early video pioneers. They used publishing system now. That you have to down of news, turning everything—even a to realize that the Trayvon Martin case is a YouTube as their distribution system. In a get it out. That you have to know how to presidential debate—into a celebrity, as my national story. The national was way, BuzzFeed and YouTube were the first use Facebook or Twitter. BuzzFeed has students said, cage match. People feel that slow on that story. At least having been in distributed content purveyors. They used many platforms that they distribute on. there’s no elevating or relevant purpose to newsroom then, there that model. It didn’t matter to them wheth- They custom design every article. Even for investing your time in reading the news, be- weren’t enough journalists—either editors er you came to vice.com or buzzfeed.com. Pinterest. cause so little of it helps you figure out how ill abramson, executive It’s not like I feel there should be strict or reporters—saying “This is a huge story. They were using social media or YouTube. It’s like, “We’re and the Post, to spend your day. What is really important? editor of The New York Times from rules, and you should never be able to de- Wake up. Wake up, you mainly white editors.” In addition to BuzzFeed and YouTube, I am and we’ve published these stories.” Actually What isn’t important? It’s sort of a confus- 2011 to 2014, worked at the Times for scribe someone, whether a man or a woman, We’re supposed to be reflecting the world. looking at the Post and the Times. distributing them is not the job of trucks ing jumble right now. 17 years. Now she is writing a politi- or anybody’s clothes. Sometimes it’s reveal- If you’re going to bring people the The thing that interests me most is anymore. It’s the job of the to dis- I love Eli Pariser’s book “The Filter cal column for ; teach- ing, and important to talk about it, but you world, you better include people who are that what BuzzFeed and Vice are both do- tribute and call attention to the content of Bubble.” At least in the U.S., there is a filter Jing journalism at Harvard, which is have to demonstrate in your writing why covering the world who have different ing now is building up more conventional their stories. bubble and the way information spreads on her alma mater; and researching a narrative you’re bringing it up, why it’s emblematic perspectives and knowledge sets about news muscles. They badly want to create The Post and the Times want a larger social media and through algorithms means nonfiction book about the media. Modeled on and important. That’s rarely done. the world. Your audience is not going to themselves as lasting institutions and get young readership. They should. God forbid that you’re basically getting news that you David Halberstam’s “The Powers That Be,” I’m surprised that so many stories are be diverse either, if you’re only telling the respect that so-called legacy news orga- either one of them dies out when their aver- agree with. That’s contributed to the po- her book will look closely at the evolution of still written that seem so stereotypical when things from the point of view of a very nizations like The New York Times or The age reader is about 46 years old on the web larization of news. Most people are not all BuzzFeed, Vice, , and The women are the subjects, and that editors don’t privileged, cosmopolitan white person. Washington Post get. The Washington Post and in print it’s a little bit older. When those that partisan so they’re not that interested New York Times over the past 10 years. During immediately edit it out. There were too many and The New York Times are trying to be- people perish, the kind of journalism that in highly polarized news. They don’t really a talk in September at the Nieman Foundation, regrettable times at The New York Times On the book she’s writing come digitally innovative, so they’re sort of the Times and The Washington Post unique- believe it when different outlets say they are she said that the two online media outlets and when something went into print, and then you What I’m trying to do, which may be unat- switching hats, and that interests me a lot. ly do, you don’t want that to go away. You’ve not partisan. their legacy counterparts are “sort of switch- would get an avalanche of reader revulsion. tainable, is to write a version for now of “The I’m interested in quality information sur- got to get a younger generation in the habit ing hats.” The upstarts want the gravitas of Because I was the first woman in a lot of Powers That Be,” which was, I thought, a viving and growing. I haven’t yet reached a of reading that highest-quality journalism. On the demise of Gawker the established print giants who, in turn, want the most senior jobs I had at the Times, I great book that David Halberstam, a Harvard definitive conclusion, at least one that I’m I’m sorry it’s gone. I would look at it a lot. to be “digitally innovative” and attract the young felt personally ashamed, always, because I man and a Timesman, wrote about the me- ready to share. On the appeal of BuzzFeed and Vice I’m not above reading gossip and I thought readers the upstarts have claimed as their own. couldn’t possibly read everything that was dia in the late ’70s. What he did is he focused BuzzFeed and Vice are in tune with younger that [founder] Nick Denton in many ways Edited excerpts: going into the paper. on four institutions. It was The Washington news consumers. BuzzFeed’s legal editor, was absolutely right in premising his theory I thought it was a very cool achieve- Post, the LA Times, CBS News, and Time Chris Geidner, who is based in Washington, of publishing on: if journalists are going to On in the media ment that the news masthead of the Times magazine. He made a narrative out of his started covering the issue of gay marriage be talking amongst themselves about some- It surprises me that there are still so many became 50 percent female during my first theme, which was—it’s laughable now, but way earlier than many national news or- thing really juicy, share it. Publish it. stories that I would see at the Times that, if year as executive editor, but I don’t think it’s that the media had become so powerful What I’m trying to do is ganizations. He knows the gay community I obviously have problems with publish- it was about a woman at the top of business, that generated much support. Don’t ex- and so profitable that they towered over the inside and out so he was just on it. He knew ing things that are untrue. I don’t think ev- would always describe her clothes, especially pect a round of applause from your people, political class, that they had too much con- write a version for now of this is a really big deal in the gay communi- erything they published should have been shoes. There’s an obsession with shoes and because it became synonymous with “Jill centrated power. What’s ironic, and I have David Halberstam’s ty, “Someone should have it as a beat, and published, but I like that spirit. I like juic- heels that go, “Click, click, click.” is playing favorites.” I’m not saying other great fears for my own book, is as he was ABITBOL LISA “The Powers That Be” that’s going to be me.” That was very early iness in news. I do. P

2 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 3 Niemans@Work

The Maryland-based Warrior Canine With Bunce at my side, At the Hinge Many of us veteran journalists covered a Connection relies on volunteers like me even people suspicious of Big Story where we were uniquely connected to train and socialize puppies their first Of History the media tend to let down to the key figures. Such was the case with an two years. Part of that instruction is taking Floyd McKay, NF iconic period in the political and historical Bunce to work with me each day, on every their guard and open up life of Oregon in the middle of the last cen- assignment. ’68, draws on his tury. I distilled it in my book “Reporting the He’s joined me at the White House, the newsman days for a Oregon Story: How Activists and Visionaries Pentagon, on Capitol Hill, and at numerous book about an era Transformed a State,” published in 2016 by Breaking crime scenes, where even hardened detec- Oregon State University Press. It describes a Oregon Governor Tom McCall watches as tives paused to greet him. What I never yellow Lab “just like Bunce.” He was delight- that transformed creative and bold era (1964–1986) that made Floyd McKay announces his re-election in 1970 Through Barriers anticipated was that Bunce would be influ- ed to learn Bunce was from the “Semper Fi” the state of Oregon Oregon a national leader in environmental Andrea McCarren, ential in countless news stories, and the key litter. That’s the Marine Corps motto, mean- . The state passed a bottle bill, pro- the Oregon Story,” which was augmented to breaking some big ones. ing “always faithful.” tected public access to beaches, and estab- by the personal recollections reporters are NF ’07, finds a In April, Bunce helped me confirm a We talked about Bunce’s mission to serve lished progressive land-use laws, to name wont to exchange over a few drinks. four-legged friend critical tip in a case that captivated the veterans with visible and invisible injuries. a few accomplishments. The era laid the As a professor, I burnished my inter- is an asset for Washington area for weeks. A young, He said, “I wish these dogs were around foundations for 21st-century Portland as a est in regional history, and mixed in with beautiful firefighter had disappeared in when I came home.” when journalism becomes work— national magnet for the young and creative. my freelance news stories were academic her reporting Shenandoah National Park. Her car was The rest of the media was at the com- as opposed to adventure—it’s time to Media and politicians of the era treated articles focused on the Pacific Northwest discovered in a dirt parking lot along the mand post, on the other side of the moun- move on; that’s what I did after three each other with skeptical respect and civili- and its media. As I recalled the critical in- rugged eastern border. tain, more than an hour’s drive away. decades as a reporter and commentator ty; the leading papers and television stations teractions of media and during the The closest town is Etlan, Virginia, so re- Suddenly, our location became a hub of ac- in print and television, at the Oregon had full-time, experienced political report- Oregon Story era, I realized that reporters mote, there’s no cell service. In small towns, tivity. Two-way radios crackled. A helicopter Statesman in Salem and KGW-TV in ers and their stories got good play. It was a like me were at the hinge of history, and our people tend to be suspicious of the media. hovered overhead. The state trooper rolled Portland. Later, after 14 years teaching my prestigious beat. We rubbed shoulders with reflections would be a contribution to the over decades of reporting, my tool­ But with Bunce at my side, they let down out yellow crime scene tape. My colleague craft at the college level, I returned part our sources without constant acrimony and region’s history and to newcomers young box has evolved: from a pen and notebook their guard and open up. It wasn’t long be- and I were asked to clear the area. time to the adventure. we shared common goals. and old who had little knowledge of how to a smartphone, and for the last year, fore we received a critical tip: “There was a Bunce and I approached the Marine It took me into what was, at least for me, In that age of paper, I had filled draw- their environment was built. a 75-pound English Labrador retriever note in the car. A suicide note,” one of the Corps veteran. a new genre: the quasi-memoir. At first I ers with scripts, notes, and clips, and car- Both the writing and post-publication named Bunce. locals told me, as she patted Bunce. “They’re “I guess they found a body,” I said. thought I’d invented the term; Google dis- ried them with me as I made career moves. book events were rewarding; we were “back He’s named for Marine Cpl. Justin Bunce, looking for a body.” “I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything,” he abused such thoughts. Ultimately they fed my writing of “Reporting in the day” and it is still an adventure. P severely wounded while on patrol in Iraq. We drove to that desolate parking lot, replied. His eyes locked onto mine. “You I’m raising this happy, energetic yellow Lab where a Virginia state trooper stood guard, know, I’ve dealt with a lot of DEATH.” to become a service dog, who will some day along with some national park rangers and a I nodded and mouthed the words A BETTER ADAPTER Their tales were wistful During a recent term as For the four Carolina help a veteran with post-traumatic stress or few volunteers. One was a vet- “thank you.” He winked and whispered, BILL CHURCH, NF ’16, and even wishful, yet editors a Knight Visiting Nieman newsrooms, defining physical disabilities. eran and a Marine, who had grown up with a “Semper Fi.” P SEEKS TO JOIN of community Fellow, my multi-tasking relationships and “jobs to be CORE VALUES AND are committed to journalism at Harvard focused on done” offers a starting point Bunce, the English Lab Andrea McCarren is training to be a service dog for a veteran, goes with her on every assignment NEW APPROACHES that makes a difference. organizational dynamics in changing organizational AS HE GUIDES Michael Smith, executive for small newsrooms. structure. What could NEWSROOMS TOWARD editor of the Spartanburg Should newsrooms emerge is a hybrid model REINVENTION Herald-Journal, has been migrate to a hybrid that focuses on local in his South Carolina organizational structure? reporting in each community community long enough to Are so-called “legacy” and cross-functional teams raise a family to adulthood. newsrooms capable of (such as regionalized digital- He has moved up the systemic changes? Can first teams) that provide newsroom ranks, seen small newsrooms shift operational adaptability. what should newsrooms the birth of a website and to nonlinear decision- Two months after the look like in the future? mobile products, and now is making? fellowship ended, my world No one knows the answer. guiding his newsroom and Nerdy questions, indeed. changed. I’m no longer But there is energy in three others in nearby North My research looked at executive editor of the uncertainty. And the best Carolina. publicly held companies, Sarasota Herald-Tribune way to find an answer is He’s energized by the start-ups, international and GateHouse southeast start an adventure. Even if it uncertainty and adventure. media organizations, and regional editor. That means getting up at 3 a.m. His teams still are about even hospital emergency magical (if expired) Harvard Two flights later, I’m in , but their rooms. What emerged ID card takes me to Austin Gastonia, , newsrooms will be different. was a recognition as GateHouse’s senior vice a turn signal west of More focused. More that uncertainty is an president of news. Charlotte. GateHouse Media adaptable, too. opportunity, that changing Reinventing newsrooms editors representing four My roles with the editors organizations must start takes more than a day trip to daily newspapers gathered were listener, questioner, with understanding Gastonia. But I’m energized.

OPPOSITE: DAVID FALCONER/THE OREGONIAN FALCONER/THE OPPOSITE: DAVID to discuss the way forward. and organizational nerd. relationships. Adventure awaits. P

4 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 5 The Power of Oral History as Journalism First-person reports about Bill Cosby and Chernobyl bring new attention to an old form of storytelling BY KEITH O’BRIEN

“i think i started every interview with: tell me how you met Bill Cosby.” Noreen Malone, a senior editor at New York magazine, didn’t plan the question ahead of time. As she set out to interview the 35 women accusing Cosby of sexual assault for New York’s July 2015 cover story, Malone had other questions on her mind, like would the alleged victims speak to her at all? Could she get them to open up? But once she began interviewing the women, one by one, Malone realized that this question—neutral yet probing, simple yet cutting straight to the core of the narrative—was the perfect place to begin a painful discussion. “I let them choose the starting point for the story,” she says. “It just put it on their terms. And it just went from there.” Malone is a magazine writer, not an oral historian. But her work- ing method for the Cosby story could have been pulled straight from the oral historian’s handbook. Ask open-ended questions. Get people talking, and keep them talking. The women, to Malone’s surprise, did just that. And the more they talked, filling 232 pages in transcripts, the more Malone realized her voice, the writer’s voice, would only get in the way. “The flow of a feature didn’t feel quite right for it,” she says. “To me, what was so effective was hearing from the women Ithemselves and having that be as undiluted as possible.”

6 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 Illustration by Alex Nabaum Her editors agreed. So Malone edited the Literature for her body of work, including the growing interest in oral history. “There the histories, and it all in to tell the of important makers who might later transcripts down by theme: how the women “Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History Reporters really is a human need—a biological, emo- story. Instead, I had my hands tied because interest historians, transcribe the interviews met Cosby, what happened, and why they of a Nuclear Disaster,” a compilation of in- tional need—to connect with another per- I needed to stick to the first-person voice.” and make them available to all. Like a mem- came forward. And the story that resulted terviews, written as monologues, stretching interested son. And I think this is a way of doing that. That fall, over coffee at a midtown din- oir, Sullivan says, “It was meant to be read.” was something of a hybrid. Malone wrote at times for pages and detailing the horrors in narrative are It’s a form of intimacy, and it’s cathartic. It’s er in , Bingham met with her But by the 1960s and ’70s, people inter- an opening essay, followed by first-person of the 1986 nuclear accident. being heard and being listened to.” editor, , winner of the Pulitzer ested in oral history were increasingly fo- “testimony” from the alleged victims—an StoryCorps, perhaps more than any increasingly Even archival material—recorded long Prize and the best-selling author of biogra- cused on gathering sound, and then using oral history, of sorts, like writing, only com- other organization, has helped make oral ago and stored away, often forgotten, in phies of Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, that sound—the interviews they had done— pletely different. “It’s the opposite of writ- history mainstream. The project, which turning to academic libraries—is in greater demand, and others. And unlike Bingham, he wasn’t to build something all its own. The dawn of ing,” Malone says. “You’re not taking a blank has recorded some 65,000 conversations observes Doug Boyd, director of the Louie concerned. “I remember he said, ‘You know, the portable stereo tape recorder made it page and creating something new from it. since 2003, archiving them at the Library of oral history B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the this is your book. There are no rules. You an increasingly affordable endeavor. Great You’re sculpting away; you’re chipping away; Congress, specializes in recording first-per- University of and president of can do whatever you want to do.’ And the journalists, including and and cutting to make it so much better.” son voices. In 2015, the organization made the Oral History Association. “We used to second I decided I could do whatever I George Plimpton, began to play around with Oral history is undergoing something of it even easier for people to preserve their brag about 500 people using our collection wanted to do, that really freed me up.” the form, inventing something new. “A rel- a revival. In recent months, like stories, launching a free mobile app that has a year. We’re getting about 8,000 to 10,000 Where Bingham struggled to get her atively new genre in publishing,” Plimpton (oral history of the Allman since notched up nearly 80,000 interviews. a month now,” he says. “We get requests, characters to speak—on the record, to her— wrote at the time, “the use of oral history as Brothers), Vanity Fair (oral history of the And, in general, more people are listening, every day, from all over the world.” And about their pasts, she plugged holes, bor- a form of communication.” Comedy Cellar), and Outside (oral histo- according to Robin Sparkman, the organiza- he’s getting new material, too—new inter- rowing tracts from the characters’ diaries Some early guidelines, penned by long- ry of “Hot Dog… The Movie”) have pub- tion’s CEO: StoryCorps podcast listenership views—five times what he used to collect in and memoirs. The decision kept her 656- time oral historian Willa Baum in her book lished panoramic tales using first-person has doubled in the past year. “Human be- a year. page book in the first-person and revealed “Oral History for the Local Historical interviews. In 2015, Belarussian author ings all over the planet, we’re really trying to “Everyone’s speaking for themselves something else about oral history as a form: Society,” included tips that remain relevant Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for connect to other people,” Sparkman says of more,” says journalist and documenta- The rules are fungible. Journalists pursu- even now: “An interview is not a dialogue ry film producer Clara Bingham from her ing oral history narratives employ different … Ask one question at a time … Ask brief book-lined office on New York’s Upper strategies and techniques to tell their sto- questions … Don’t let periods of silence West Side. “Everyone’s blogging. And ries. But it’s also clear—through a growing fluster you … Try to avoid ‘off-the-record’ there’s less tolerance in having the edito- raft of magazine articles, radio pieces, and information … Don’t switch the recorder off rial buffer of an editor, journalist, writer. books—that reporters, interested in narra- and on … Don’t use the interview to show People are gravitating now to first-person tive, are increasingly turning to oral history off your knowledge, vocabulary, charm or story voices more than they have in a long as a vehicle for storytelling. other abilities.” time. It just feels like we’re in a first-person The term oral history has been around Bingham realized early on how import- storytelling renaissance.” for decades, though, early on, it was primar- ant those tips were. “I had to be a much With “Witness to the Revolution: ily the domain of folklorists, archivists, and better interviewer,” she says. “I couldn’t do Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the academics. In the 1930s, the Federal Writer’s any backfill. There was nothing I was able to Year America Lost its Mind and Found its Project, funded by the New Deal, gathered add. I needed each one of my characters to Soul,” which hit shelves in May, Bingham the first-person narratives of former slaves, tell their entire story. So it was a much more is part of that renaissance. Long interested still alive in America; people who had trav- elaborate, intimate, involved interview—es- in oral history, Bingham decided to do the eled West in covered wagons; and others pecially with the main characters—than it book—the story of the turbulent times from with interesting stories, say, about meeting would be in a normal sort of history.” 1969 to 1970, told through the voices of the Billy the Kid or surviving the Great Chicago Bingham began by coaching her subjects. peaceniks, protesters, and others who lived Fire of 1871. “I need you to be really basic in describing them—in the form. But it wasn’t until 1948 that oral history everything,” she recalls telling them over and But by the fall of 2012, her initial ex- became an area of true academic study. Allan over again. No acronyms. No jargon. “Don’t citement was spiraling into doubt. “I had Nevins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and assume I know anything,” she’d say, before a bunch of dud interviews,” she recalls, historian formed an oral history department, asking her sources to walk her through the “where people didn’t remember anything.” the nation’s first, at . shootings at Kent State University, or the Other key protagonists were long dead Nevins was worried about changes in the My Lai massacre, or the bombing campaign or unwilling to speak at the level of detail world—namely, the growing popularity of in Cambodia. “You need the person to in- Bingham needed to carry the narrative the telephone and the declining number troduce themselves and even talk about the in their voices. She had begun the project of people keeping diaries—and how those most obvious things,” Bingham says. “Very thinking it would be simpler than penning changes might hurt future generations try- basic stuff that I could have found out, but I a traditional nonfiction narrative. Now, she ing to tell stories about the past. “There was needed them to say it.” was thinking something else: It would be so this fear that historians in the future were Often, they didn’t—not intentionally, much easier to just write the book. not going to have enough evidence in the Bingham says, but because they went off “I was just really struggling with this new archives to write the history of the contem- on a tangent or didn’t understand what form,” she says. “If you’re writing a straight porary moment,” says Sady Sullivan, current she wanted. So she’d stop the interview history—if you’re Rick Perlstein writing curator at the Columbia Center for Oral and go back. “All the time,” she said. “I’d about Nixon in ‘Nixonland’—I could use History Archives. circle back, circle back, circle back. And if I

COURTESY OF THE COMEDY CELLAR OF THE COMEDY COURTESY anything. I could use all of those documents. So Nevins set out to conduct an exper- couldn’t get the right answer, I’d ask it three Jon Stewart at the Comedy Cellar, the subject of an oral history in Vanity Fair I could use all of the first-person and all of iment: He’d gather “oral autobiographies” different ways.”

8 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 9 It’s a problem every reporter faces, but editorial judgment and also you’re shaping am I getting a take on a situation that seems one that’s especially tricky when the writ- the material—you have a certain type of fresh? The best oral histories aren’t just a er is limited to using only the interview. control over it.” walk down memory lane, but a journey into That’s why those who pursue the craft on a The best ideas, according to Murphy, be- something new and hopefully revealing, mo- more regular basis are almost scientific in gin with a timeline: “It’s just essential. And ments people have never discussed before. their approach. once you have that, you have a horizontal At that point, the timeline developed by “When you’re putting together an oral bar running from start to finish.” The Vanity the editors helps inform where the material history, you’re part writer, you’re part re- Fair team working on the story then identi- will be placed in the narrative. But for jour- porter, and you’re part editor—all at the fies key points on that horizontal bar and nalist and author James Andrew Miller, it’s same time,” says Cullen Murphy, editor at makes a list of important players. “And important that reporters be flexible when large at Vanity Fair. “And, if you’re lucky, when you’re done with that, you basically working with oral history interviews. “I’ve you’re also working with a team of people have your game plan. You know who you never been a slave to any kind of outline that who are in the enterprise with you. You’re want to reach. You know what you want to I’ve done,” he says. “You have to be prepared calling up one another and saying, ‘Hey, I talk about. And, with the team of people, you for all these delicious surprises that come just spoke with so-and-so. Listen to this.’” begin doing it.” up. Otherwise, you’re basically driving a Few publications have pursued oral his- In the interviews that follow, Murphy is Porsche at 40 mph. If you’re not going to let tory as often—and as in-depth—as Vanity not looking for an intense back-and-forth, yourself be swayed and moved and affected Fair. Since 2000, the magazine has published but rather a conversation focused on stories, by what you’re learning in these interviews, lengthy oral histories on “The Simpsons,” and assessments and memories—of both then it’s pointless.” Guantánamo, and the birth of the , the character’s behavior and the behavior of Miller is the co-author of the oral his- among other topics, building them out of others. “You want the person you’re speak- tory narratives “Live From New York,” the detailed interviews and writing them in the ing with to just talk and talk and talk,” he behind-the-scenes story of “Saturday Night voices of the characters themselves. says. “From time to time, you interject a Live,” and “Those Guys Have All the Fun,” “In a way, it allows you to have your cake question to focus it or bring up something about the rise of ESPN. This past summer and eat it, too,” says Murphy, who has helped they’ve said. But it’s deceptively passive. Miller published his latest: “Powerhouse: edit some of the oral histories and co-writ- Because what you really want is for them to The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative ten one himself, “Farewell to All That: An go on as much as possible.” Artists Agency,” one of Hollywood’s great Oral History of the Bush White House,” For the Bush White House story, Vanity power brokers, involving more than 425 with Todd S. Purdum in 2009. “It allows you Fair spoke to about 50 people, generating interviews, many with people who’d never to bring a wide variety of voices into a story some 2,000 pages in transcripts. Then it’s before spoken with a journalist. and really let them have their say, while, at the editor’s job to begin asking questions: Often Miller’s biggest challenge is get- the same time—because you’re exercising When am I learning something new? When ting sources to go on the record, because, without the material, in their words, he can’t use it at all—and with “Powerhouse,” he says, that was certainly a problem he had to overcome. In the final stages of editing the new book last winter, Miller flew to StoryCorps, which has helped make oral history mainstream, has recorded some 65,000 conversations since 2003 to have meetings with nearly two dozen people, trying to convince them to put certain anecdotes on the record. “I In 2009, New York magazine’s oral his- with some 1.7 million in all, and time spent— pleaded and begged and tried to explain tory feature “My First New York”—with fa- across all the magazine’s digital platforms. why I thought it was important,” he says. mous people recalling their first weeks in the There was news value to the story, of In the end, there was no convincing some city—drew more than a quarter of a million course, and powerful photos of the women people. Still, oral history remains Miller’s page views and a book deal. Four years later, to go along with it. Both elements certainly favorite vehicle for telling stories: “There’s the magazine commissioned another feature helped the piece have an impact, well be- just nothing more revealing. The level of dubbed “Childhood in New York,” with still yond New York City, the magazine’s sub- verisimilitude is much higher. The rawness more famous people telling stories, in the scribers, and readers already interested in is more apparent.” The best oral first person, about growing up in the city. the broadening Cosby scandal. But editors Noreen Malone, at New York magazine, Again, the piece resonated, generating nearly at the magazine believe the oral history ap- doesn’t always think so. “I actually don’t al- histories aren’t 700,000 page views, according to the mag- proach helped, too. For the first time, really, ways love oral history as a form,” she says. azine’s internal statistics. And then came people got to hear from the women them- She worries, at times, that oral histories just a walk down the Cosby cover story. The initial tweet, selves—all of them together—and there was can be lazy, an indication that the reporter with the cover photo of Cosby’s 35 alleged power in that, according to Malone. Back at couldn’t figure out how to write the story memory lane, but victims and Malone’s story attached, racked her desk in New York, she prepared herself and dumped the interview transcripts onto a journey into up more than 13,000 retweets and four mil- for a backlash—from , Cosby support- the page instead. But there’s no question lion impressions. At the newsstand, the print ers, and Internet trolls. “But the response,” that the form is popular, not only among something new edition with the Cosby story was New York’s Malone says, “was overwhelmingly in sup- editors, but among readers. And there are top seller for 2015. And online, the Cosby port of these women.” Readers had heard

Svetlana Alexievich won a Nobel Prize in part for her oral history of the Chernobyl disaster numbers to prove it. PRESS OPPOSITE: MARK HUMPHREY/ASSOCIATED IMAGES; LEFT: SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/GETTY and revealing piece was also tops—by both unique visitors, their voices. P

10 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 11 The Tribune's of Senator Wendy Davis's 11-hour filibuster remains a seminal moment for its crowdfunding efforts Crowdfunding the News Crowdfunding’s financial contribution to news is still meager, but journalists are finding that crowdfunding can bring what Google and Facebook so often take away: the crowd and the funding BY GABE BULLARD ERICH SCHLEGEL/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX ERICH SCHLEGEL/THE NEW YORK

12 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 13 way of soliciting and spending contribu- Crowdfunding’s financial contribution tions. “From our major donors or our cor- to news— has raised more than porate underwriters or foundations, we’re $6 million for journalism projects since generally seeking broad operating support,” 2009, Beacon raised over $1.5 million in 2015 Ramshaw says of the Tribune’s typical reve- alone, and other platforms have brought in nue streams, while with crowdfunding, “We millions more—is still tiny compared to can really say, ‘Your dollars allow us to go the more than $150 billion spent on digital above and beyond what we already do.’” advertising worldwide in 2015. And there’s The Tribune isn’t the first newsroom to instability in crowdfunding platforms. try crowdfunding, or the first to find success. In September, Beacon announced it was In St. Louis, crowdfunding has spawned a shutting down. It follows two other jour- partnership that’s kept a reporter covering nalism crowdfunding sites—spot.us and Ferguson after most national media left Contributoria—that were also shuttered in the city. In the Netherlands, crowdfunding the last five years. The company did not re- helped launch a newsroom that’s rethinking turn a request for comment and didn’t give news cycle. Crowdfunding has pro- a reason for the closure, but Khari Johnson, vided money to launch an education maga- the founder and editor of Through the zine for girls, to publish a book on Japanese Cracks, a site that covers journalism made video game developers, and to fact-check possible by crowdfunding, says Beacon’s n June 25, 2013, Texas politicians in Argentina, among hundreds end is not likely an indicator of wider trends state Senator Wendy of other projects. in crowdfunding. “Maybe it’s evidence that Davis spent nearly 11 Journalism is just one of the many in- a [crowdfunding] platform that’s focused hours on the chamber dustries where crowdfunding presents an solely on journalism can’t survive, but I floor filibustering a bill Internet solution to problems caused by don’t believe this is evidence that crowd- that would have restrict- the Internet. When downloads and stream- funding in journalism is going anywhere,” ed access to abortion in ing wrecked record sales, musicians went he says. “The platform is not the sun; it’s her state. The speech directly to fans to finance new albums and a planet if it’s anything. The crowd is the drew the national eye to Austin, and many tours; likewise with filmmakers, inventors, sun,” he says. Despite Beacon’s demise, of the watchers followed the action live on and novelists. Now, with more advertising crowdfunding is growing while many news In a crowdfunded examination of the shale oil industry boom, The Texas Tribune explores the proliferation of prefabricated housing for workers Oa video hosted by The Texas Tribune. “We dollars going not to news sites but to ’ advertising revenue shrinks. And as were one of the only ones carrying this early and Facebook—websites that are just an al- The Texas Tribune and other crowdfunders The Tribune didn’t offer magnets, but- the papers, but they may affect us all in ways and then report on it, they are expecting a version of the livestream, which went viral,” gorithm change away from redirecting mil- have found, crowdfunding has benefits that tons, or branded notebooks like it had on we don’t yet know until we start looking into format that works well in their daily lives,” says Tribune editor in chief Emily Ramshaw. lions of potential news readers—journalists, aren’t monetary. Kickstarter. Stories and the option to join a them and see.” Sanders says. In addition to the Shale Life The Tribune’s stream drew nearly too, are finding that crowdfunding can bring But it’s not a matter of opening a Q&A session with the Tribune’s reporters By this point, it was clear that crowdfund- series, the Tribune has crowdfunded mul- 200,000 viewers by night's end. That viral- what Google and Facebook so often take Kickstarter account and watching read- were the only rewards. In one month, the ing wasn’t just a of revenue or a way to timedia stories that look at water issues ity was powerful: Davis quickly became the away: the crowd and the funding. ers and dollars pour in. Like most start-up outlet raised $6,030, more than enough to gauge in stories—it was draw- on the U.S.-Mexico border, the security of face of the pro-choice movement; the pink “Journalism is struggling right now businesses, most journalism crowdfund- finance the reporting. The resulting proj- ing in new readers to the Tribune website. In that border, the reasons why police officers sneakers she wore during the filibuster be- because of how efficiently the web com- ing campaigns (more than 75 percent on ect—“The Shale Life”—consisted of 15 all, the Tribune’s five Beacon projects have use their service weapons, and they’ve also came the bestselling shoe on for a moditizes content and disseminates stuff Kickstarter) fail to be fully funded. Those pieces, either slideshows or videos with lit- attracted hundreds of donors—more than a used crowdfunding to put money toward a time; and that fall, boosted by the attention, that gets people’s attention,” says Adrian that succeed, whether they’re in Texas, tle text. The project credits list more than 20 third of them new to the Tribune—who have political podcast. And Ramshaw says with- Davis launched a campaign for governor. Sanders, cofounder of the journalism-only St. Louis, or the Netherlands, come from names, reporters, developers, and design- given a total of over $130,000. “It kills two out Beacon, “I can only imagine we’ll try to The Texas Tribune launched a cam- crowdfunding site Beacon. “Directly com- journalists who want something besides a ers who helped tell the stories the Tribune birds with one stone,” Ramshaw says. “We’re keep innovating in that space, on our own or paign, too. The newsroom posted a project municating with your readership and asking paycheck, and who are willing to use their wouldn’t have been able to tell without always in audience development mode. We with future partners.” on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter them if the work you do is valuable (by ask- support and supporters to produce report- crowdfunding or without taking resources want to bring in as many new readers as pos- With a topic chosen and the budget and seeking $60,000 to stream live video from ing them to pay) is the only way to discover ing that’s innovative, engaging, and about away from other reporting. The series won sible. What’s phenomenal is we end up mak- goals set, the campaign turns into market- the gubernatorial race and “to make unfil- a viable funding mechanism for journalism.” much more than money. an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio ing money for a project and also drawing in ing. Ramshaw says the Tribune reaches out tered video the norm in politics.” Within 30 The Texas Tribune Kickstarter campaign Television Digital News Association. new readers at the same time.” to the readers it had in mind for the project. days, the campaign drew about 1,300 sup- gave the site $65,000 it didn’t have before, And the audience appreciated it. “These The Tribune’s crowdfunding success For instance, they might ask subscribers to porters and surpassed the goal. With the but it also showed there was an appetite for are projects that may have once been cov- comes from a combination of story selec- the site’s healthcare newsletter to support a money, which totaled $65,310 ($35 of which enhanced coverage, and that people were ered by newspapers or magazines, but today tion, targeted messaging, and audience en- project that relates to public health. And the came from me), the Tribune bought new willing to pay for that coverage. Spurred by are falling through the cracks due to lack of gagement. But it’s not just financial need Tribune makes sure the story is still the main equipment and was soon livestreaming its success, before election day, the Tribune funding,” says Brent Boyd, a geophysicist in that inspires their crowdfunding. “You reason for these people to give—backers are debates, panel discussions, and interviews A VIDEO THAT WENT launched a second project, partnering with the oil industry and a Texas Tribune mem- pick topics that resonate with people,” offered behind-the-scenes looks at the edito- with candidates. Beacon to create what editors promised ber who gave to the Shale Life campaign. Ramshaw says, noting that the audience has rial process rather than physical prizes, rein- As a nonprofit, the Tribune was already VIRAL HELPED THE TEXAS would be a “sweeping multimedia project “I am happy to give to stories that are be- to be willing to not just look at a story, but forcing the idea that the funding only goes to adept at collecting reader contributions— on life inside the Texas shale boom.” The ing overlooked and need investigating. To to pay for it. And how they look at it mat- make the story possible. as well as grants, philanthropic dollars, and TRIBUNE LAUNCH A Beacon page previewed a few stories that me, the unsexy stories—the Boring But ters; Beacon encourages experimentation Johnson says by not offering (or not be- money from events—to pay for operating examined how rural and small-town Texas Important Stories—are the crowdfunding in presentation. “When someone gives you ing able to offer) the kinds of physical re-

costs. But crowdfunding presented a new CROWDFUNDED CAMPAIGN were changing as the shale oil industry grew. TEXAS TRIBUNE KALIFA/THE TAMIR stories. They may not get the clicks or sell money to find information, understand it, wards seen in other types of crowdfunding,

14 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 15 journalists can ensure they get backers who One issue that long went unnoticed in Ferguson because there was more to say, and of the movement was a community of active, engaged readers— are giving because they want a story to exist. the national media was race and class in- because hundreds of readers were paying her nominated for an award from the National IN CROWDFUNDING, THE backers of journalism crowdfunding cam- “An is great, but if your read- equality in cities like St. Louis, Missouri. to say it. Association of Black Journalists. “The way paigns are often the most helpful when it ers decide something as a group and then The August 2014 shooting of the unarmed Stewart was working at a mall near St. in which Mariah embedded herself and AUDIENCE’S, NOT THE comes time to share important stories and pay for, that sends a message,” Johnson says. black teenager Michael Brown in the suburb Louis when Michael Brown was killed. A re- that she embedded herself in lots of differ- communicate their impact,” the page states. “Crowdfunding is a form of reporting that of Ferguson changed that. Within days, re- cent college graduate with a degree in jour- ent situations brought a new lens to a lot NEWSROOM’S, NEEDS This has come true. In addition to clicks, consults the reader and it gives the reader porters from around the country swarmed nalism, she felt compelled to go to Ferguson, of the landscape,” says Nicole Hudson, a Stewart’s reporting gets reactions. “When a hand in the editorial practices of news- the city. And what they found—apart from even though she didn’t have a newsroom former journalist who works with Forward MUST COME FIRST I’m out and about, people are like, ‘Hey, I rooms. And that’s a pretty awesome thing.” protests and a militarized police response— to write for. “I just began live-tweeting” Through Ferguson to continue the efforts of read your work,’” she says. “It’s a service “The audience needs to be at the cen- was a long-simmering discord that few peo- she says. After a few days, a professor told the state’s Ferguson Commission. Stewart’s to them and the community to make sure I ter of what you’re doing because you’re ple outside of the city knew about. When the Stewart about Beacon: The site had raised supporters, she says, motivated all of her continue this coverage as well as possible.” not pitching an idea to an editor, you’re Department of Justice issued a report alleg- about $4,000 to keep reporters covering work. “I feel extremely obligated to do my With Beacon closing and with the pitching a concept to an audience,” says ing unlawful bias against African-Americans Ferguson, and Stewart was soon writing job well and thoroughly because these peo- crowdfunding money running out in 2016, Ethan Mollick, an assistant professor of in Ferguson, the Gateway Journalism Review pieces that Beacon published on its own ple who raised this money, clearly they care the Post and the American haven’t decid- management at the Wharton School of the asked, “How did so many news organizations site, using the publishing tools it made about the issue as much as I did,” she says. for her to work out of the offices of The ed whether to try for a third year of the University of who has stud- fail for so many years to uncover deeply un- available for anyone who posted a project Stewart maintains an e-mail newsletter St. Louis American, an African-American Ferguson Fellowship. King says he’s cer- ied crowdfunding in all industries, using constitutional police and court practices?” there. Later that month, The Huffington to let supporters know what she’s up to, and . This gave her a desk and tain crowdfunding would pay for another Kickstarter’s data and network. “It was extremely beneficial that so much Post sought to continue the coverage and she occasionally gets tips in response. This reliable Internet access, and also a larger au- year. And Ryan Grim, The Huffington Post’s Crowdfunding may never replace adver- national media came,” says Mariah Stewart, launched a campaign to hire Stewart full- kind of back and forth with financial backers dience, as her byline began appearing in the Washington bureau chief who works with tising, but crowdfunded work has become a a St. Louis-based journalist who covered time as the Post’s Ferguson Fellow. Driven would be startling if Stewart were support- American, which is distributed free across Stewart, says it’s possible they may seek “segment of journalism that’s driven in large the protests for The Huffington Post. “They by readers’ concerns that Ferguson would ed by a foundation or by advertisers. But the metro area. more reader support, perhaps even through part by public interest and motivation,” says helped expose what was going on in the re- soon be abandoned by the national press, she says the backers don’t dictate what she St. Louis American a subscription-like service such as Patreon. Amy Mitchell, director of journalism re- gion, which I guess some local outlets did the project drew nearly 700 supporters and covers. “When I know that people donated Chris King says the partnership and the “I think the way to do it today is to do it in search at the Pew Research Center. “It adds cover, but not to the extent national me- raised $44,626 to pay Stewart’s salary. money, I do want to hear them out, but I’m crowdfunding have been “super-valuable” monthly or weekly installments to get peo- yet another way for the public to engage and dia brought attention.” But, Stewart notes, As a crowdfunded reporter, Stewart has not obligated to do what they want,” she for the paper, because he didn’t have the ple who want to be regular donors rather potentially bring voice and visibility to cer- “media parachuted in.” And once the large, covered problems with municipal courts, says. “I’m not going to step out of bounds budget for another reporter and because than look for the one-time hit,” he says. Even tain kinds of projects and issue areas that daily protests faded, so did the national she’s told the stories of protesters who were just to please someone who donated to me.” the audience likes Stewart’s work. “Many of if it doesn’t continue as a crowdfunded beat, may go unnoticed or not get produced.” press. Stewart remained. She stuck around arrested, and her reporting on the effects She adds that this hasn’t been an issue she’s her stories are among the best-read on our the Ferguson Fellowship helped prove that needed to address, either. website,” King says. “She’s doing things our there is a community interest in issues of in- In the wake of the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, citizens raised funds to hire a reporter to cover issues of race and justice Crowdfunding isn’t a guarantee against readers absolutely want to know about.” equality in the area. Hudson says she’s seen bad actors, but if such issues did arise, When we talked, King said the top story on coverage increase beyond Stewart’s work. Sanders says Beacon’s structure kept the the American site was one Stewart wrote “There are a number of reporters who now journalist from feeling the financial pres- about Philando Castile, an African-American have the support and infrastructure to dig sure. “Backers can’t pull their funding once man killed by police in Minnesota, who had more deeply into [these issues],” she says. the project is funded, so there isn’t really a ties to St. Louis. It seems clear why the Ferguson need for a safeguard. As long as you’re true After the first year of Stewart’s crowd- Fellowship found the backers for two suc- to what you proposed in the project, and funded reporting, she and her editors “felt cessful campaigns. In addition to picking people supported it, it’s pretty hard to push that there was more coverage that need- the right topic and asking the right people, for more influence,” he says. ed to happen,” she says. So the Post and the reporting came from trusted outlets. “I don’t think there’s any more concern the American sought another $40,000 “That’s a relatively easy case where there’s in crowdfunding from influencers than tra- on Beacon for a second year of reporting. two built-in audiences, there’s national in- ditional funded journalism setups like ad- This time, with other stories of African- terest in the story, there’s local interest, and vertising or large donor-backed nonprofits,” Americans killed by police dominating the there’s credibility,” Mollick says. Sanders says. “In some ways, having people news, Ferguson no longer seemed so iso- Because crowdfunding supporters are pay up front and making a clear statement lated, and support was slow coming in. But “backing the person as much as backing the about what you are going to deliver is a lot King, who says he dislikes asking for money, project,” Mollick says, “credibility in the more transparent and ethical.” Johnson as- helped expand the donor base by sending a space is key.” People have to know who you serts this relationship is what makes crowd- personal appeal to about 100 friends, fol- are if you’re going to ask for their money, funding unique, because it “consults the lowers, fans, and contacts, outlining why and they have to trust you to spend it wisely reader and it gives the reader a hand in the the project was valuable and why he was if they’re going to give it to you. The Texas editorial practices of newsrooms,” he says. breaking character to ask for support. Many Tribune may not have been able to market “And that’s a pretty awesome thing.” of those recipients made donations and itself as a site for live video had it not proven Stewart’s work is vetted by an editor at pushed the project to its goal. On the project itself with the stream of the Wendy Davis fil- The Huffington Post. And, occasionally, it page, The Huffington Post said Stewart’s fo- ibuster. And had Stewart not quickly estab- gets a local review, too, since the crowdfund- cus—not her career—was the only thing on lished herself as a reporter in Ferguson, The ing has also affected a St. Louis-area news- the line, promising to pay her salary even if Huffington Post wouldn’t have been able to room. After a few months of ducking into the crowdfunding didn’t come through, but make her the face of its reporting. And both coffee shops or libraries to work, Stewart’s it also celebrated the benefits of a success- the Tribune and the Ferguson collaborators

RICK WILKING/REUTERS editor at The Huffington Post arranged ful campaign. “Crowdfunding also creates were able to communicate with the audi-

16 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 17 ence that trusted them, which is another and meaningful relationship with its read- key to successful crowdfunding. DUTCH NEWS SITE ers. Seen as members of a community rather “There’s evidence to suggest that the than simply consumers of content, readers amount of reach that you have online is go- DE CORRESPONDENT SET will be asked to weigh in on the investment ing to have an impact on how much you’re of new funds and encouraged to contribute going to be able to raise,” Johnson says. A RECORD WHEN IT RAISED their expertise on specific topics.” Mollick’s research—which surveyed thou- De Correspondent’s crowdfunding cam- sands of Kickstarter projects—concludes $1 MILLION IN EIGHT DAYS paign went live in March 2013. It hit the goal that most of the support for a given project in eight days. About 5,000 more supporters comes from the host’s community. Sanders signed up in the following months before says that’s the case on Beacon, too. This the site went live. At the time, it was the big- community can be people who know the gest journalism crowdfunding project ever work a journalist does, like the Tribune’s launched. What came next, Pfauth says, was newsletter subscribers who are pitched on the most stressful part of the project—they a new series idea, or it can be a personal net- that wouldn’t rush to liveblog the aftermath had to deliver on the promise they’d made work, like the one King reached out to for of a terrorist attack, but instead look at “the to 20,000 paying subscribers, and create a the second year of the Ferguson Fellowship. bigger developments behind such an attack, new, audience-focused newsroom. Finally, Mollick says he’s found that most such as social inequality.” One of the early stories Pfauth prais- successful pitches address a need the target The newsroom he and his cofounders had es is a piece on the dangers of public wifi community already has, rather than try to in mind would not take money from venture networks, in which a reporter and a hacker create a need among a broader audience. capitalists or subsidize its reporting with ad- accessed the private information of people But with journalism, there’s no way to tell vertising, so they turned to crowdfunding. who were using wifi in coffee shops. Wifi what the story will be until the reporting Pfauth and his colleagues determined isn’t a hot enough topic to warrant daily is done. So a strong pitch for journalism they needed 900,000 (about $1 mil- news coverage, but it is a part of people’s needs to make it clear why the project lion) to start the project. If they could get daily lives, and Pfauth says that’s the type of has to exist. The Texas Tribune’s pitch for 15,000 people to pay the one-year subscrip- reporting that proves his newsroom values livestreaming the governor’s race offered tion price of 60 euro (about $67), that would “relevance over recentness.” Reporting on ISIS and refugees left in its wake, such as these Syrian residents of a camp in Turkey, is a priority for De Correspondent a never-before-seen view into the political be enough. When they imagined who these And Pfauth points to a story on bureau- process. The Huffington Post promised to 15,000 people might be—the community cracy in healthcare as an example of how supporting De Correspondent. “It feels like Strictly speaking, this business model tions who say this kind of audience in- stay in Ferguson while other outlets left. that Mollick and others say is so crucial to the site incorporates the audience into its building something. All together, you build isn’t new. It borrows some from public ra- teraction is “time-consuming.” Mollick’s The pitches were specific, they put the au- crowdfunding—Pfauth says they “didn’t aim reporting. Before beginning the story, the on a story, or on a story line,” she says dio and some from ad-free subscriber-sup- research concludes it takes 30 hours or so dience’s needs ahead of the newsroom’s, for 20-year-olds with a good income who reporter asked readers for their suggestions Soon, Pfauth plans to roll out a new fea- ported publications. What sets the way a week to manage a crowdfunding cam- and they avoided an all-too-common com- live in cities; that seems like something ad- on where to start reporting. These kinds of ture for the site in which the audience will De Correspondent has evolved apart from paign, and Ramshaw and Johnson both plaint in the news industry. “Do not focus vertisers depend on.” Instead, they targeted requests are standard at De Correspondent, be able to suggest stories. The site also asks these predecessors is how the audience was say keeping up with crowdfunding is a on ‘Journalism is dying. Help us,’” Johnson a community of people linked by taste and where subscribers who wish to comment readers to test out new features, and they’ve turned from a test market into a part of the full-time job. De Correspondent has ad- says to anyone looking for advice in crafting interest, people “who have one wish—an must identify themselves as experts in a held hackathons in which the audience can newsroom, and how the spirit of crowd- dressed this by partially redefining a jour- a pitch. “People do not care enough.” antidote to the daily news grind.” certain area. This expertise is consulted help provide or build datasets that can in- funding remains in daily operations. nalist’s job to no longer be just reporting This need for specificity doesn’t mean With a community and a need identi- again after a story is published, when the form reporting. Pfauth says one of these ses- Increasingly, more traditional news- and writing a story. crowdfunding can only be used for one- fied, the founders next had to find a few comments section turns into a discus- sions led to a report about which companies rooms are finding that opening the edito- Crowdfunding strategies differ from off projects or enhanced coverage. And doses of the antidote. At the time of the sion between readers and the journalist. own various adult websites. rial process to followers can help build an enterprise to enterprise, but most journal- it doesn’t mean it’s only open to existing pitch, there was no De Correspondent web- Sometimes these discussions lead to further After a year, De Correspondent faced a engaged, paying audience. The start-up ists who’ve used the technique agree on newsrooms. One of the most successful site, there were no employees, and even reporting, and sometimes that reporting is question: Would this kind of reporting and Hearken gives newsrooms the tools to let the essentials: Promise to make something crowdfunded journalism projects of all though Pfauth and Wijnberg were estab- done by the audience. involvement be enough to get the initial readers suggest and vote on stories to cover, unique and specific, make it for an audi- time was a start-up with no prior reporting lished journalists, they weren’t necessarily After getting into a discussion on the backers to renew their memberships and and has caught on with public radio stations. ence you know and who knows you, and to show its potential. But it embodied many household names. So to sell their targeted comments section of a legal story, subscrib- keep the site funded? Subscriber numbers In her exhaustive look at the public radio never focus only on the money. of Johnson’s and Mollick’s principles for community the concept, Wijnberg wrote a er Marlies van Eck, who has a background had been rising steadily all year, approach- membership model, “Putting the Public Ultimately, these successful projects crowdfunding, and it put the crowd first. manifesto—10 points that would define De in law, wrote a piece for De Correspondent ing 40,000. And when renewal time came, into Public Media Membership,” Melody don’t treat crowdfunding like a revolution- From the beginning, De Correspondent Correspondent’s approach to news. on how to understand the language of ju- 60 percent of the original supporters signed Kramer, a veteran of public radio who now ary new business model that will save jour- was about the audience. Co-founders Ernst- “[De] Correspondent prioritizes rele- dicial opinions. Van Eck was an original up again, keeping the site alive. Mollick’s re- is in charge of audience development for nalism. For them, it’s part of a philosophy. Jan Pfauth and Rob Wijnberg had worked vance over recentness, looks for alternative backer of the site. She says she signed up at search has shown that the most successful Wikimedia, argues that supporting a news- De Correspondent, The Texas Tribune’s together at leading Dutch newspaper NRC ways of doing journalism, is transparent first because she was interested in a news crowdfunding projects later become suc- room should be thought of as much more projects, the Ferguson Fellowship, and the Handelsblad, but they felt much of the pa- about its journalistic choices and dilemmas, site that would break away from the daily cessful businesses, and that projects can than just a business transaction. She adds hundreds of short-lived series and one- per’s work was done to please advertisers values thorough fact-checking, and takes coverage she already read, as Pfauth and be repeated, as long as the hosts are able to that “non-financial forms of involvement off projects funded every year don’t exist and investors, not readers. So they partnered into account in its own reporting the ways in his colleagues promised. And once the site “build a community of people who trust you should be valued as much as financial ones, because Kickstarter, Beacon, or the other with a local creative agency and decided to which the wider news media shape our per- launched, she enjoyed being able to inter- and want to work with you,” he says. “You’re particularly if they’re viewed as opportu- platforms tapped a new source of funding design and build their own news site, where ceptions of the world,” the manifesto reads. act with journalists and engaged readers on not getting passive money.” nities that could lead to further or deeper online. These projects are made possible by they could “only think about the needs of And, the document promises something the stories she was paying for. That involve- De Correspondent’s growth continues. engagement with a station.” the spirit that lets those platforms exist in our readers, our members,” according to more than articles to subscribers. “[De] ment—even if she’s not writing full arti- The staff has expanded from 13 to 44, and Kramer’s report notes complaints the first place—a spirit that lets people get

Pfauth. They wanted to make a newsroom Correspondent wants to establish a lasting cles for the site—is a big reason she keeps ANDREAS STAHL there were 48,000 subscribers as of this fall. from several people at public radio sta- involved and make something new. P

18 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 19 2016 Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad is the first American Muslim to wear a hijab while competing in the Games

REPORTING

ONWith Islam threaded ISLAM through beats from foreign affairs to crime to education, journalists are stepping up efforts to provide nuanced coverage of Muslims and their religion

BY CARLA POWER PRESS HONG/ASSOCIATED C. JAE The concept was simple: Seven Californian Muslims, each photographed against a gray back­ ground, talking about the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” usually translated as “God is great.” No voice­ overs. No cutaways. Just seven Californians, talk­ ing about two words.

If there’s one phrase non-Muslims associ- and Misuse of Allahu Akbar,” succeeds in of a wedding or to express awe. In 2013, af- ate with acts of terror, it’s “Allahu Akbar.” making it both. ter the disastrous collapse of the Rana Plaza Witnesses to the July 1 attacks on the café Mindful of the fact that Arabs comprise garment factory building in Dhaka, there in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, in which 28 only 20 percent of the world’s Muslims, were cries of “Allahu Akbar” from the crowd people were killed, reported hearing the as- Khan and Biagiotti chose a rich ethnic after a woman was pulled alive from the rub- sailants yell the phrase. The murder- mix of interviewees, including Americans ble, 17 days after the building crumbled. ers shouted it as they killed 130 people in from Thai, Indian, African-American, Though commonly translated as “God November 2015, as did the Pakistani Taliban Indonesian as well as Arab backgrounds, is great,” scholars tend to render “Allahu who massacred 21 university students and showing that the Muslim umma, or global Akbar” as “God is greater,” stressing its af- staff a month later in Peshawar. The U.S. community, is, much like the firmation that the power and possibilities Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan yelled itself, an ethnic mosaic. of God exceed everything else. For most it before opening fire at Fort Hood in 2009, In the video, a motherly Indonesian- Muslims, it is not a battle cry, but an ac- killing 13 people. American notes that many Muslims say knowledgement of humankind’s surrender Knowing that most Americans have only “Allahu Akbar” 85 times a day, as part of to an omnipotent deity. heard the phrase in Hollywood thrillers or their daily prayers; she herself uses it when Misunderstandings around the meaning terror-related news—and given that, ac- she sees a beautiful sunset. An Indian- of “Allahu Akbar” show that, even as Islam cording to a 2014 Pew Research Center poll, American describes how he says “Allahu surfaces in stories from presidential cam- only 38 percent of Americans personally Akbar” on seeing people help after nat- paigns to city zoning debates, most media know someone who is Muslim—the Los ural disasters, “like in Haiti or Katrina.” coverage of Muslims remains narrow, bound Angeles Times set out in 2015 to make a vid- An African-American in a suit and tie re- up with and violence. Muslims eo exploring its place in the lives of ordinary marks that since the words appear in a rarely appear in mainstream media as any- Muslims. “The idea was, How can we unpack prayer Muslims use before travel, he frets thing other than extremists or terrorists. Yet this very charged word?” explains videogra- that “everyone’s going to freak out” if fel- Islam is threaded through beats from foreign pher Lisa Biagiotti, who made the piece with low passengers hear him “Allahu affairs to crime to education. How do report- A Akbar” before takeoff. ers cover a faith that’s shaping global geopo- LA Times photographer Irfan Khan. “How video features seven do we get at some bit of the spirit of Islam “Allahu Akbar” is the first phrase many litical debate and whose 1.6 billion adherents Muslims explaining in this word? How do we make it both inti- Muslims whisper in the ears of their new- range from Pathan tribesmen to Argentinian what “Allahu Akbar” mate and relevant?” Their piece, “The Use borns. It frequently greets the joyous news mystics to Kansan heart surgeons? ANGELES TIMES KHAN/LOS BIAGIOTTI AND IRFAN LISA TEEKAY means to them

22 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 23 With both jihadis and Islamophobes ea- In an interview on ABC News with George about Muslims, Muslim religious leaders, ger to equate terrorism with Islam, chipping Stephanopoulos, Trump suggested that the and Muslim organizations dropped sharply A VANGUARD OF WRITERS IS WIDENING THE away at stereotypes is necessary but may soldier’s father delivered the entire speech from 2010 to 2013. not be sufficient for balanced coverage. For because the soldier’s mother, Ghazala Khan, A 2008 analysis of coverage of British CONVERSATION ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE MUSLIM that, boosting coverage of Muslims outside was forbidden as a female Muslim to speak. Muslims in nearly 1,000 articles in the U.K. the news cycle—and indeed, in the context Trump’s treatment of the Khans drew ire press, from Cardiff University’s School of of something other than their faith—would from the public and politicians—including Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, help. “I just long for a day when we can many from his own party—and reignited found that 80 percent of articles associated ‘as,’” says Nathan Lean, author of “The actions are religiously motivated. In June, tagline for Muslimgirl.com, a website with a write stories about the Muslim community harsh criticisms of his proposal to bar all “Islam/Muslims with threats, problems or in Islamophobia Industry,” which examines Omar Mateen killed 49 people in a shoot- pop-up picture of a young woman sporting and we don’t see a mention of ISIS or 9/11,” Muslims from entering the country. opposition to dominant British values,” with the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the ing at a gay Orlando nightclub. When he a hijab and a black leather jacket, reads, says Brian J. Bowe, a journalism professor Few news outlets are doing much references to radical Muslims outnumbering West since 9/11, and research director at called 911 to confess, he pledged allegiance “Muslim Women Talk Back.” Founded in at Western Washington University who to counter prejudice against Muslims. those to moderate Muslims 17 to one. Two Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative, to ISIS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—and 2009 by the then-17-year-old Amani Alkhat, writes frequently on the media’s portrayal Quantitative studies of Muslims and the percent of articles on British Muslims, the a think tank studying the effects of ISIS was only too glad to claim the atroci- Muslimgirl.com is a far cry from older of American Muslims. media are few, but a 2013 report by interna- study found, suggested that the moral val- Islamophobia. “We would never turn on the ty as its own. But in the days that followed, American Muslim publications in its funky Given recent terror attacks in New York, tional media consultancy Media ex- ues of Muslims were similar to those of oth- evening news and hear the types of stories reports of Mateen’s history of domestic vi- and fearless approach to subjects many Orlando and Paris and ongoing conflicts in amined nearly 7,000 Islam-related stories er Britons. During the debate about whether about Christians or Jews or even atheists olence and his own sexuality suggested the Muslims still view as taboo. Where first-gen- Africa, the , and South Asia, not aired on ABC, CBS, and NBC news between Britain should leave the , that we hear about Muslims.” mass shooting was closer to a hate crime eration publications tended to look back at to mention the inflammatory rhetoric of 2007 and 2013 and characterized them as tabloids like The Sun (“1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ And yet, terrorism unrelated to Muslims committed by an unstable man conflicted the politics of the Old World, in Palestine Donald Trump, that day seems still far off. positive, negative, or neutral. In 2013, the Sympathy for Jihadis”) ran inflammatory poses a greater risk to people living in the about his own homosexual urges. or Kashmir, Muslimgirl.com reflects the This summer Trump belittled the parents of study found three-quarters to be negative headlines that drew thousands of complaints United States. In The New York Times last Some object that phrases like “Islamic concerns of American-born women who U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, a Muslim- in tone, the highest percentage of any year and led to the Independent Press Standards summer, sociologist and Muslim issues ex- terrorists” are incorrect, and that “mass happen to be Muslim. Recent popular posts American soldier killed in Iraq. Khan's fa- in the study. Among those Muslims quoted Organization demanding retractions. pert Charles Kurzman and David Schanzer, murderers” or “criminals” might be more include an interview with a Muslim trans- ther, Khizr, had spoken out against Trump in the stories, terrorists accounted for the “Muslims are represented most often director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism accurate. Those opposed to that descrip- gender activist, a piece on a Lebanese porn at the Democratic National Convention. majority. In addition, the number of reports as news, with the emphasis on the word DENVER POST VIA GETTYHELEN H. RICHARDSON/THE IMAGES and Homeland Security, noted that vio- tion cite studies by the European Network star, and a meditation on racism among lent attacks by U.S.-based extremists from of Experts on Violent Radicalization, among American Muslims. Muslim backgrounds had killed 50 people others, which found that religion is not The Muslim portal of the multi-faith site since 9/11. American right-wing extremists, the key source of most extremist activity. Patheos, though more staid than Muslimgirl. by contrast, averaged 337 attacks annually, Indeed, many violent extremists affiliat- com, still crackles with essays and op-eds Muslim leaders in Denver held a in response to the terror attack on a Florida nightclub in June. ISIS claimed responsibility resulting in 254 deaths in the decade be- ed with groups like ISIS or Al-Shabab, Al on everything from ISIS’s theology to the tween 2001 and 2011. More recent terror Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, have been found connections between singer-songwriter attacks by right-wingers holding white su- to be unversed in Islam, even if they claim Leonard Cohen and Sufism, the Islamic premacist views include the 2015 shoot- to be acting in its name. Social or political strain of mysticism. A sign of growing ing at a Charleston church, in which nine anger, cultural isolation and the need for be- journalistic confidence in the still-young people died, an attack on a Sikh temple in longing tend to be far more powerful drivers Muslim media space: editor Dilshad Ali’s in 2012, killing six, and a shooting of radicalization than faith. decision to tackle sensitive political issues at a Kansas Jewish community center and After the Orlando attacks, then-Republican within America’s Muslim communities. retirement home in 2014, killing three. presidential nominee Donald Trump called Last winter, when tensions were running Despite the stats, headlines rarely read on President Obama to step down for refus- high over the decision by some American “Christian terrorists,” even when a Christian ing to cite what Trump called “radical Islam” Muslims to participate in the Muslim commits an act of terror, as did Norwegian as the engine behind the shootings. Obama, Leadership Initiative, a year-long program Anders Behring Breivik in 2011. When the having long made efforts to differentiate be- with Muslim and Jewish co-sponsors de- story broke that 77 people had died after a tween Islam and terror, called the phrase “a signed to educate Muslim American leaders man detonated a bomb in before open- political distraction.” For Shadi Hamid, senior about Israel and Palestine, Ali ran guest es- ing fire on a summer youth camp, major pa- fellow at the Brookings Institution and author says on both sides of the controversy. “It’s pers speculated that the killer was Muslim. of “Islamic Exceptionalism,” Trump has “ap- tough to produce and edit pieces like that,” When it emerged that the killer was Breivik, propriated” the phrase, which tells us nothing, she says. “You know most of the movers and a native Norwegian whose 1,500-page on- argues Hamid, except that the mass murderer players in the community—and you’re re- line manifesto accused Muslims of colo- practiced Islam: “It’s a dog whistle, a stand- porting on them. So things can get personal. nizing Christian lands, the tone of coverage in for anti-Muslim bigotry.” Hamid sug- You have to say, ‘This is my job, and I’m go- shifted, notes Todd H. Green, associate pro- gests more nuanced, contextualizing labels, ing to report both sides of the story.’” fessor of religion at Luther College, in his such as “radical Islamism,” “radical jihad- Increasingly, mainstream media out- book “The Fear of Islam”: “Media analysis of ism,” “Islamic extremism,” or even “radical lets—from The Huffington Post and Salon what was initially labeled a ‘terrorist attack’ Islamic terrorism.” to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz—are show- quickly morphed into debates over right- In the United States, a vanguard of casing a new generation of young American- wing ‘extremism.’ The word ‘terrorism’ no writers and commentators, weary of being Muslim commentators. One of the most longer seemed applicable when the culprit represented by others as others, is widen- striking voices to emerge is that of Wajahat self-identified as Christian.” ing the conversation about what it means Ali, a -born lawyer and former tele- When Muslims are involved in violent to be Muslim, both in new outlets and, in- vision host for Al Jazeera America. He began acts, there’s often an assumption that their creasingly, in the mainstream media. The his writing career producing sober op-eds

24 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 25 getting beyond can undermine op-ed section certain- stereotypes on israeli tv news ties. Conflicts cast as religious turn out A watchdog effort has increased the number of Arabs interviewed to be about entirely different issues up close. National Book Award finalist Anand Gopal, whose 2014 “No Good Men Among growing up in a small and Jews, decided to take ANU created a database of the Living” explored the Afghan war from village in northern Israel, a different approach, one potential interviewees. the perspective of the Taliban, has found Janaan Bsoul loved watching inspired by the campaign Mainstream media that the Sunni-Shia divide used to frame news and current affairs against “manels,” media published stories about conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and is shows with her dad. Bsoul panels that include only the campaign. A modest sometimes misleading. “Categories that is an Arab, and the people male participants. That uptick followed: from 3 appear to be fixed from afar, like ethnicity, on television—anchors, battle is waged on social percent Arab interviewees reveal themselves as more fluid when you , interviewees—were media pages like the in February, before the go down to a local level,” he says. almost all Jews, but she “Congrats! You Have campaign began, to 5 Reporting his piece for The Atlantic “The thought nothing of it. “I an All-Male Panel!,” which percent in September. Hell After ISIS,” about a family of internal figured, that’s just the way shames exclusionary However, much remains refugees in Iraq, Gopal described a Baghdad it is: only Jews appear on shows and events. A similar to be done. According to neighborhood where Sunni-Shia tensions television,” says Bsoul, 26. campaign in Israel targeted The Seventh Eye, reports were high, due to reports of the Islamic The reality of mainstream women’s representation. about the Muslim holiday State’s Sunni extremism. Shia militiamen Israeli media hasn’t changed “The women’s strategy of Ramadan in June roamed the streets, and black Shia banners much since Bsoul was a worked, because journalists featured 86 percent Jewish appeared on the fronts of Sunni stores. But kid. Although Arabs with are hypersensitive to their interviewees; most talked Gopal’s main character, an Iraqi Sunni patri- Israeli citizenship account own reputations,” says Edan about the risk of flare-ups arch sheltering in Baghdad after his village for roughly 20 percent of Ring, head of the Equal during the holiday. fell to ISIS, wondered if the flags were the the country’s population, Media Project at Sikkuy. For Dror Zarski, result of Shia harassment of the shopkeep- during February they “We know that editors and editor of daily current ers “or had been placed there for protection comprised only about 3 producers of news shows affairs show “ by the shopkeepers themselves.” In other percent of interviewees on are always busy, always and Kirschenbaum,” the words, while some explain the Sunni-Shia leading news and current under pressure. They tend to campaign was a nudge in the split through the lens of Iranian-Saudi rival- affairs shows, according to invite the interviewees they right direction. “We were The Rose for Peace campaign in Washington, D.C. aims to counter anti-Islam sentiment ry or by going back to its seventh-century a study by several Israeli know well. Scouting for an already making an effort to origins as a disputed succession argument, organizations. When unfamiliar Arab expert is a bring in more Arabs, but I Gopal found a more local and urgent expla- Arabs do appear on TV, it’s risk, and common wisdom admit that once it became nation: day-to-day survival. usually in the context of the is that having someone with such an issue we started In ISIS-controlled areas of Syria and Israeli-Arab conflict or of an Arab accent on the show working harder.” The show’s Iraq, sectarian loyalties are often less signs crime within Arab society, will hurt ratings. There’s a rise in ranking was dramatic: a reporter for business on issues like Israel-Palestine and Pakistan, New York Times op-ed, “Inshallah is Good of religious principles than strategic calcu- connections that reinforce price to pay. We needed to from 2.6 percent Arab magazine The Marker, one of but began developing his distinctive mix of for Everyone,” a deft weave of information lations about how to cope in a violent and negative stereotypes. Only give them a reason to pay interviewees in January 2016 a handful of Arab journalists humor and hard-hitting commentary while about how inshallah—“the Arabic version fractured landscape. When the refugees around 10 percent of Arabs that price.” to about 22 percent during working in Israeli media. writing a 2008 op-ed for The Guardian, us- of fuggedaboudit”—works in Muslim cul- Gopal profiled for The Atlantic mentioned interviewed on the shows The solution was a the last week in September. “Television reflects the fear ing a CNN transcript of a meeting between tures, a first-person testimony from a young Islam, it was “a very personal understand- appeared as experts in weekly ranking list of 19 Looking for Arab that Israeli society has of Sarah Palin and Pakistan’s then-president American Muslim, and a clear-eyed look at ing of it,” Gopal says, rather than anything their fields and not merely prominent television and specialists takes time and Arabs, an unwillingness to Asif Ali Zardari to critique Pakistani-U.S. rising xenophobia in the campaign season. to do with the wars tearing up their region. as representatives of radio shows, tracking the effort, precious commodities see us as people,” she says, relations. For a Muslim writing on sensitive “I had all kinds of people—non-Muslims— “It really helps to start with the understand- “Arabness.” number of Arabs interviewed for Zarski’s staff, which “but Arab society is also Islamic issues, humor “makes the medicine telling me, ‘Inshallah sounds awesome! I’m ing that the way people behave in conflicts In Israel, Jews and Arabs on each one and how many in recent years has been partly to blame. Sometimes, go down easier,” he says. “If you can make it going to start using it!’” Ali says. The piece is something that can usually be explained lead largely separate lives. of them appeared as experts. reduced by half. “And when it’s convenient to seclude go down sweet, it gives people the comfort was a welcome break from what he calls by the conflict itself. You don’t need to go When they do interact, Sikkuy created the chart we reach them they are ourselves, and I’ve had and space they need to ask difficult ques- “Muslim fireman” stories, “where you’re back 500 years to explain it.” To simply see it is often through a veil with funding from the Berl more hesitant to come,” Arabs tell me they will not tions and have difficult conversations.” asked to respond to the latest tragedy from the actors in local conflicts through the lens of rancor and suspicion. Katznelson Foundation and he says. “Maybe it’s the be interviewed for Israeli In April, after a college student was the Muslim world, and you’re suddenly hav- of religious identities or international pow- This makes the media an the New Israel Fund, and in language, or fear of talking newspapers.” Bsoul supports kicked off a plane for being overheard to ing to act like a walking Wikipedia page.” er plays, Gopal argues, is to ignore the local essential bridge. cooperation with a media about explosive subjects the campaign, but she thinks utter the phrase “Inshallah”—Arabic for For reporting from allegiances that make the conflict with ISIS For decades, activists watchdog called The Seventh like Jewish-Arab relations.” it’s not enough. “The real “God willing”—into his phone, Ali wrote a Muslim societies, on-the-ground realities so mercurial and complex. have tried to fight this trend Eye. Every week, The Seventh But Zarski acknowledges solution is to get more Arabs by supplying journalists Eye publishes a report, citing that there’s much more to working in the media. Then with lists of Arab experts, shows that have failed to the exclusion than logistics: it will be natural for them to to little avail. But in 2016 improve and praising the “Usually, the media follows call up people they know and Sikkuy, an Israeli nonprofit ones that did. To eliminate the masses: If viewers hate say, ‘Hey, would you like to CONFLICTS CAST AS RELIGIOUS TURN OUT TO BE ABOUT that works to achieve excuses from producers, Arabs, the media will too.” give me an interview?’” equality between Arabs another organization called Janan Bsoul is now —naomi darom NICHOLAS IMAGES KAMM/AFP/GETTY ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ISSUES WHEN REPORTED UP CLOSE

26 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 27 do a profile piece on a local Muslim doctor or reporting resources PROFILES OF LOCAL MUSLIMS HELP SHOW THAT student or a charity,” notes Ibrahim Hooper, for covering islam communications director at the Council on THEY HAVE VALUES IN COMMON WITH NON-MUSLIMS American-Islamic Relations. Such pieces help push back against the specious narra- tive that Islam is more about politics than the sunni majority free e-book offers personal piety. “If your pediatrician’s a sect of Islam doesn’t chapters on Islam and its Recognizing that religious affiliations Hassan Hassan, co-author of “ISIS: Inside are crazies,’ we’ll repeat the patterns of old. Muslim, or your checker at ’s in hi- have a clergy, so finding a civilization written by in conflict zones are often about “finding the Army of Terror,” also anchors his report- Without understanding them, in 10 years’ jab, it’s a lot less scary than when it’s framed representative voice can journalists experienced in allies in a dangerous situation,” Gopal age in local context. Raised in a Syrian prov- time we’ll have a stronger Al Qaeda, a stron- as the ‘other’ from ‘out there.’” be tricky. In this vacuum, covering Islamic issues, changed his approach. Mindful that report- ince currently controlled by ISIS, Hassan ger ISIS, and on top of that something else.” After the Paris attacks, the Orlando extremists—both Muslim a glossary of key Islamic ers “tend to be urbanites themselves and began using social media to contact former Hassan’s 2015 Guardian piece on why Weekly did a cover story called “They’re and Islamophobe—are terms, and a raft of links to report from an urban perspective,” Gopal locals he’d heard had joined. “At first, I didn’t Europeans joined ISIS parses the feelings With Us,” focusing on local Muslims, in- only too willing to appoint online resources. skipped questions about global geopoliti- even want to engage them very much be- of isolation expressed by his dozens of in- cluding an optometrist who runs her daugh- themselves as “experts.” cal narratives and kept his interviews with cause everyone agreed that the things they terviewees, explaining how they might be- ter’s Girl Scout troop, a lawyer, and an opera For those wishing to Muslim Subjects at villagers rooted in the personal and local. were doing were wrong, and they must have lieve ISIS could be “empowering.” Three of singer. Illustrated with the smiling faces of vet sources for links to State University Instead of asking outright why some Iraqi joined because they were crazy,” he recalls. Hassan’s interviewees said that ISIS was a the interviewees, and laced through with Islamophobic groups, the The Journal/Islam communities might initially support ISIS, But after an old classmate from movement conferring charisma or pres- details of daily life, the piece frames its sub- Anti- League section of this website, he asked “about their lives, their house Damascus University—whom Hassan knew tige. People with scant religious knowledge jects as ordinary Floridians, albeit ones who and Southern Policy Law a collaboration between and friends growing up,” conversations to be rational, intelligent, and an ISIS sym- before joining ISIS become “like new con- felt their personal safety threatened by a na- Center have profiled Michigan State University’s that eventually yielded much more about pathizer—explained the strategy behind the verts,” Hassan says. “They are zealous and tional trebling in anti-Islamic hate crimes in many groups and (MSU) Muslim Studies alliances than any ancient history. For brutality, he recognized the importance of excited about their new belonging.” the month after the Paris attacks. individuals pushing a Program and its School the villagers he interviewed, hyper-local trying to understand the group’s rationale: The drumbeat of news from foreign wars At first, Nada Hassanein, the author of virulently anti-Muslim of Journalism, has a power dynamics were frequently far more “My reporting is driven by a desire to under- and terror attacks often finds a counterpoint the piece, was hesitant to take on the subject message. Fear, Inc., a 2011 best practices guide for important than ISIS’s claims of creating a stand these people, and what their motiva- in local features. After news of a terror-relat- of Muslims, as she is keen to write on a broad report from the Center reporters on Islam, with 21st-century Islamic . tions are. If we simply tell ourselves, ‘These ed event, “local TV stations or papers often range of topics rather than being confined for American Progress, useful points on sourcing, to covering Muslim issues. But she found has useful lists of knowledge, and basic her faith was “an advantage” in reporting links among named reporting rules, as well as the story: “I understand their way of life and Islamophobic scholars, links for further reading their struggle, because I’ve lived it myself.” groups, politicians, and and access to materials After ISIS claimed responsibility for terrorist acts, Muslims, here in Milan the week after the Paris attacks in 2015, protest the violence Like the reporters on the LA Times “Allahu their media mouthpieces. from MSU’s Reporting on Akbar” documentary, Hassanein found the For those looking for Islam course. vast majority of Muslims she approached to responsible sources on be eager to talk. Indeed, optometrist Farhana Islam, here are a few places Islamic Studies at Harvard Yunus and her Haitian-American husband to start: The website of Harvard responded to Islamophobic incidents by University’s Islamic Studies hosting meet-and-greet barbeques. Islamic Resource Bank program includes articles, Hassanein took care to select as in- A joint project of three audio and video of lectures, terview subjects some women who wore Muslim organizations— and links to studies on hijab and others who didn’t. “I wanted The Minaret of Freedom Muslims by the to show different perspectives, and the Institute, the Association Center for Muslim Studies diversity of Muslims, even in Orlando,” of Muslim Social Scientists and the Pew Forum on she says. “Muslims just want their voices of North America, and the Religion and Public Life. and stories to be heard and understood, International Institute of and for people to know there is so much Islamic Thought—offers Religion Link similarity between a local Muslim and a an online database of A site for journalists run by local non-Muslim. They want to bridge the scholars and activists the Religion Newswriters disconnect, to unveil the so-called ‘other.’” providing expertise on Foundation offers a useful After the Orlando atrocity, Hassanein Islamic issues and overview of the history of feels in-depth profiles of members of fre- Muslim communities. Islam, sects and terms, and quently misunderstood or misrepresented schools of thought. It also communities are even more important. “Islam for Journalists: A provides a rundown on Whether writing on the LGBTQ or Muslim Primer on Covering Muslim important and contentious communities, “whose societal struggles Communities in America” beliefs and provides have many parallels,” she says, covering Published by Washington examples of best-practice these stories allows “the world an oppor- State University’s Edward coverage. tunity to get in their shoes, to understand R. Murrow College of their struggles rather than misjudge them Communications, this —carla power

LUCA BRUNO/ LUCA BRUNO/ASSOCIATED due to ignorance.” P

28 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 29 THE WAY FORWARD Reflecting on this historic campaign and looking ahead to what newsrooms must do next A GOOD BY ANN MARIE LIPINSKI, CURATOR OF THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION

NEWSPAPER, For many mornings on my way into the newsroom, I passed by an Arthur Miller quote engraved in the lobby: “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” I SUPPOSE, That sentiment, as sturdy as the travertine marble into which it was carved, now seems a comic irony. We are, in all our media, a nation screaming past each other. Miller’s genteel aspiration proved an antique this campaign cycle IS A NATION and nothing about our post-election world has corrected for that. President-elect Donald Trump, not satisfied to have won the election, continues his work as social media provoker-in-chief, energizing his followers and baiting a TALKING TO wounded press corps. The smart essays we have commissioned and collected here reflect on this historic campaign for the White House and point the way forward for journalism. Some of the ITSELF paths are provocative: Historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore, having sounded the alarm bell on polling a year ago, has seen enough and argues it’s time to regulate the publication of pre-election polls. One urges journal- ists to borrow from Trump’s success: Harvard political theorist and Washington Post contributor Danielle Allen ARTHUR MILLER NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 31 30 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 calls for storytelling that acknowledges tion. What a spectacle to see the biggest than serve as accomplices to destructive Zuckerberg is privately horrified. No, he doesn’t think reading “Hillbilly Elegy” was all you needed to do to our transition from a reading to a watch- names in television news parading into an claims. How different the vote fraud cov- he helped elect Donald Trump, but he’s too smart and understand Trump’s electorate. It was always larger ing culture. off-the-record meeting-turned-scolding erage could have been had more journalists In the business progressive and alert to the nature of our information than that. The weeks since the election have un- with Trump two weeks after the election. seen that the news lay in the fact that the of information, lives to really believe his company was irrelevant. On Election Day, I went to a polling station in derscored the urgency for new approaches. The New York Times got it right, insisting president-elect lied. As Nieman’s Lyons once And in that sense, this has been an important mo- Clifton, Virginia, a prosperous town less than 30 miles As frightening as the proliferation of “fake their meeting with Trump was on-the-re- said in the wake of McCarthy, “Who but a there are few ment. Much as Zuckerberg and his peers started off hop- from the White House. One person after another told news” (an oxymoron for the post-truth age) cord, reported in real time, and followed newspaperman can show you the record?” innocents left by ing they could avoid dealing with D.C. bureaucrats too me that they were either for Trump—or against is the specter of some journalists spread- with a complete transcript. With no evidence that the rhetoric has much, they quickly realized that they could not, and they Clinton. Both forces prevailed. But, as a community, we ing known lies. That’s too. After The lessons of Joseph McCarthy’s de- turned from campaign to presidential, jour- this election built a large, sophisticated lobbying operation. pretended for way too long that it was all Appalachian Trump stormed Twitter with bogus claims structive legacy are also instructive. Nieman nalism must cope quickly. Soon enough, This is an extension of that process; they now have coal workers. about millions voting illegally, we woke to Reports and Louis M. Lyons, the legendary @realDonaldTrump will be @POTUS. additional evidence that they have created enormous, The last and greatest mistake was relying too much this headline leading the CNN homepage: curator of the Nieman Foundation, ad- The majestic Tribune Tower, home to the and, in the wrong hands, dangerous power. The crowd on the seductive and fragile science of public-opinion “I won the popular vote.” A tepid qualifier vocated for “interpretative reporting” to Chicago Tribune for almost a century, re- is not always wise. Without human editors to separate research, even after there was abundant evidence— was tucked beneath a photo of the presi- overtake the stenography that character- cently was sold and the newsroom will move real news from fake, the casual reader—the busy cousin Brexit, etc.—that polling is a perilous business. No mat- dent-elect giving the thumbs up: “Without ized much coverage of McCarthy. And it to make way for new development. Much of with a job and a toddler to chase—will continue to be ter how smart you are as a reporter, you are captive to evidence, Trump claims fraud cost him pop- was journalist Edward R. Murrow plainly the building is landmarked and protected, duped. Technology development is always a process of data if only because relying on anecdote over data is an ular vote.” It is painful to see the good work speaking truth to power that helped bring but not the lobby with the engraved Arthur iteration, and the technology of news on social media is even larger sin. But the numbers on the page were never of journalists like Brian Stelter, whose media a stop to the Wisconsin senator’s reckless Miller quote, the fourth-floor newsroom desperately due for an upgrade. Our technology leaders firm. As they say, garbage in, garbage out. criticism for CNN was among the most re- accusations of treason. with its inscription of the First Amendment, see themselves as world-changers, and in some ways So, what do we do? We need to get better at poll- sponsible of the election, effectively mocked Still, these waters feel uncharted. “The or this from Flannery O’Connor: “The truth they are absolutely right. When it comes to facts, it’s ing—or get better at ignoring it. We need to get better by his own newsroom. news media,” James Fallows wrote, “are not does not change according to our ability to not clear if the world is changing for the better. at working with technology companies to make accu- Prevaricating politicians are not new. built for someone like this.” The ease with stomach it.” In the business of information, there are few in- racy a value that they cherish much the way that we What did I.F. Stone say? “All which a tweeted untruth can dominate a Across the street from the Tribune, the nocents left by this election. Most serious news orga- do. And we need to teach people to vet the quality of lie.” Stone mined for stories in news cycle and hijack newsrooms for days barge-shaped building that long housed nizations were unprepared for a Trump win. Trump their news much the way that we teach them to vet their records and archives, didn’t care about ac- is new in presidential politics. It comes at a the Chicago Sun-Times on the banks of the supporters say this was because we ignored the white sources for a term paper. That’s a new problem and an cess, and never pulled a punch to protect it. time when lightning is the only acceptable Chicago River was demolished over a de- working class. I’d encourage them to read some of the urgent one. Journalists jockeying for stories and status speed for posting a candidate’s utterances, cade ago. In journalism’s place, a developer best by Larissa MacFarquhar and George Packer. On that last point, a couple of months before at a dissembling White House, rather than let alone a president’s. built a 98-story skyscraper and affixed his No, probably our biggest mistake was the assump- Election Day, I had a prescient interview. W. Taylor out in the agencies and beyond, will be the But we can apply news judgment in that name in stainless steel letters, 20-feet tall: tion that a lot of people, even among those whom Reveley IV is the president of Longwood University, least effective in covering this administra- moment between tweet and retweet rather TRUMP. P Trump praised as “the poorly educated,” would be a small liberal-arts college in rural Virginia that host- turned off by Trump in the end. But it turned out that ed the vice-presidential debate. His scholarly focus is they kind of liked him, even if they weren’t going to ad- the American presidency, and he told me that he saw mit that to a stranger on the phone from a polling outfit. a connection between education, reconciliation, and ous piece of Internet fiction, churned out by a goofy Self-consciousness around racial anxiety is not a new our current age of polarization. “What has gone awry Macedonian website that learned long ago how to problem, and we should have remembered this phenom- in American politics is not purely that we’ve got issues Closing Gaps monetize clicks by promoting plainly false stories enon. (Google the “Bradley Effect.”) with the mechanics of ,” he said. “Over the on Facebook. They pursue American marks because Another mistake was misreading how much peo- past two generations, the idea of education being about in the Name American clicks pay four times better than foreign ple hated . On the campaign trail, I teaching people how to engage in public affairs has been clicks. (For the record, the Pope harshly criticized heard dozens of times a nearly verbatim list of accusa- lost. At one point, the core curriculum at the college Trump, saying he is “not Christian.”) tions: Benghazi, lies, ambition, untrustworthy, emails. level was focused on: How do you get ready to be an ac- of Democracy I didn’t think much of the exchange, other than the Evan Osnos is a But actually she had become a byword for hatred of tive citizen in America? How do we make democracy en- faint flicker of pity that you feel for someone who falls staff writer at Washington, and we underestimated how broadly that dure? Today, education is almost exclusively thought of Making improvements in for, say, a Nigerian email hoax. That was a mistake. was felt. We drifted into a kind of seductive fiction that in terms of career preparation. That’s what we’ve lost.” P polling, news literacy, and the Before the election results were in, when people covering politics and use of technology is urgent still thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win, the foreign affairs. By Evan Osnos technology community was pleased to hear people ob- serve how much of this campaign was being conducted Being a political animal, one of my Dwayne Johnson, the actor better and litigated and experienced on social media. Nearly All Journalism first thoughts after the election was, “Who’s known as The Rock, told British GQ this two-thirds of U.S. adults now report getting their news going to run for president now?” spring that he could see himself turning to from social media, up from 49 percent less than four Is Local You can rest assured that there are a politics: “I can’t deny that the thought of Everyone has a story along the lines of mine. years ago. To get beyond celebrity- dozen or so billionaires slamming their being governor, the thought of being presi- At a family gathering in October, I was chatting with a But after the election, at a conference Q&A, and -driven news, fists on their kitchen in frustra- dent, is alluring.” I doubt he is the only ce- cousin about the campaign, and, since we didn’t see it Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked about the newsrooms need to become tion that they sat this one out. “I’m smart lebrity considering a mid-career pivot. quite the same way, each of us was speaking delicately. role of his company in featuring and disseminating fake enough to be president, smarter than him!” In retrospect, we shouldn’t be surprised. When he informed me that Trump had been “endorsed news stories. “Personally I think the idea that fake news civic reactors—hubs of But, ultimately, a major part of Trump’s News—especially cable news—has been by Pope Francis,” I said that wasn’t true. He’d seen it on on Facebook ... influenced the election in any way is a community information and success is his celebrity. He is among the trending steadily toward entertainment Facebook; he couldn’t recall the news outlet. pretty crazy idea,” he said. activity most well-known figures in American cul- over the last two decades. There is the ex- Later, I looked it up. “Pope Francis Shocks World, That wasn’t much of a surprise; he was going to de- By Nicco Mele ture. The antidote to Trump isn’t Elizabeth plicitly entertainment variety—“The Daily Endorses Donald Trump for President” was an obvi- fend his company. But I suspect that, on some level, Warren; it’s Oprah. Show”—which still confounds, simultane-

32 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 33 ously making smart news more accessible not an honest or just response. watching more television, and ing in favor of data extraction and more sophisticated ry that a news organization ought not to manufacture and making smart news dumber. And then There is really only one thing built fewer homes with front electoral algorithms. But, as I reported in The New news. Small colleges like Marist began founding poll- there is the implicitly entertaining: cable to do: Go local. The emphasis porches. Overall, Americans Yorker in November of 2015, the bigger and far deeper ing institutes in the late 1970s, partly in order to offer news. CNN and MSNBC have been steadily on national politics is drawn were staying inside more, not problem with polls isn’t technological: It’s political. an alternative to media polls; also, academic initiatives following the lead of , year-over- like a magnet to celebrity. The interacting with the neighbors, Election prediction isn’t really a field of political that allegedly promote democracy bring in a lot of grant year replacing journalists with pundits at an stories in our own backyards and becoming more distant science; it began as, and remains, a form of journalism. money. By 2012, 1,200 polling organizations made more even pace. tether us—an urge we resist from their communities. Local George Gallup, who founded the field in 1935, was a than three billion phone calls; most Americans refused The tension between entertainment and with the quiet, hidden calm of Nicco Mele is director news—and local politics—lose professor of journalism, and his American Institute for to speak to them. news is an old and familiar one. Bill Paley Facebook-like intensity—but of the Shorenstein their currency, and celebrity Public Opinion Research was founded as the Editors’ In 2016, polls were used, for the very first time, to famously complained at a CBS stockhold- that local connection is our Center on Media, culture asserts itself. Research Bureau; both provided services to newspapers. winnow the field of candidates eligible to participate in ers’ meeting in 1965 that news coverage— salvation. It can redeem our Politics, and Public A possible future for jour- The idea of publishing election predictions months primary debates, and even to decide where they would notably of civil rights demonstrations and journalism and our politics. Policy at the Harvard nalism is more in the mold of before an election, and asserting that the results were stand on the stage (Trump at center). Reputable polling the funeral of Winston Churchill—had The local is also not just Kennedy School. grassroots organizing, where the “scientific,” seemed to many people so obviously in- organizations refused to directly participate in this ex- cost stockholders six cents a share due to about the neighborhood. The newsroom becomes a sort of 21st jurious to the democratic progress that Congress has traordinarily fishy process. And yet still the polls were lost ad revenue. But with the proliferation collapse of local news institutions means century VFW hall, the hub of local activity. The several times conducted investigations into the polling conducted, and still the polls were reported, and news of channels, from cable to Facebook, the that Americans don’t have independent current buzz is around audience acquisition industry, as has the Social Science Research Council. organizations, desperate for the cash that comes with competition for audience has intensified. eyes and ears in Washington, D.C. A recent through social media. What about audience None of this stopped newspapers and television net- every click, tarted up their homepages with charts of Celebrity provides a competitive advan- Pew study shows that 21 of 50 states do not acquisition through local physical presence, works from deciding to conduct their own polls. blue and red. In the election of 2016, polls were at once tage, just at a time when culturally we are have a single local daily newspaper with its opening up potential trickles of revenue from Modern, media-run presidential polling began in more unreliable than ever before, and more influential. downgrading expertise. own dedicated Congressional correspon- events and other local activities? 1975, when The New York Times conducted a telephone Other nations regulate the publication of pre-elec- Journalism is familiar with this particu- dent. That means 21 Congressional delega- The danger of social media “audience ac- survey jointly with CBS News, a practice that many tion polls, as a matter of civic ethics and good gover- lar trend. The de-professionalism of journal- tions that don’t have to confront a reporter quisition” is that it repeats the mistakes of people condemned as ethically dubious, on the theo- nance. It’s time for the United States to do the same. P ism has been a small but significant part of from back home while going about their cable television, rendering us captive to ce- emerging tech culture for the last couple of D.C. business. But that also means 21 states lebrity, national news stories, and clickbait. decades. “Content creator” isn’t the same where Americans don’t really know what’s Newsrooms as “civic reactors,” the beating thing as journalist. De-professionalization, going on in our national government. heart of our communities, offers greater one thing I worry about about message-resonance with son? Or on your Facebook or when combined with celebrity culture, The heart of the challenge here is that promise—not to mention the skills of grass- Predicting is the seeming expectation that that cohort. Twitter feeds? Compare that to threatens to overpower journalism, espe- we do not have a sustainable business mod- roots organizing are cousins to traditional Outcomes is the press should have been But the media too often por- how much you read about the cially with a reality TV star as president of el for local news. As Robert Putnam chron- news-gathering skills, rather than the alien Not Our Job able to predict the outcome of tray election polls as implicit latest poll or the latest outra- the United States. icled in his canonical “Bowling Alone,” skills of marketing and . the election. And that “we got predictors of an outcome. Poll geous candidate quote. Poll stories With a declining respect for expertise, over the last few decades, Americans went “Res publica,” loosely translated, means, it wrong.” Clairvoyance is the stories masquerade as serious The contrast is stark. a world-view inextricably shaped by celeb- from bowling in organized bowling leagues “public matter,” presumably one pertaining masquerade as stuff of fortune tellers; jour- journalism, bumping more This loss of hope for eco- rity, and an intense desire for escapism to to bowling by themselves, even as more to “real” people. It is up to us to make sure it serious journalism. nalists report on the world. meaningful and, admittedly, nomic prosperity across much avoid the pressing challenges of our mo- people started bowling. Putnam showed is not the kind of “real” in reality television, We’re in the business We find truths, examine ideas; complicated stories to sec- of America may have had the ment, Donald Trump seems suddenly in- how over the same time span, Americans but the kind of “real” you find at PTA meet- of providing real we tell stories of experience, ond-tier status in both devel- biggest impact on the election’s evitable. But a resignation to inevitability is purchased more air conditioners, started ings and traffic court hearings. P news and analysis struggle, aspiration. Editorials opment and presentation. This outcome, yet it’s the phenom- so people can make provide interpretation, per- reduces political coverage to a enon most Americans read the their own decisions spective, advocacy. horse-race spectator sport— least about. There’s a legitimate discus- who’s up, who’s down, who said It’s good to remind ourselves By Keven Ann “Election polling is in near crisis,” the sion to be had about whether this, who said that. that the media aren’t in the busi- Willey political scientist Cliff Zukin wrote in The New York the media told a full range of Economists say the U.S. is ness of telling people what to The Problem Times in June of 2015, a year and a half before the stories to accurately portray experiencing the highest rates think. And we shouldn’t assess Dewey-Defeats-Truman of Donald Trump’s unexpected America’s mood leading up to of discouraged and unemployed our success or failure by how victory over Hillary Clinton. Zukin is a past president of this election. But to morph that men ages 20-65 since 1940. many voters “agree with us”— with Polls Isn’t the American Association for Public Opinion Research. assessment into fault for failing Nicholas Eberstadt, Andrew whatever that means. Like any political scientist who’d been paying attention, to predict the election’s out- Sullivan, J.B. Vance, Robert We’re in the business of pro- Technological, Zukin had observed that election predictions have been Jill Lepore is David come seems a subtle but signifi- Putnam—among others— viding real news, pertinent in- very wrong in very many places in the last few years, Woods Kemper cant error in expectation. have written about the decline formation, and valuable analysis from Israel to the United Kingdom. ’41 Professor of All the media mea culpas I’m of white lower-middle-class so people can make their own It’s Political The very science of polling has been falling apart. American History reading are starting to feel a bit America. The statistics are informed decisions. P As a matter of civic ethics and good Plummeting response rates, down from above 90 percent and Harvard like schadenfreude. gruesome. The news isn’t that in the 1930s to the single digits in the last election, have College Professor at Yes, scientific polls have there’s an income disparity, it’s governance, it’s time to regulate the wildly skewed results. Meanwhile, meaningless, instant Harvard University. Keven Ann Willey value as a diagnostic tool. For that this disparity is deepening publication of pre‑election polls Internet polls, pure publicity malarkey, which are difficult is vice president example, learning that white at an alarming rate and fueling By Jill Lepore for most voters to distinguish from so-called scientific and editorial page women—across the board, ugly waves of fear, prejudice and polls, have proliferated, sowing confusion, and making editor at The Dallas college educated or not—fa- anger across the country. The media too often even good polls into bad polls, by influencing their results. Morning News vored Trump over Clinton by How much did you read portray election polls as Poll aggregators and data scientists promise to ad- and co-chair of the 10 percentage points is useful about this in the mainstream dress these problems by abandoning conventional poll- Pulitzer Prize Board. information for what it tells us press during this campaign sea- predictors of an outcome

34 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 35 tous decline. On average people now give 20 minutes Which of those organizations is prepared to deliver forms. To what degree should every news organization of weekend leisure time to reading and 3 and ¼ hours those stories in forms the broad majority of Americans be responsible for attempting that? That, I suppose, de- Reporting for to television. Trump appears to desire to consume? It is possible to deliver high-quality pends on whether they wish to serve the country as a To suggest that we are transitioning from a text- have understood intellectual content in basic language and in visual-oral whole or only an elite. P an Oral Culture based to an oral culture is not to make an evaluation. that the U.S. is The majority of Americans The majority culture in ancient Athens was also oral yet the large public performances of drama that en- prefer to watch or listen to transitioning gaged the citizenry were of high literary and intellec- This is hardly all our fault. viewed each other. Those com- the news rather than read it. tual merit. Also, it was possible for the city to conduct from a text-based Four Steps to The business crisis of journal- munities are all within the cir- Will newsrooms deliver serious public decision-making, with a citizenry in to an oral culture ism has been intense. A paywall, culation of the Journal Sentinel stories in forms Americans which the majority relied almost exclusively on oral Strengthening to pick one example, may reduce and the signal of WUWM, want to consume? modes of communication. access to information citizens Milwaukee Public Radio. I men- By Danielle Allen As I watched the Republican primary and became at- Journalism’s need. But without it, there won’t tion them only because they tuned to this issue, I began paying attention to the analy- be revenue to sustain the news have an existing record of work- ses of the different grade levels at which each candidate Role in Our organization as it gathers that Michael Oreskes is ing together to serve their com- spoke. Ted Cruz routinely came out at the highest lev- information. And any effort to NPR’s senior vice munities better. el—at about twelfth grade; his approach was especially Democracy create broadly democratic con- president of news and There is a lot more to be Sometime late last winter, I began to focus effective with Republicans who held post-graduate de- The question isn’t, versations by reaching broad- editorial director. done. Milwaukee is a lucky place closely on what would happen in the primaries on Super grees and pretty effective with college grads. Of course, “What lessons can we draw er audiences runs headlong to have the Journal Sentinel and Tuesday, March 1, 2016. I realized I really needed to get there are fewer of those voters, though they do have high from 2016?” The question is, into the role of our “platform partners,” WUWM, as well as Wisconsin Public Radio. on top of Donald Trump’s policy proposals. My first participation rates. Rubio’s speech was a bit simpler; and “Which of the many answers Facebook, Google, Twitter, and the rest. Many local communities have become little step was to go to his website. There I found nothing John Kasich’s even simpler than Rubio’s. Much has been said about all this by more than “news deserts,” according to a to read. The campaign did add text policy documents Trump’s language was, of course, simplest of all. He should we focus on?” more business-savvy people. So for here recent report from the University of North later, but at any early point, as best as I could tell, all clocked in just below the sixth-grade level. As we have By Michael Oreskes and now, let’s stipulate that our goal is to Carolina. If we mean to be one country, we that was available was video: 30-second clips, 2-minute seen, he did exceptionally well with white voters with- strengthen our democratic purpose in the should no more tolerate letting some of our clips. Nothing longer than that, as I recall. For me, this out college degrees. There are a lot of those voters, more faith that if we focus on fulfilling society’s fellow citizens go ill-informed than we would was torture. I craved an extended, efficient, informa- even than Trump actually tapped into in this election. needs, successful business models (includ- consent to see them ill-fed or ill-clothed. The tion-rich text. There and then, I understood that this They have historically had lower rates of registration ing serious efforts by platform owners) will Public Broadcasting Act instructed us in pub- election was different. and participation than college-educated Americans, a Focus is one of journalism’s most im- follow. Let’s face it, this is actually our only lic media 50 years ago to fulfill needs unmet In each video Trump was seated at his desk, wearing phenomenon that scholar of education Meira Levinson portant skills. It’s that separating the wheat course. Strong business models and a weak by commercial media. The loss of local jour- his characteristic jacket, white shirt, and tie, staring di- has dubbed the participation gap. from the chaff thing. In an age of distrac- democracy won’t really help us, as our col- nalism is clearly one of those needs. rectly at the camera and delivering an emphatic state- In 2010, Adam Sherk, vice president of SEO and so- tion we need THAT skill now more than leagues in Turkey are finding. NETWORKED: We can’t expect to ment. I don’t remember which issue areas I watched. cial media for Define Media Group, took advantage of a ever. (Is anyone going to explain why So with that stipulation, what should simply rebuild all of the newsrooms dam- Maybe trade. Maybe immigration. Maybe terrorism. It then recently released filter that permit- ’s 1980 campaign slogan has we do? aged by the disruption of the newspaper didn’t matter. The were the same as those he filtering sites by reading level: basic, intermediate, made such a comeback?) We need to ap- Here are four steps to strengthening industry. We need to build something new. was delivering on the stump. I realized that the Trump and advanced. He used this tool to analyze news sites. ply that focus to ourselves right now. The journalism's role in our democracy: We Many folks are using the word collaboration campaign wasn’t talking to readers; it was delivering It’s worth looking at his whole review, but it’s striking question isn’t, “What lessons can we draw should focus on being more local, more net- here to describe how by combining forces content to watchers. This meant Trump had identified that less than 10 percent of Bloomberg Businessweek from 2016?” Answers have already flooded worked, more diverse, and fiercely indepen- we can maintain and even expand strong an audience for himself different from that of any other and The New York Times content studied was at the in to Nieman at a pace to induce future-of- dent. This will improve community . When I talk about networked I candidate. He was the only candidate campaigning ex- basic reading level while 28 percent of CBS News and 41 news vertigo. to reliable information, rebuild trust in us, mean all that and more. clusively through television. All the other Republicans, percent of ABC News content scored at the basic level. The question is, “Which of those many and strengthen democracy. NPR is already a network of commu- despite appearing on television, were campaigning in Those media organizations that have their roots in answers should we focus on?” LOCAL: All politics is local, said Tip nity based news organizations in every text. They produced policy statements; they read writ- television have registered the downshift in the popula- To pick, we first have to decide our goal. O’Neill. So is the most essential journalism. state. (We have 264 members broadcasting ten remarks. Even Marco Rubio, in delivering his con- tion’s interest in reading and appear to peg their content Are we asking which lessons we need to Whether it is journalism that holds local over close to 1,000 signals, radiospeak for cession speech, read from a text. accordingly. Those organizations that have their roots heed to create a stronger media? Or a stron- public figures to account or that connects channels.) We are committed to working Trump appears to have understood that the U.S. is in text, in contrast, generally deliver content at more ger democracy? communities across divides of race, creed, together to strengthen their local jour- transitioning from a text-based to an oral culture. I don’t sophisticated linguistic levels. We need to articulate this. Because class, origins, or orientation. We have an es- nalism, which then becomes the basis for mean by this that a commitment to text will disappear, In other words, we are seeing two intersecting we talk a lot about our crucial, dare I say sential role in bursting filter bubbles. This the stories we tell the country about itself. only that it has become a minority practice, once again phenomena that probably both reflect and drive un- privileged, role as guardians of democra- can most effectively and productively be In other words, our sense of the country a mark of membership in a social elite. derlying shifts in American culture. The majority of cy. Yet, not all of our actions conform to done in local communities. Some of these doesn’t come from the coasts. It comes Barely more than a decade ago, the majority of adult Americans now prefer to watch or listen to their news the notion that democratic society is our communities are physically isolated from from everywhere. Americans, with a high school degree or above, were rather than to read it. And the textual content pro- North Star. We know all about news or- others (more on that under “networked”). Like, say, Laramie, Wyoming. There daily readers of newspapers and news sites. Today duced by organizations associated with television and ganizations that pursue partisan factions But in many cases, they are actually cheek were many questions about President-elect this is no longer true. Now, at best about 40 percent by those associated with traditional newspapers dif- Danielle Allen is a as audience. But what about news organi- by jowl. Trump’s promise to save coal mining jobs. of American adults “frequently” get their news from fers in the demands made on readers. political theorist at zations with clearly elite strategies? They During the election, David Greene of Stephanie Joyce at Wyoming Public Radio newspapers and their websites. In contrast, roughly 60 We are hearing a lot, in the wake of post-election Harvard University seek wealthier audiences, for example, NPR rode a public bus line that connected understood both the miners and the in- percent frequently get their news from television. Of analysis, about how our leading journalistic organiza- and a contributing because that’s who advertisers buy. Is a downtown Milwaukee and adjacent sub- dustry. Coal’s fundamental problem, she course, television has dominated since the era of the tions failed to hear and tell the stories of working class for The partisan niche any worse for democratic urbs. He traversed from Clinton country reported from Laramie, isn’t government broadcast Big Three. What’s new is reading’s precipi- and rural Americans. But there’s another issue, too. Washington Post. discourse than an economic one? to Trump country, capturing how citizens regulations, which President-elect Trump

36 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 37 could change. Coal’s problem is the rise of Take my NPR colleague, Sarah ognition that they have a large effect on who These are not legit anti-Hillary stories. (There were sites that are only a few steps up from fake—has wea- cheap natural gas, which Trump has vowed McCammon, who covered the Trump cam- gets the work we do. We have a democratic plenty of those, to be sure, both on his page and in this ponized those filter bubbles. There were just too many to expand. More gas, less coal. There is no paign this year. Sarah is from Kansas City, responsibility and so do they. Getting Mark election cycle.) These are imaginary, made up, frauds. people voting in this election because they were infuri- substitute for local knowledge and on-the- Missouri. She was raised in a conservative INDEPENDENT: This is everything. Zuckerberg And yet Facebook has built a platform for the active ated by made-up things they read online. ground reporting. Christian home. Her background made a real Without it the rest won't matter. Ask your- dispersal of these lies—in part because these lies travel What can Facebook do to fix this problem? One There are efforts in many states and cities difference in her ability to cover evangelicals. self as a journalist, “Who do I work for?” If to care about really, really well. The pope’s “endorsement” has over idea would be to hire editors to manage what shows to form not-for-profit news organizations to “These aren’t zoo creatures,” McCammon we can’t reply that our first allegiance is to [fake news] is 868,000 Facebook shares. The Snopes piece noting the up in its Trending section—one major way misinfor- take up the slack left by the decline of news- told The Pub, a podcast covering public me- the public, we confirm the worst of what a story is fake has but 33,000. mation gets spread. Facebook canned its Trending ed- paper newsrooms. For 2017, NPR will be dia. “These are human beings who think dif- lot of that public thinks of us: That we are absolutely key In a column just before the election, The New York itors after it got pushback from conservatives; that was working closely with public radio stations ferently than a lot of people in Washington.” tools of some amorphous corporate estab- to addressing Times’s Jim Rutenberg argued that “the cure for fake an act of cowardice, and since then, fake news stories and others to strengthen coverage of state Diversity of audience is crucial here too. lishment. journalism is an overwhelming dose of good journal- have been algorithmically pushed out to millions with and government. Public radio Danielle Allen raises the important ques- To win the public’s trust, we have to the problem ism.” I wish that were true, but I think the evidence alarming frequency. sounds like America because it is everywhere tion: Who are we speaking to? There are a be the public’s media. Connected locally. shows that it’s not. There was an enormous amount of Another would be to hire a team of journalists and in America. We aren’t the only ones with lot of business pressures that push many Networked nationally and awash in diverse good journalism done on Trump and this entire election charge them with separating at least the worst of the this idea. is building a network of media companies toward niche strategies. perspectives on what is newsworthy and cycle. For anyone who wanted to take it in, the pickings fake news from the stream. Not the polemics (from ei- newspapers with very much the same goal. A If we accept our role as serving the public’s how to report it. When we ask hard ques- were rich. ther side) that sometimes twist facts like balloon an- democracy the size of the United States has information needs in a democratic society tions or hold leaders to account we must The problem is that not enough people sought it imals—I’m talking about the outright fakery. Stories plenty of room for both of us. we need to include all of the public. That always remember we are doing it on the out. And of those who did, not enough of them trusted known to be false could be downweighted in Facebook’s DIVERSE: The subject of diversity means it may fall to journalists to argue in- public’s behalf, not for our own aggrandize- it to inform their political decisions. And even for many algorithm, and users trying to share them could get a no- has been on newsroom agendas for a long side our own organizations for approaches ment or advancement. We are their eyes of those, the good journalism was crowded out by the tice telling them that the story is fake. Sites that publish time. We haven’t done a good enough job. that reach out for broader audiences rather and ears. Their windows on other points of fragmentary glimpses of nonsense. too much fraudulent material could be downweighted Not only do we still have much work to do than narrowing them based on income or view. We must be their information partners I used to be something of a skeptic when it came further or kicked out entirely. to bring journalists of color into our news- any other demographic. It also means speak- in the work required of each citizen to make to claims of “filter bubbles”— the sort of epistem- Would this or other ideas raise thorny issues? Sure. rooms and into positions of responsibility, ing forcefully to the platform companies like democracy effective. ic closure that comes from only seeing material you This would be easy to screw up—which is I’m sure why we have to recognize that broadening our Facebook, Google, and the rest in favor of We have a distance to travel to become agree with on social platforms. People tend to click Facebook threw up its hands at the pushback to a hu- perspectives includes others, too. transparency in their algorithms and a rec- this. But if we focus our efforts we can do it. P links that align with their existing opinions, sure— man-edited Trending section and why it positions itself but isn’t that just an online analog to the fact that a neutral connector of its users to content it thinks they our friends and family tend to share our opinions in will find pleasing. I don’t know what the right solution the real world too? would be—but I know that getting Mark Zuckerberg to of the ’s business models; the continued rise But I’ve come to think that the rise of fake news— care about the problem is absolutely key to the health of of personalized social feeds and the content that spreads and of the cheap-to-run, ideologically driven aggregator our information ecosystem. P Get Serious easily within them; the hollowing-out of reporting jobs away from the coasts: These are, like the expansion of the About Getting Rid universe, pushing us farther apart in all directions. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but the list of how race, identity, and our changing cul- Carolina in the final days instead of actors has to start with Facebook. And for all its won- What Went ture were deeply shaping this election, Michigan and Wisconsin. In the final days, Of Fake News ders—reaching nearly 2 billion people each month, Joshua Benton, creating a kind of “white identity politics.” FiveThirtyEight’s emphasized Hiring editors at Facebook driving more traffic and attention to news than anything a 2008 Nieman Wrong—and The crew at was excellent at linking that Clinton was the favorite, but there was is key to the health of our else on earth—it’s also become a single point of failure Fellow, is director of Trump’s rise with that of nationalist lead- great uncertainty in part because of the large information ecosystem for civic information. Our democracy has a lot of prob- Nieman Lab. Right—with ers and parties in Europe. The New York number of undecided voters. Bingo. By Joshua Benton lems, but there are few things that could impact it for Times’s Nate Cohn wrote a piece in June But a lot went wrong as well. And there the better more than Facebook starting to care — really Campaign explaining Obama’s relative strength are lessons for political journalists looking care—about the truthfulness of the news that its users with white, working class voters and how forward. share and take in. Coverage Clinton needed that bloc to win in states Some of the fake news on Facebook is driven by Journalists still have a like Ohio and Wisconsin. 1. Stop Predicting: I first suggested Trump One way to think of the job journalism does is , but a lot is driven purely by the economic in- lot to learn, but are also My NBC News colleague Katy Tur was wouldn’t win a single primary, then that he telling a community about itself, and on those terms the centive structure Facebook has created: The fake stuff, producing some exemplary on the road every day with Trump and did wouldn’t win the overall GOP primary, and American media failed spectacularly this election cycle. when it connects with a Facebook user’s preconceived what the best candidate reporters do: deep- then that he would lose the general. That Donald Trump’s victory came as such a surprise—a notions or sense of identity, spreads like wildfire. (And coverage to learn from ly understand the person that they are cov- But I don’t think the problem was that systemic shock, really—to both journalists and so many it’s a lot cheaper to make than real news.) By Perry Bacon ering. When others would say “now Trump my predictions were wrong, but that I was who read or watch them is a marker of just how bad a One example: I’m from a small town in south is going to pivot” and behave like a tradi- making them in the first place. Too much of job we did. American political discourse in 2016 seemed Louisiana. The day before the election, I looked at the tional candidate, Tur would always remind political reporting has turned into predict- to be running on two self-contained, never-overlapping Facebook page of the current mayor. Among the items the audience that the businessman was de- ing events that will happen right in front sets of information. It took the Venn diagram finally he posted there in the final 48 hours of the campaign: termined to campaign and win his way. She of us in a few days or weeks. When will meeting at the ballot box to make it clear how separate Hillary Clinton Calling for Civil War If Trump Is Elected. There was a whole lot that went was right. Hillary Clinton announce? Who will run her the two solitudes really are. Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for right in 2016 campaign coverage. A week before the election, The against her? Can Jeb win? When the “Access The troubling morning-after realization is that the President. Admits He Was Born in Kenya. If you were reading Slate’s Jamelle Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein described the Hollywood” video came out, the coverage structures of today’s media ecosystem encourage that sep- FBI Agent Who Was Suspected Of Leaking Hillary’s Bouie, PRRI’s Robert Jones, or New risky approach Clinton was taking, cam- quickly became “how does it affect Trump” aration, and do so a little bit more each day. The decline Corruption Is Dead. America’s Lee Drutman, you understood paigning in states like Florida and North in x state or among y voting bloc.

38 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 39 The increasing use of data and politi- Both the Black Lives Matter movement 3. Cover what the candidates say: Then we need to use whatever media conven- As if these tasks were not challenging enough, we cal science in political reporting is a huge and the rise of Trump were stories in part Traditionally, candidates are “on message” ing power we have left to bring together commu- must also, of course, reinvent our business model so plus. When I covered campaigns in 2004 about identity, race, and culture. And I and their speeches are exactly what they said nities—conservative, liberal, white, black, Latino, we are not still dependent on mass-media economics, and 2008, way too much time was spent think at times the press either failed to un- the day before. But the major candidates in immigrant, unemployed, evangelical, old, young, gun still addicted to scale for its own sake. Follow the mon- suggesting various events were so-called derstand these stories were about identity 2016 did not model. Trump’s owner, gun victim, etc.—who fear but do not know ey and it leads to Donald Trump, who was the clickbait game changers. I think most campaign re- or was not fluent in discussing that aspect words were important because he often each other so that we can promote, inform, and im- candidate, the perhaps inevitable culmination of mass porting now recognizes how unimportant of them. The coverage of Trump supporters said things that were demonstrably false or prove civic discourse. We must build diversity in our media, of amusing ourselves to death. We must find most campaign events and speeches are and their views on race and other issues was mused publicly about ideas that he hadn’t newsrooms to enable this. We must build diversity new models that support relevance over reach, val- compared to factors like approval and dis- lacking in sophistication, as if journalists really vetted yet but then became part of his in the news ecosystem to serve communities, no lon- ue over volume. The way to do that is to better serve approval ratings and partisanship. had not read the many dozens of studies campaign. Clinton, if you listened carefully, ger the mass. And we have the opportunity to build communities, including Trump’s, so they have facts to That data can help us explain to our au- and books on subjects like racial resent- was the most pro-civil rights, pro-abortion connections across these communities for greater inform their conversations and actions. That way, per- dience what is happening or just happened ment, Reagan Democrats, and the rise of rights, pro-gun control Democratic nominee understanding. haps, they will value journalism again. P in a more sophisticated way than in a previ- Islam in America. in recent memory. ous era of campaign coverage. But way too A lot of the coverage on election night I often heard people suggest that often, that data is used to predict, instead and afterward was cloaked in euphemisms, this campaign was not about policy. The of to explain. that Trump had won “rural America” or 2016 race may have not been covered as The signs that someone gested, I wrote about race too tional newspapers—connected I understand why this happens. It’s hu- the “working class,” with journalists I a policy debate by the press, but Clinton Looking for like Donald Trump was com- much, even though I was the the dots. Most mid-sized news- man instinct. I live in D.C., a city full of pol- think wary of using the term “white” but (and her de facto running mate President “Whitelash” ing were right there, in online only black columnist on staff in rooms, where I’ve spent most icy wonks. And yet I was asked nearly every thereby obscuring the fact that black and Obama) were constantly arguing with Newsrooms need to see comments lousy with cre- a city that’s nearly 65 percent of my career, did not. day for two years the same question: who is Latino working class and rural voters did Trump about inclusion, tolerance, global- the connection between atively spelled racial slurs that black. The solution was in my History doesn’t repeat itself, going to win? not back Trump. ization, security, policing, immigration, journalism, white slipped past even the best fil- control. Concede the floor, put but it does echo—but too few On my best days, I would say “Clinton Trump was often criticized for not hav- and other issues. anger, and the politics ters. They were in the vicious myself on mute. journalists were listening for is the favorite, but I don’t know.” Political ing policy ideas. In the tradi- To conclude, I would suggest tweets and voice mail nasty- At my own and other papers the reverberation. Jim Crow journalists need to use those last three tional sense of white papers, he that many of the weaknesses of of racial resentment grams aimed at journalists around the country, too many followed Reconstruction. The words a lot more. did not. But if you view politics the 2016 coverage overall were By Wendi C. Thomas of color, especially when we newsroom leaders—87 percent war on drugs followed the civ- through identity and culture, addressed during 2016, by some wrote about race. It was in the of whom are white, accord- il rights movement. There was 2. Understand race, gender, culture, and Trump was speaking quite of the best coverage. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of ing to the latest figures from no reason to believe President identity and tell that part of the story: clearly about his goals as pres- much to learn, but also some racist and xenophobic emails the American Society of News Obama’s election would be fol- Identity has always been a part of politics, ident. He constantly told his people to learn from. And I hope that clogged my inbox during Editors—saw white readers’ lowed by a post-racial utopia, particularly in the post-1960s era, with civil audiences what he favored and political journalists, including my 11-year-tenure as a colum- seething rage as separate from especially when yawning racial rights legislation entrenching blacks in the what he opposed. But he most- Perry Bacon is senior myself, address some of our nist at The Commercial Appeal journalism. They saw little con- disparities remained. Democratic Party and pushing Southern ly spoke in terms of values and political reporter for shortcomings immediately and in Memphis. nection between this anger and We should have been look- whites to vote Republican. ideals, not taxes and spending. NBC News. not wait till 2020. P Never before had white that was disas- ing for the “whitelash,” as CNN readers been exposed to the trous for people of color. They commentator and political ac- regular opinions of a black didn’t get that these same read- tivist labeled it after woman; I was the paper’s first ers were also voters, voters who the election. cluding Fox News (which brainwashed my own parents; black female columnist. But would be receptive to a presi- So where do we go from I’ve seen the results), Breitbart, Drudge, and countless even as this angry tribe of white dential candidate who stoked here? We recommit ourselves Relevance Over meme-makers who learned how to use social media to readers grew, many of my non- racial resentment at every turn. to doing our jobs. We help insert themselves into voters’ conversations. black colleagues—particularly This willful blindness didn’t readers make sense of their Reach, Value Over To begin to fill this void instead with responsible, editors and publishers—insist- infect every news outlet. Some world. We link the present to reasonable, fact-based journalism, I will argue in favor ed these readers were outliers. organizations—such as , the context of the past. When of investment in new, conservative media. Of course, (And I knew these readers were The Atlantic, Slate, Vox, and na- we’re not sure, we turn to his- Volume I’ll also argue that other underserved communities— Jeff Jarvis is an white because they almost al- torians and academics for help. Notes toward an African American, Latino, LGBTQ, disabled, to name author, media ways told me so, using phrases And we listen to colleagues who empathetic journalism for only a few—also deserve such direct and relevant ser- , and like, “I’m a white reader in the are black and brown and immi- the right half of America vice. But it was angry, white voters who bred , director of the Tow- suburbs and I want you to know grant and LGBT and members By Jeff Jarvis so they, too, need attention—urgently. Knight Center for Wendi C. Thomas I’m tired of your racist shit.”) of other historically marginal- As journalists and news organizations, we must Entrepreneurial is a 2016 Nieman Never mind that all the base- ized groups. begin by listening—and let’s be honest about this, Journalism at the Fellow and a senior ments in the world couldn't So where do we go from If you are a newsroom lead- too: We’re not good at listening in our field. This is City University of writing fellow contain all these folks. er in the middle of the country, why, at CUNY, we started a new degree in social jour- New York’s Graduate with the Center for Don’t focus on the haters, I here? We recommit when these journalists tell you nalism, to teach journalists to understand and em- School of Journalism. Community Change. was told, as if my attention was ourselves to doing our what they see, believe them. Among journalism’s many failings in this elec- pathize with a community’s needs before bringing In April 2017, she what gave them fuel. People Trust them. And govern your tion, our greatest, I think, is this: We in liberal media content and our many other new tools to the task of launches MLK50, a who send death threats are just jobs. We help readers organization’s reporting ac- (let’s admit that much, at least) abandoned and, in turn, informing them. Once we reliably reflect a commu- yearlong reporting venting, I was reassured. They make sense of the world. cordingly. were abandoned by conservative Americans. They do nity’s worldview and serve its needs, only then can and civic engagement wouldn’t actually do anything, We link the present to Starting today, we can prom- not trust us. Thus we could not inform them. We left a we begin to earn back its trust and have any hope of project on economic as I took different routes home ise to look for the signs. I guaran- void that was readily filled in by fake news factories, in- informing that worldview. justice. from work. Perhaps, it was sug- the context of the past tee that they’re all around us. P

40 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 41 try.” Richwine has argued that Hispanic sport coat and button-down shirt, ready for about people of different ethnicities as they I fear that Team Trump’s coziness with authority over the next four years, I’ll feel Still an immigrants “do not have the same level of lunch with an editor at a large daily newspa- emerge in policy debates. I’ll also ask col- advisers who consort with white national- like the industry has my back. Maybe then cognitive ability as natives.” He echoes eu- per. Back then, uniformed border agents rou- leagues to refrain from labeling me as bi- ists will be treated as no more controver- I’ll finally shake that nagging suspicion that Outsider in genics theory, which ranks me and mine well tinely patrolled trains northbound from San ased when I point out that an alleged fact sial than the president-elect’s positions on I’ve not been shown the handshake down the ladder of able races. Diego, looking for passengers who seemed is a racist myth. trade deals. But if we aggressively question of journalism. P Mainstream Add in talk during the campaign of walls to radiate “otherness.” I traded stares with and registries that would shield us from the agent, and he demanded that I pro- Journalism people demonized as dangerous and run- duce my ID and proof of status. I bit my lip Trump’s rhetoric forces ning amok. The result: an environment against a smart-mouth retort and produced Collaborative Media papers, now sadly downsized cently joined with other non- us to redefine what it that’s deeply unsettling to many journalists my California driver’s license and my green and in full retreat from rural profit outlets. Louisville Public means to be a Latino and a of color. card. I was born in Mexico and was not yet Partnerships Can Help Rebuild bureaus and issues. This elec- Media, where I work, hous- Which brings me to this. a U.S. citizen. tion season more often saw the es the Kentucky Center for professional journalist I haven’t ever said this publicly, but even I had believed my shiny new degree in Local and Regional Journalism occasional correspondent para- Investigative Reporting, and By Ricardo Sandoval Palos though I’ve accomplished a great deal, I’ve journalism from California State University Restoring credibility for journalism must chute in for the misery tour of this year we launched the Ohio often felt like an outsider in mainstream proved I belonged. Getting singled out by include rebuilding the capacity for journalists the unemployed and addicted. Valley ReSource in partnership journalism. Perhaps it’s my start in life as a this agent instead made me feel shoved to work within the communities they cover Tweet some poverty porn, tut- with public media stations in barefoot kid on the dirt streets of Tijuana, back in my place. He had asked no one else By Jeff Young tut at a Confederate flag, and three states. The ReSource is in Mexico, or the fact that there are so few to produce an ID. The interaction reminded there’s no reason to get into the one of eight regional journal- I watched election-night coverage Latinos in the upper reaches of English- me that no preppy sport coat could com- messiness of massive economic ism collaboratives recently on television with acquaintances from language media, despite our growing share pletely cover my brown skin. The chasm between the dislocation and the toxic legacy started with short-term fund- Europe, who seemed flummoxed by what of the U.S. population. I’d wanted to be a I know that many of my colleagues have coastal media centers and the of resource extraction. ing from the Corporation for was unfolding on the screen. I spent a lot journalist from early on, starting a school never been compelled to produce ID for country’s heartland is laid bare. Yes, I’m a little bitter. And Public Broadcasting. They are of time explaining the Electoral College newspaper in the sixth grade. But for me, anything other than the right to buy a drink. Deep discontent, long simmering I’m oversimplifying. But I be- in Arkansas, Indiana, the Great and unpacking why I thought that Donald scraping together money to go to a good I reflect on the past as we consider a new in the manufacturing Midwest lieve that restoring credibility Lakes region, and elsewhere. Trump was getting enough votes, in the state university was an achievement, espe- challenge. It’s a special time that’s forcing us and Appalachian coal country, for journalism must include These partnerships, plus right places, to win the election. cially after few teachers in high school ex- to redefine what it means to be a Latino and went largely unrecognized until rebuilding the capacity for jour- earlier projects such as Harvest Early on, it was a fun night. We laughed pressed confidence in me. a professional journalist. I can only imagine Jeff Young, a 2013 this year’s populist primal scream. nalists to work within the com- Public Media and Inside Energy, as I, a Mexican-American, gladly accept- Today, my bookshelves are dotted with the waves of fear, anger, and uncertainty Nieman Fellow, is Even then, national coverage of- munities they cover. can help fill the void of local and ed the moniker, Bad Hombre. Trump had major journalism awards. I was fortunate that journalists who are Muslim or who are managing editor ten came laced with enough con- Green shoots abound with regional coverage but they must set a tone on the first day of his presiden- enough to work for a decade as a correspon- of Arab heritage are experiencing. of Louisville Public descension to remind people here recently established investiga- all find paths to long-term sus- tial campaign, calling out Mexican immi- dent in my native Mexico, and I’ve held posi- The optimist in me predicts we won’t Media’s Ohio Valley why they distrust the media. tive reporting centers and col- tainability. These should be rec- grants as rapists and drug dealers. And, by tions of authority in prominent newsrooms witness mass deportations, with crowds of ReSource. Not so long ago, “the media” laborative media partnerships. ognized as an essential public the end of the campaign, he’d cemented in print and public radio. But my climb in frightened people at the border and armed would have included familiar In , the Midwest Center service and nurtured to allow lo- his hard stance, asserting there were some the business was accompanied by remarks guards forcing them out. I don’t foresee reporters from strong regional for Investigative Reporting re- cal trust and support to grow. P “bad hombres” out among the population like these: enough politicians willing to enact official of Mexican immigrants. It became a bitter “Now that we’ve hired you, we can make registries for Muslims. Yet there’s a disturb- joke among Latino men. But as the CNN a normal hire.” ing level of public support for such mea- map turned redder and redder that night, “Don’t we already have a Hispanic in the sures, and the Trump transition team isn’t much attention to a parade of one popular candidate enmeshed the laughs disappeared. It appeared that business section?” ruling them out. polls. For starters, there were no in a close race for the N.C. House many voters had taken Trump’s hyperbole Those words were from colleagues and We’ve seen wartime internment of Creating Community- publicly released polls tracking of Representatives died three as gospel. supervisors, and they left me with a sense Japanese-Americans. And my own American- the county commissioner and days before Election Day. This brought me to a conundrum: As a that my stay was transient—that born mother and her Mexican Centered, Not state legislative races that define So, unlike our counterparts proud, professional journalist, I am politi- for me and other journalists of immigrant parents were co- politics down here. in the national media, journalists cally neutral. I’ve worked to hold the feet of color the margin for error was erced into leaving the U.S., from We also plead not guilty to here did not get misdirected or politicians of all stripes to the fire. But on thinner and our roads to success Denver, in a mass deportation Candidate-Centered, being too profoundly influenced Mark Jurkowitz misled by a “horse race” narrative election night I began to wonder: How do I much more serpentine. during the Great Depression. by high-profile, overhyped de- is the owner and fueled by inaccurate polls and remain the neutral observer when the presi- That gut feeling had actual- So what do I do as a Latino, Narratives bate performances. The October publisher of the babbling pundits. Heck, there dent-elect and his advisers have used openly ly taken root when I was a kid, and a journalist? ravages of Hurricane Matthew Outer Banks Sentinel was virtually no information by At the local level, the media need racist language about Mexican immigrants, growing up near the border, I’ll adhere to as high a pro- washed out several scheduled in North Carolina. which to handicap the horse race people like me? south of San Diego. I’ll never Ricardo Sandoval fessional standard as possible. to convene the conversation candidate forums here, leaving and very little by which to get a He may call himself simply a nationalist, forget that police officer who Palos is managing I’ll report and write accurately, By Mark Jurkowitz but a single Sunday afternoon League of feel for the underlying dynamic. but Trump adviser Steve Bannon has made used to park in my neighbor- editor of 100 without favor for skin tone or Women Voters (LWV) event—attended by Instead, the preferred mode of political money and fame hawking white nationalist hood and often asked to see my Reporters, a nonprofit political bent. about 60 people or so—as the only time these communication in this election season was notions on the Breitbart website and his ra- ID as I walked to school. investigative news But I’ll also demand that local candidates actually debated in public. the almost daily flow of glossy attack ad mail- dio program. He’s praised Jason Richwine, But the most humiliating in- organization and as we head deeper into these In addition, the incumbent state senator ers—often containing distortions if not out- formerly of the Heritage Foundation, as cident occurred just after I got board president changed times, I get the op- In covering the local election sea- from the region boycotted that debate and right inaccuracies—that filled our mailboxes. “one of the smartest brains out there in de- my college degree. It was on with the Fund portunity to speak up about son in Dare County, North Carolina—best declined to answer an LWV questionnaire But for all the differences, we did suffer mographics, demography, this whole issue a train from San Diego to Los for Investigative editorial decisions. There has known as the home of the Outer Banks— because he considers the nonpartisan organi- from the same big problem as our peers in of immigration, what it means to this coun- Angeles. I was dressed in my one Journalism. to be room to confront myths journalists can’t be accused of paying too zation too biased. And in a tragic twist of fate, the national press, even if on a much smaller

42 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 43 scale. How do you find out what’s really on nalistic handle on the “public mood” this officials, consultants, lawyers, self-appoint- political spectrum who believe the press, though flawed, the WikiLeaks material in search of journalistic mal- voters’ minds? election season proved daunting. ed “community leaders,” etc. still serves a valuable function in our democracy, there’s feasance, even plugging in the names of specific news Inside a purple state, Dare County is a Campaigns are relatively low-keyed af- In the heyday of , back Journalists have an opportunity. outlets and reporters. I was looking for breaking news red county. carried it by about fairs around here, and there are not many in the 1992 presidential campaign, Boston some work to do Take the “protective pool,” for example. when what might’ve been most useful is an explanation 16 percentage points over Barack Obama in places where people gather in substantial Globe reporters sat down with a group of Most Americans, and many journalists outside D.C., of whether these exchanges were unusual, and especial- 2012, and it’s no shock that Donald Trump de- numbers to express themselves. (Two years ordinary New Hampshire voters to listen to in convincing a don’t know that a “protective pool” of reporters tradi- ly, if they were journalistically unethical. feated Hillary Clinton here by about 22 points. ago, the county commissioners convened what they had to say. Not everything out of skeptical public tionally follows the president when leaving the White I found several instances of journalists catching But given its unique geography and the their first town hall meeting to let citizens their mouths qualified as pearls of wisdom. House. It’s not necessarily a glamour assignment, with Clinton’s team flat-footed with their reporting, forcing realities of a tourism-driven economy, local take the microphone and discuss their con- But a central theme emerged in the conver- that their goal pool reporters, at times, waiting outside a golf course staffers to hash out our statements in hopes of tamping politics is not so predictably partisan. On the cerns. That was a lively event that lasted sations—high levels of economic anxiety, a isn't to destroy while the president hits the links. But if assigned to ride down a controversy. Of course, these weren’t the emails Outer Banks, Democrats and Republicans two-and-a-half hours and featured 25 speak- very potent force in any election. in John F. Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas on November Trump supporters and conservative outlets tended to locked arms to strongly oppose offshore ers. Last year, the same event was exhausted I’m not even sure the Globe reporters or promote 22, 1963 or to cover George W. Bush reading to Florida amplify in making the case that the media is corrupt and measures like energy drilling and seismic after an hour and only five speakers.) recognized what they were hearing. But the president schoolchildren on the morning of September 11, 2001, in cahoots with the Democrats. The most damning me- testing. And local Republicans have found At the Sentinel, we thought hard about when the Republican primary votes were there’s the potential to write the first draft of history. dia-related emails, to me, featured former CNN pundit themselves at odds with the Republican how to do the kind of reporting that would cast in New Hampshire that year, outsider Even as polls show Americans viewing the news me- and then-Democratic National Committee vice chair leadership in Raleigh on issues ranging from provide genuine insight into what citizens and challenger Pat Buchanan—with his pop- dia about as favorably as Vladimir Putin, I’d still expect Donna Brazile sending primary debate questions to the tax policy to state efforts to erode the au- were thinking during the campaign season. ulist “pitchfork” campaign—had garnered many to immediately turn on CNN or Fox News, or head Clinton campaign. But Brazile isn’t a journalist. thority of municipal governing bodies. It proved difficult because there is little a surprising 38 percent of the vote against to a local or national newspaper site, in times of crisis. Some pushing the collusion theme seized on in- Having said that, there were clear differ- low-hanging fruit, and because it takes a sitting incumbent president from his own So, in this case, journalists should explain that what stances of obsequiousness. Though unseemly, it’s not ences between the candidates running here concerted and organized effort to actively party, George H. W. Bush. may look like whining—“Trump didn’t take us to the unheard of for reporters to cozy up to high-ranking this fall. Democrats were more likely to engage voters in that conversation, one that Creating those ongoing community con- 21 Club!”—is actually the press advocating for access officials of either party. That didn’t seem particularly speak vocally about the need to increase fi- requires news outlets to play a proactive, versations—by convening focus groups or to best serve the public. And without them, the govern- newsworthy. Some also highlighted journalists sending nancial support for local public schools and rather than reactive role. hosting chats in coffee shops or in town ment’s word is all there is. pre-publication copy to sources, which is a violation of to advocate on behalf of county workers, So when thinking about lessons learned halls—is a task that is, in theory, well suited to Some journalists recently mined their own experi- journalistic protocol. It’s an issue worth covering, as I’ve who have seen raises and benefits stagnate. from 2016 election, and what we could have community papers with their ears closer to the ence to make the press’s case before a skeptical public. done before, but just didn’t seem like a pressing concern In addition, there were divisions over a done better, I harken back to the old—and ground. But above all else, it requires the news Yahoo’s Olivier Knox recalled his own experience flying in the waning weeks of the election and certainly not number of hot button issues from climate often unfairly criticized—“citizen journal- outlet to be the aggressor, so to speak, to be aboard Air Force Two and how he and other pool report- evidence of any far-reaching conspiracy change to early voting hours to gay and ism” movement that arose more than two the driving force behind these conversations. ers clarified for the larger press corps (and by extension I also didn’t write about emails showing reporters transgendered rights—the last a particularly decades ago. The idea was to bring news And it’s hard to break the habit of relying the public) that the Vice President was safe after an un- had a private dinner at Podesta’s house before Clinton potent issue given the controversy over the outlets closer to the grassroots of their com- on a candidate-centered, rather than commu- expected landing. ’s Byron Tau launched her presidential bid. That’s because I first state’s HB2 “Bathroom Bill” mandating that munities by convening public conversations nity-centered election narrative. wrote a clear-cut Q&A on the topic of press pools and reported on the Podesta dinner 18 months before the transgendered people use the bathroom between journalists and citizens over civic For the record, November 8 proved a other journalists responded to questions on Twitter. WikiLeaks emails dropped. I also didn’t write on a New corresponding to their birth gender. issues. The hope was to get reporters out of very triumphant night for local Republicans News organizations aren’t bound any more by old York Times reporter’s off-the-record arrangement with But even in the modest universe of about the habit of talking almost exclusively to the in Dare County. I wish we had done a better constraints like column inches in print. So when press Clinton because I already did in July 2015. I clearly be- 35,000 year-round citizens, getting a jour- professional class of newsmakers—public job of knowing why. P access issues bubble up into the mainstream, journalists lieved such behind-the-scenes dealings were in the pub- have social media and unlimited space on the web to lic’s interest when covering them, but failed to seriously quickly explain the significance. Whether the public gets readdress when a much broader audience was learning on board or not is up to them. about them for the first time. Donald Trump’s precedent-breaking refusal The recent release of emails stolen from Clinton If journalists don’t engage in such discussions, Journalists to allow a small pool of journalists to cover his travels campaign chairman John Podesta’s inbox was a moment they’re ceding the debate to those looking to vilify and as president-elect has revealed some common ground when I—as someone who’s covered the intersection of delegitimize the press at a dangerous moment in history Need to Better in our otherwise fractured . politics and the press spanning three election cycles— when the soon-to-be-most-powerful person in the world Good, Trump supporters tell me. The press deserves could’ve done better. As a media reporter, I dug through has already laid the groundwork for doing just that. P Explain What to be treated badly after being against him. Good, Hillary Clinton supporters tell me. The press Journalists Do… built Trump up and obsessed over her emails. Michael Calderone is As the news media emerges from a round of post-elec- senior media reporter Earn Back the President-elect Donald As I grapple with my own logue (in Q&A form). I hope you Including Me tion self-flagellation—some deserved, some excessive— at The Huffington Trump’s victory stunned a lot failures this election season— find it enlightening: If journalists don’t inform the this shared antipathy toward the press’s concerns shows Post. Right to Serve of Americans, not the least of as well as my own place in public about what we do and why, that journalists have some work to do in convincing a as Watchdogs which were members of the the world of journalism (it’s Is real? elite media, who couldn’t fath- we’re ceding the debate to those skeptical public that their goal isn’t to destroy or pro- While demanding healthy for everyone to be in- Yes, and we can now see it more mote the president. It’s to have enough access to com- transparency from om the possibility that A) the trospective and to perform a clearly than ever. Twitter is looking to vilify and delegitimize prehensively cover him on the public’s behalf. so-called experts had been regular career audit)—I have where journalists let their guard the press at a dangerous moment Not everyone’s going to be swayed. My Twitter feed political leaders, wrong, and B) the American been asking myself some seri- down and talk freely. Frequently, in history is clogged with Trump fans convinced journalists are es- we, as journalists, public might actually want this ous questions. this platform reveals the biases By Michael Calderone sentially “dishonest scum”—to borrow from the incom- must hold ourselves vulgarian to be president. This With apologies to those who harbored by so many ostensibly ing president—and armed with so much misinformation accountable, too seemed to be an appropriate might prefer a more traditional- mainstream journalists. that it’s impossible to have a good-faith, fact-based de- By Matt K. Lewis time to revisit the constant ly structured piece, what follows Let’s be honest: It’s no secret bate about the . But for others across the problem of media bias. is a transcript of my internal dia- that most journalists skew left-

44 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 45 ward. I don’t believe the media say about the topic. Topics have and she made an interesting How does Trump fit into all of this? But if I were in charge of hiring reporters, I’d have to has a grand conspiracy to elect built-in skews. So, for exam- point about people who are re- The irony, of course, is that this Let the Interlopers In give that kid the edge. Democratic politicians. The de- ple, it’s almost impossible for a ligious. If a reporter was writing liberal media bias contributed to We need diversity of all kinds in the newsroom, es- sire for ratings, clicks, and buzz panel discussion about Donald a profile about an artist or mu- the election of Donald Trump. A journalist without a college pecially from places where catching a few classes at the are our driving force, but most Trump’s refusal to release his sician, they might find some of Conservative voters, tired of degree on the need for educational community college can take as much Herculean effort as journalists I know just happen tax returns to be considered a the weird things he or she said the bogus attacks and political diversity in the newsroom getting into Harvard. So that means maybe overlooking to have a liberal worldview. They “pro-Trump” segment, regard- to be mysterious, if mystical. correctness of the media, be- By Diana Marcum the empty box by degrees from time to time. don’t set out to bias their stories less of how many pro-Trump Religious people are not given came inured to it. As Bill Maher If we didn’t know it before this election, we know for Diana Marcum in a secular or cosmopolitan panelists pad the bench. If you this same latitude for their nu- admitted on HBO’s “Real Time” sure now that people outside the bubble aren’t much covers the Central way; it just works out that way. want to increase ideological minousness; they are, instead, just before the election, liberals reading big-city newspapers. The president-elect has de- Valley and places diversity in media coverage, de- interviewed with the same de- cried wolf so many times that clared legacy media already dead. It’s a free-for-all fight beyond it for the So the problem is more cultural ciding who gets to pick the topic gree of skepticism usually re- nobody believed them when I remember the day the Los Angeles Times de- against the likes of Facebook and content-gathering ro- Los Angeles Times. than partisan? is more important than deciding served for politicians. they warned about Donald cided to hire me. I'd been freelancing for the paper out bots. And maybe far worse ahead. She won the 2015 Absolutely. As it has often been who gets to talk about the topic. Trump’s very real problems. of California’s Central Valley. Ashley Dunn, then the So, as long as there’s still any little breath left, keep Pulitzer Prize for said (perhaps most famously As a member of the media, aren’t Laments about media bias metro editor, came up to Fresno because no one had met letting in a few losers, some who didn’t even make it to Feature Writing and by Andrew Breitbart), culture You started off talking about ge- you part of the problem? are older than I am, and they me in person. Ashley is the son of Chinese intellectuals. their college finals. We know how to keep going when we is on leave this year is upstream from politics. Most ography and religion. Why is it a I get accused of bias all the time. will probably always be with us. He is married to, literally, a rocket scientist. His is not look more done than a fish fried in Crisco. We’re not go- finishing her book, political journalists are based in problem that journalists’ skews are But it’s important to distinguish In the past, however, discus- the world of non-academics. ing to die of shock when the world is senseless. And we “The Tenth Island.” New York City or Washington, more secular and cosmopolitan? between opinion journalists and sions about this problem were “I might as well tell you straight up,” I said. “I don't hold a duality that can come in handy as a reality check. D.C.—not Omaha or Topeka. A journalist friend of mine who news reporters. Opinion jour- somewhat academic. Today, have a college degree.” For instance, I am a “media elite” AND a white Few of them regularly attend comes from a long line of Baptist nalists are paid to have a point this problem looks more like “Hell,” he said. “One of our best writers was the jan- person without a college degree when there’s a lot of some sort of worship service. preachers once told me about an of view, but we should still strive an existential threat. Americans itor before we hired him.” hand-wringing from the media at not having properly Truth be told, their geographi- evangelical rally in D.C. he at- to be intellectually honest. increasingly distrust and dislike Some newspapers understood (long before Donald dissected and reported upon uneducated . cal location is just as telling and tended where a pastor mentioned the media. They are tuning us Trump spouted it) that the system is rigged. More than Since I know this world, I can tell you the early at- predictive as any political regis- wanting to “slay all of Congress.” Okay—but you live just outside out. We are not just competing the system—life, circumstances. tempts at covering “those” voters have been almost as tration or history of activism— He had to explain to his fellow of Washington, D.C., and have with new media outlets that Because of that you can’t rely entirely on the tradi- absurd as watching a bleached-blond conservative en- although it’s fair to note that reporters that being “slain in the worked in journalism for a long have an ideological agenda; in tional gatekeepers. So there were always a few journalists countering Beyoncé lyrics for the first time. That kind of many prominent journalists do Spirit” is something that char- time now. Do you worry about be- some cases, we are competing who had not spent their formative years in spirit-wear coverage is not answering the question more than half the have a history of having been a ismatic Christians say (and that ing out of touch? against fake news sites. arguing over commas. (Not that I don’t love y’all.) country is screaming, which is: “Who are these people?!” Democratic activist or operative. this pastor was not suggesting I think we all should worry To preserve a free nation, One of the bright spots for me in this election is that and “How do I live knowing these are my fellow citizens?” they kill members of Congress). about that. I am fortunate to political leaders must be held Michael Tubbs became mayor of Stockton. (I’m on leave. I Calm down. As a center-right commentator, The point is that every group have a lot of unique experiences accountable. This is perhaps the can have opinions for a bit.) I first wrote about him when True, some rural, uneducated types are awful. The what kinds of bias have you seen? of people has certain shib- to pull from. media’s fundamental responsibil- he graduated from Stanford and returned to his hometown most brutal, belligerent, abusive, plain-old-mean hu- Subtle bias is the hardest to de- boleths; the fact that so few My dad was a prison guard; I ity. While demanding transparen- to become one of the country's youngest councilmen. mans you could ever meet. I hear you also find that in tect or combat—but it can be as journalists have a religious back- went to college in . cy from our political leaders, it is His is the long-shot tale that everybody loves. The son . simple as the way someone is in- ground makes them out of touch My mom voted for Trump. This incumbent upon us to hold our- of a teen mom, incarcerated father, and he’s black in a val- Others, salt of the earth. It’s a cliché that fits. They troduced on a show or the way when it comes to covering tradi- is not to say I’m some blue-col- selves accountable to the highest ley that hasn’t entirely broken good ol’ boy power. We love preserve things. They make dreary things palatable. the chyron identifies them. It’s tional Americans who don’t live lar horse whisperer, but my standards so that we might once these stories because they are rare. A lot of really smart, They work physical jobs sunup to sundown. They know not uncommon to hear a liberal in places like New York City or background sets me apart from again earn the right to serve in soulful people get mixed up in the mire of life and don’t what it’s like to lose a kid in war. (Go to the diner; there’s commentator identified simply Washington, D.C. To many jour- many of my Ivy League col- this vital watchdog capacity. P get that magic stamp. Losers, to put it in Trumpian terms. always a wall of photos of dead soldiers.) The good ones as, say, “a columnist for New nalists, religious people should leagues and competitors. During that city council election, I went around with would deck a guy if he tried to grab your anything. York magazine,” while their in- be viewed with skepticism. Like everyone, I was stunned a mixed bag of Tubb supporters who were out canvass- This feeling that they’re losing everything their terlocutor might be called “a by Donald Trump’s success. But ing. There were two idealistic Stanford kids who from great-grandparents, grandparents and parents built has conservative columnist” from But can’t journalists learn about my upbringing has helped make the day they were born were going to go to college, and been building for a while. And there are also plenty who outlet XYZ. This is a signal to people who aren’t like them and me more attuned and empathet- they were interested in journalism and are no doubt feel that their family legacy is not having a pot to piss viewers suggesting that the liber- cover them fairly? I mean, isn’t ic to the plight of so many of wrapping up postgraduate studies in the future of doc- in. I’d lay money that more than one of them started al pundit is completely unbiased, that part of the job? the working class white voters umentary social media about now. More power to them. supporting Trump because they thought it was funny. while the conservative-leaning Yes, but too often it comes who, having cast their ballot for But the other kid, the one who bought a gun at 14 Here’s some loudmouth outfoxing all the know-it-alls. journalist has an agenda. across in a manner similar to an Obama twice, instead chose to after his friend got killed in a drive-by, he was the sto- If you could lay politics and ideology aside for a bit, anthropologist observing some pull the lever for Trump. ryteller. He was the one who knew how to crack a joke you might enjoy a visit. What should outlets that are trying backward civilization. I think Pauline Kael, an American and talk with people and ask them about their lives, not Which in a very roundabout way brings me back to to do a better job of achieving bal- this bias is very subtle, but we film for The New Yorker, Matt K. Lewis is a just drill for answers to questions that he thought he my point. ance consider? still need to rethink some fun- claimed to only know one per- senior contributor already knew the answers to. He had some community I can tell you about “them” because I know this world. We probably don’t put enough damental assumptions about son who voted for Richard at The Daily college. He wanted to write. I had him send me one of And a newspaper gave me—an interloper—a voice. emphasis on selection bias. the way we approach coverage. Nixon. For journalists hoping Caller, a political his essays. It was good. This has been a devastating election. Big things afoot. The outlet’s choice of segment For example, I recently to tell stories and enrich peo- commentator for I think there’s a pretty good chance he won’t make I hope that now we tell some stories about the lives of un- topic is more important than heard journalist and author ple’s understanding, being CNN, and author of it through a four-year school. The same sorts of reasons educated white voters and black activists and everyone 1) the way the story is covered Krista Tippett talking on the out of touch with a wide swath of the book “Too Dumb I didn’t: People depending on you, rent due at the end else that reach beyond politics and ideology. About now, or 2) the things guests have to Longform podcast about this, Americans is a real indictment. to Fail.” of the month. we could all use the kind of stories that bring us together. P

46 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 47 Nieman Watchdog ACCESS, ACCOUNTABILITY REPORTING AND SILICON VALLEY

the first time i visited facebook’s for payment. Other social platforms are be- With the lines office in Washington, D.C., I was asked to coming publishers, too, including between media sign a nondisclosure agreement. I didn’t. Discover and , which recently posted firms and tech firms Then there was the time I got through job listings for an editorial team. an entire interview with a product manag- The lines are blurring, in some cases blurring, coverage er at Apple, only to be told, after the fact, dramatically, between what it means to be of the tech sector that it was presumed to be on background. a media company and what it means to be a “Everyone knows this is how we do things,” technology firm. The leaders of some web- presents one of a spokesman explained apologetically. Nope. sites with robust newsrooms, like BuzzFeed, the most profound Just before Christmas a few years ago, even refer to themselves as tech companies accountability HP sent me a bright pink laptop I’d never first, journalism organizations second. asked for. I sent it back. Cash-rich media start-ups and at least one challenges in modern I’ve been offered , international legacy newspaper, The Washington Post, are journalism plane tickets, and more gadgets than I can owned by titans of tech. Silicon Valley’s leaders aren’t uniform- BY ADRIENNE LAFRANCE count. “Can also send over a draft press re- lease and a big ol’ bottle of wine for sitting ly champions of the press, however. Peter through my email ;),” one PR person wrote. Thiel, the venture capitalist and PayPal This is what it’s like to be a technology co-founder, poured $10 million of his reporter these days. Freebies are every- own money into the lawsuit that eventu- where, but real access is scant. Powerful ally bankrupted Gawker Media Group last companies like Facebook and Google are spring. Univision bought Gawker for $135 major distributors of journalistic work, million in August, and shut down its flag- meaning newsrooms increasingly rely on ship site, Gawker.com, soon after. (Other tech giants to reach readers, a relationship sites in the former Gawker network, like that’s awkward at best and potentially di- Jezebel and Gizmodo, are still running.) sastrous at worst. Facebook, in particular, The Gawker-Thiel showdown was a dispute is also prompting major newsrooms to ad- in its own right, but it can also be viewed just their editorial and commercial strate- as a microcosm of the broader tension be- gies, including initiatives to broadcast live tween media companies and technology video to the social media site in exchange companies, a relationship so strained that,

48 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 Illustration by Matt Chase NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 49 Nieman Watchdog as Nicholas Lemann wrote in The New culture of secrecy comes, too, from the pub- the Amazon piece for the Times with Jodi an incredibly demanding place to work. All cross the bridge into Silicon Valley, you’re in a While Bell and others argue that a foun- Yorker, the journalism industry should be lishing power the Internet offers. Tech gi- Kantor. “What happens when they suc- we did is ask, what does that mean?” world where the old rules of journalism don’t dational understanding of how computers readying itself for a “protracted war.” ants, like political candidates, no longer rely ceed? Who loses? When they stumble, like A major reporting obstacle was pen- apply. One of the biggest clichés of Silicon and the Internet work is essential for all Against this backdrop, tech reporting solely on the press to get out their message. Facebook in , what does it mean? The etrating the culture of secrecy. LinkedIn Valley is when they say, ‘It’s not about the reporters, technology coverage isn’t limit- presents one of the most profound account- In turn, some of the world’s most pow- rise of tech is, in my opinion, the great story proved to be a crucial source, one Streitfeld money. We just want to change the world.’ ed to what’s in the tech section. Technology ability challenges in modern journalism. erful companies end up dictating a startling of our time.” says he combed for hours: “It’s like a corpo- Sometimes that even may be true. But that’s shapes business, culture, politics, education, Who is best served by the coverage we have? degree of coverage about them—because Adds Kantor: “Technology companies rate X-ray.” All in all, Streitfeld and Kantor a reason for better coverage, not weaker.” and every other facet of daily life. Just look And is it the coverage we deserve and need? reporters often rely solely on information are in the vanguard. They’re determining spent more than six months—a luxury, even Yet many leading news organizations, at the complexity of the fight between Apple “Accountability reporting in Silicon released by those companies, and, with where the culture is headed. It’s where the at the Times—reporting the story, which even those with robust tech sections, aren’t and the F.B.I. over whether Apple should Valley, like accountability reporting any- some key exceptions, get few opportunities culture is made, and they also let us look generated enormous public attention as devoting adequate resources to develop and have been required to unlock the iPhone where, is difficult—and essential,” says to question them. “It’s why a company like into our own futures.” well as a swift rebuke, in the form of a PR sustain such coverage, according to Emily owned by one of the shooters in a deadly ter- , a technology reporter for Google can dazzle people with the promise For their Amazon story, Kantor and counter-narrative published on Medium. Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital rorist attack in San Bernardino, California. The New York Times. “There is no great of some technology that’s really not ready Streitfeld interviewed more than 100 cur- Representatives from Amazon—as well as Journalism at Columbia . (Eventually, the F.B.I. said it was able to un- tradition of accountability reporting in tech, yet,” says John M. Simpson, former depu- rent and former Amazon employees. The Google, , Apple, and Facebook—either “To actually cover technology properly,” lock the device without Apple’s help.) no exalted predecessors the way there is ty editor of USA Today and privacy project memorable anecdote about people often declined requests for interviews for this sto- Bell says, “it’s about society and culture “There’s terrorism, there’s technolo- with, say, White House reporting or munic- director for the nonprofit advocacy group crying at their desks, Kantor says, came up ry or did not respond at all to those requests. and human rights. It’s about politics. This gy, there’s Apple, there’s the F.B.I, Obama ipal reporting. There is no Woodward and Consumer Watchdog, where he focuses on repeatedly, and not just from the person “The biggest challenge to producing a idea that you can have a Washington bureau weighs in,” says Pui-Wing Tam, the New Bernstein or Kate Boo of tech reporting.” Google. Compared with a crowded field of they ultimately quoted. “I was taught long story like the Amazon piece, or any reporting where you don’t have somebody who really York Times editor who coordinated the Tech coverage as we know it today got journalists covering Google, for example, ago as a young journalist that the best sto- about the tech community that challenges understands some of the issues in [com- paper’s coverage of the dispute. “It just its start in the early 1980s, not from some Simpson has been one of the most promi- ries are often investigating something that is the community’s idea of itself, is that tech puting] infrastructure or A.I., and how data straddles all sorts of different things. It investigative impulse but because the age nent critical voices of the company’s Self- lying around in plain sight,” Streitfeld says. wants, expects, and quite often gets upbeat is really political? They are new systems of brings what had been a very theoretical of personal computing was just beginning Driving Car Project. “In this case, Amazon had said—boasted pieces,” Streitfeld says. “There’s a sense, power, and that’s one of the areas where I debate about encryption and privacy into and newspapers suddenly began selling a It’s typical to see technology cover- even—from the very beginning that it was HODGSON SAM in too much tech reporting, that when you think news organizations have been slow.” the real world.” lot of tech-related ads. , a long- age that simply aggregates directly from time technology reporter for The New York a tech company’s blog—the modern-day workers, like Jannette Navarro, shown here, regularly had their lives upended by the vagaries of scheduling software the chain used Times, remembers the original culture of equivalent of a —with little Silicon Valley as open and collaborative— or no analysis or additional reporting. One even welcoming to journalists. In the early damning example of this lack of skepticism ‘80s, Markoff had access to the Homebrew is evident in the early, glowing coverage Computer Club, a legendary hobbyist group of , the health-technology com- whose members included the technologists pany that said it had developed a cheap, who would go on to run Silicon Valley. Steve needle-free way to draw and test blood. It Wozniak, the cofounder of Apple, first wasn’t until in 2015 that an investigative shared his design for the Apple I computer reporter from The Wall Street Journal, at a Homebrew meeting in 1976. prompted by a sunny New Yorker profile of Over the next few decades, the people the Theranos founder, began to ask serious running the tech sector went from occupy- questions about whether the technology ac- ing a niche cultural and economic space to tually worked the way Theranos claimed it being some of the most powerful business did. That reporting, from , leaders on the planet. And the culture and encouraged other reporters to be more influence of Silicon Valley changed dramat- skeptical, too, and ultimately led to a feder- ically. “Early on, Apple was fringe,” says al criminal investigation into whether the Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor of company misled investors and regulators Wired magazine. “The difference now is that about the state of its technology. these companies are the most profitable Investigations like Carreyrou’s—or get- companies in the world. This is no longer ting inside the grueling corporate culture at the sideshow; this is the main show.” Amazon, as The New York Times did in 2015; Though Apple was at the center of an or detailing Google’s powerful but hidden earlier open culture in Silicon Valley, it was lobbying efforts, as The Washington Post also the company that prompted a reversal. has; or contextualizing the cultural complex- refined the art of the product sur- ities of programs like Facebook’s Free Basics, prise, generating enormous buzz for Apple as I’ve tried to do; or establishing a drumbeat by hosting keynotes where such announce- of smart, in-depth coverage of the fight be- ments were hotly anticipated. At times, the tween Apple and the F.B.I.—is the only way outsized coverage of such events can seem to begin to understand the complex social as much a product of fan culture as it is jour- and political impact of technology. nalism designed to serve that culture. Technology companies “are all dedi- It’s also a journalistic approach that in- cated to revamping our daily existence,” centivizes limited access. Silicon Valley’s says Streitfeld, who reported and wrote

50 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 51 Nieman Watchdog

In some ways, covering a story as big as age—the sort of momentum you might see well-prepared to cover the investigation and the encryption dispute is more straight- building in the pages of a metro daily after “TO ACTUALLY COVER the broader questions it raises. forward than figuring out day-to-day or a blockbuster scoop. There are regulatory These strategies are attempts at avoiding longer-term tech coverage. “It’s important and legal angles to explore, plus plenty of TECHNOLOGY PROPERLY, technology coverage that is, in Díaz’s words, to define covering technology really broad- questions about how the existence of such “a mile wide and an inch deep.” I’m not just ly,” says Kantor, “and not to think of it as a database affects individuals. IT’S ABOUT SOCIETY covering Google, the leading company work- covering a bunch of start-ups in Silicon Reveal published one story about how ing on this technology and a prominent voice Valley only.” She gives the example of a it’s possible for members of the public to shaping public perception of it, I’m tracking story she wrote about a piece of automat- be in the database without even knowing, AND CULTURE AND the technology itself and the processes by ed scheduling software, one that’s used by and another about legislation that would which it will be integrated into public life. huge corporations like Starbucks, which open the database to more public scrutiny. HUMAN RIGHTS” Sara Watson, a research fellow at the was creating stress and chaos for low-paid But after the latter was published in mid-Ju- —EMILY­­ BELL, JOURNALISM PROFESSOR Tow Center for and au- workers. “Here was this piece of software ly, a new story wasn’t published in the sur- thor of the report “Toward a Constructive that basically nobody’s ever heard of, real- veillance and privacy section for another Technology Criticism,” says the quality of ly obscure, and yet it was controlling the two months. Many of these stories require technology coverage (and criticism, in par- lives of millions and millions of workers,” reporting time that few newsrooms have. ticular) is improving, but there’s still a long she says. Within 24 hours of the article’s “There’s this inherent challenge between and had huge implications for personal pri- way to go. “Critical angles on technology publication, Starbucks announced it would long-term, long-form, deep investigated vacy and surveillance. Meyer’s focus on can live in a lot of different forms: reported CNN broadcast Facebook Live videos from Dallas the night five police officers were killed there change its scheduling practices. work that runs this risk of feeling stale when what could otherwise be considered a mi- pieces, op-eds, blog posts, the business sec- For Kantor, covering technology means the pace of news is just so fast,” Fernando cro-beat produced some important stories tion, satire, science fiction,” she says. “The into blogging. “Talking to people who work panded beyond gadgets coverage to focus interrogating the ways technology affects Díaz, a senior editor at the site, says. “We’ve that were nationally relevant. thing that’s missing on the critical side of the at technology companies, you have to have on entertainment, science, and transpor- people’s lives—a framework so broad that got to figure out a more mid-weight speed An unexpected benefit was, in some coverage is an attention to what the positive, a certain level of expertise,” he says. “You tation. (, which owns , it has the potential to be as dizzying as it is for this particular beat because things just cases, that this narrow approach expanded constructive alternatives could be. That’s the have to be able to talk the same language.” acquired Recode in 2015.) liberating for journalists who have to decide move so rapidly in technology.” Meyer’s geographic focus. In one memora- hardest question to answer, and that’s espe- He attributes his success breaking news At The Verge, an editorial approach that what to cover. The Atlantic, where I’m a staff writer, has ble story, he found a city in Idaho where cially hard if you are writing as a journalist. about one of the most secretive companies prizes both breadth and depth seems to Reveal, the website of the Center for tried a similar approach to staying nimble, police-worn cameras were already the But helping readers imagine alternatives to on the planet to meeting the right people be paying off. Its editorial team is reliably Investigative Reporting, doesn’t have a drilling down on specific beats, inspired in norm. This reporting was instrumental the things that aren’t quite working for us, over time and choosing stories carefully. “I quick on news-of-the-day items, but also technology section, per se, but it does cover part by the fluid beat structure that Quartz in illuminating the politics around body- or on our behalf, is the way to start holding was balancing this reporting with college,” routinely wows with original feature stories technology, most of which falls within the established when it launched in 2012. When worn cameras—including the fact that po- institutions accountable.” Signs of progress, he says, “so I really only had time to focus that are just as much about business, cul- realms of privacy and surveillance. For in- I ran the technology section, I asked one of lice officers sometimes support mandates Watson says, can be seen in the very make- on the bigger stories.” Plus, he adds, “The ture, health, and criminal justice as they are stance, Reveal has reported about a secretive our reporters, Robinson Meyer, to prioritize to wear them, a narrative that wasn’t well up of some newsrooms. At BuzzFeed, for scoops don’t come from PR people.” about technology. One memorable story, in database of alleged gang members kept by “police-worn body cameras” as one of his explored at the time. It also challenged the example, the tech-focused Despite all the excellent tech reporting which Colin Lecher details the monopoly California police officers and the question central beats in the months after the fatal idea that the technology was new or un- bureau has a reporter on the labor beat. “A out there, the signal to noise ratio can make on prison phone service, is impressive both of whether law enforcement should need police shooting of an unarmed teenager in tested, and helped hone in on the actual position that’s hard to imagine a few years it difficult to suss out the muckraking from for its reporting and its online presentation. a search warrant to access digital records. Ferguson, Missouri. As part of the larger accountability problems that body-worn ago, but seems natural given all the surfacing the muck. The obvious difficulty for report- It features a ticker that counts how much This is the kind of story that’s particularly national conversation about the use of such cameras raise. He went on to write about concerns about working in technology and ers is, you can’t cover everything. But the money you’d have to pay if the time you well-suited to relentless follow-up cover- technologies, the topic was timely, complex, those issues, like whether footage could be disruption of labor markets,” she says. pressures are made all the more difficult by spent reading the article was spent making edited by officers, how it would be stored In some cases, Watson argues, the critics newsrooms’ limited and often shrinking re- a call from prison. California resident Aaron Harvey urges public scrutiny of a database of alleged gang members and maintained, and, crucially, how the doing the best work may be the people with sources and by the tech sector’s increasing The Verge also recently launched a public could access it. the closest ties to the tech industry. She cites involvement with the media. new section—a gadget blog it calls Circuit Now, as a staff writer, I’m trying some- blogger and tech entrepreneur Anil Dash Even for web-native media ventures, Breaker—that exists primarily as a Facebook thing similar in my own work. One of my and programmer Marco Arment as people 2016 has been a year marked by losses. page, a move that shows a savvy willingness beats is “self-driving cars.” Sure, I may write with “critical voices” who are “closest to the Mashable fired several editorial employees to experiment in the digital space where up the latest Google accident report, but I’m machine so they are well received.” In other as part of a dramatic shift in editorial direc- many of its readers already spend much of also filing open-records requests to state words, what they say is more likely to have tion, with plans to emphasize video enter- their time. It’s a bold move at a time when and federal agencies, visiting test tracks actual impact. tainment over news. Layoffs have also hit Facebook’s success appears to be at odds and labs, interviewing the technologists de- Being a relative insider in the tech world the International Business Times, BuzzFeed, with the well-being of journalism organiza- veloping sensors for these vehicles, reading can be helpful to reporters, too. Mark Newsweek, and —though, at Vice, tions. Elsewhere, a growing number of news academic work about robot-human interac- Gurman, who has covered Apple for the the company characterized the cuts as part organizations find themselves leaning on tion, and covering congressional hearings. tech-insider site 9to5Mac since he was in of its larger expansion into video. billionaires for financial support. As this technology advances and becomes high school, and who is known in the indus- At the same time, audiences are as frac- Pierre Omidyar, the eBay founder, has more widespread, the need for investigative try as a “scoop machine,” snagged a tech re- tured as ever, forcing newsrooms to think launched two investigative news organiza- coverage will become clearer still. The ongo- porting job with Bloomberg after graduating more deliberately about who they’re serv- tions: First Look Media, in 2013, and, before ing federal investigation into a fatal crash by from college. He first cultivated sources at ing. Sites like The Information, Pando that, Honolulu Civil Beat, where I worked the driver of a Tesla using his car’s Autopilot Apple because he was interested in technol- Daily, Recode, and TechCrunch are widely for several years as an investigative report- system may be a cultural turning point that ogy—not journalism—and figured out how known in Silicon Valley, but not necessarily er covering politics. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon will shape the future of driving. But it’s also to go to the “right events” to meet people. influential outside of the tech industry. In founder, bought The Washington Post for a good example of how reporters who fo- Those connections, and his understanding the opposite direction there’s The Verge, $250 million in 2013 and has since lever-

cus on self-driving cars are (or ought to be) FOR REVEAL; OPPOSITE: CARLO ALLEGRI/REUTERS HUFFAKER LEFT: SANDY of tech, proved valuable for him as he moved a once-niche technology site that has ex- aged his ownership across tech products,

52 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 53 Nieman Watchdog offering limited free access to Washington but a platform that’s now considered cru- 40 percent of traffic to several top news sites, Post stories on the Kindle Fire app and free cial to the journalism industry, has faced according to data from the web analytics firm six-month digital subscriptions to the Post scrutiny for editorial decisions. Back in Parse.ly. The platform’s recent decision to for Amazon Prime members, for example. May, after Gizmodo reported that former emphasize status updates from individuals, He’s also made substantial investments in Facebook workers said they routinely sup- as opposed to publishers, in people’s news the newsroom. pressed news stories of interest to conser- feeds generated panic among newsrooms The Washington Post has had solid tech vative readers, the Facebook founder Mark that have already seen traffic from Facebook coverage since before the Bezos era, includ- Zuckerberg issued a statement promis- plummet in recent months. ing dedicated (and now newsletters) ing there was no evidence of this kind of Companies like Facebook and Google that focus on cultural and policy aspects of bias. Internal documents, obtained by The have the power to make or break a news- technology. But it’s not clear that more re- Guardian, painted a slightly more nuanced room. That’s what makes Facebook, in sources for the newsroom, or Bezos’s goal picture: Facebook guidelines instruct- particular, a daunting “partner-com- to dramatically grow The Washington Post’s ed editors on how to “inject” stories into petitor-savior-killer,” as the writer John national standing, have significantly en- Facebook’s “trending topics” section—or Herrman put it. hanced the paper’s approach to tech. This “blacklist” topics for removal. Media companies aren’t just covering is an area of particular interest to outsiders In August, a hoax story falsely claiming tech companies, after all, but partnering who wonder about the extent to which Bezos that the journalist Megyn Kelly had been with them and, on a deeper level, competing is involved editorially. The Post has reject- fired by Fox News for supporting Hillary with them. Distribution is only one element ed claims that Bezos has tried to sway the Clinton was promoted by Facebook as a of what’s at stake. Facebook and Google, Post’s coverage about Amazon, or himself. trending topic for several hours before be- along with a handful of other leading tech What the paper published about The New ing removed. In September, Facebook de- companies, are also scooping up a huge por- York Times’s investigation into Amazon leted an article, posted by Norway’s largest tion of overall digital ad revenue—65 per- workplace culture was largely sympathetic print newspaper, that featured the iconic cent of it, or $39 billion of the $60 billion to Bezos. The headline read: “Is it really that Vietnam-era photo of Phan Thi Kim Phúc, spent on Internet ads in 2015, according to hard to work at Amazon?” To be fair, that frequently referred to as “napalm girl.” Pew’s 2016 State of the News Media report. story also repeated many of the most devas- Facebook initially defended the decision Even more devastating to news orga- tating details from the Times story. Plus, Erik as consistent with standards that ban users nizations is Facebook’s dominance in mo- Wemple, a media critic for The Washington from publishing images of naked children. bile advertising. In 2015, at a time when Facebook, whose offices in Menlo Park, California are shown here, insists it is not a media company though it is a news source for many users Post, on his blog blasted Amazon’s response Espen Egil Hansen, the editor of audiences were dramatically shifting away to the Times as “weak.” A spokeswoman for Aftenposten, responded with a blistering from desktops and toward mobile devices, By almost every measure, tech compa- spring. (Instant Articles are now open to all tinct from government, from commerce, is the The Washington Post, Shani George, said open-letter to Zuckerberg. “First you create Facebook already got 77 percent of its to- nies are, in fact, far more powerful than publishers.) There have been similar efforts what makes journalism journalism and not Bezos’s ownership of the paper “absolutely rules that don’t distinguish between child tal ad revenue from mobile ad sales. News media companies. Herrman, writing in 2015 by tech companies to leverage news as a way PR,” Bell argues. “How do you maintain that [does] not” affect its coverage of him or his pornography and famous war photographs. organizations, many of them with major- for The Awl, argued that the messiness be- to keep people’s attention, including projects integrity of separation while at the same companies. The paper declined a request for Then you practice these rules without al- ity-mobile audiences, are nowhere near tween the two sectors may not resolve it- by Snapchat, , and Apple News. time really not being able to exist outside further comment. lowing space for good judgment,” Hansen Facebook in terms of overall revenue or self until there’s a clean split—one in which For news organizations, these partner- the system?” BuzzFeed, which has its own robust and wrote, calling Zuckerberg the “world’s most mobile share. “There is money being made the press foregoes access, refuses to play by ships represent the substantial relinquish- Bell says the challenge for news organi- serious news effort, has generated contro- powerful editor.” Eventually, Facebook re- on the web,” Pew wrote in its report, “just Silicon Valley’s rules, and fully embraces its ing of distribution control, at a time when zations will be to think critically about what versy for revitalizing sponsored content, an lented. But the episode set off a fresh round not by news organizations.” role as a “marginalized and aggressive” an- media companies have already lost their in- it actually means to be a media company advertising strategy that’s been around for of debate over whether Facebook has an This likely reflects yet another area tagonistic force. Then again, he concedes, fluential position as the leading gatekeepers today. Being a news organization won’t be a century but one that is potentially com- ethical obligation to acknowledge the jour- where Facebook is trouncing the media: a Fourth Estate like this might not be able of news and information. about selling newspapers, or even just hav- plicated in a world where atomized content nalistic functions it performs. audience engagement. While loyalty to in- to sustain itself. Others, like Kelly of Wired, “Should we be regaining control of dis- ing a website. The New York Times, for travels the social web alone, unbundled During a talk at the Nieman Foundation dividual news brands is declining—most take the opposite tack. News organizations tribution?” the Tow Center’s Bell asks. “I example, is selling its own dinner kits—in- from the website where it originated. Even in September, Jill Abramson, formerly exec- people who read an article on a cellphone distancing themselves from Facebook won’t think it will be regrettable if news organi- cluding ingredients for recipes you can find Facebook, not a proper news organization utive editor of The New York Times, called don’t end up reading any other articles on solve the problems the media faces in the zations didn’t at least have an idea of how on the NYT Cooking website. Facebook “the biggest publisher on earth.” that site in the same month, according to mobile-social age. that might happen. There is a danger to Five or 10 years ago, leading technolo- Pointing to the furor over its newsfeed and a separate Pew study—engagement with “The solution has to come out of the just say, ‘Okay, this has been dismantled gy-minded journalists and media theorists the takedown of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Facebook remains high. Globally, Facebook same matrix the problem is in,” Kelly says. to the point where ad sales, technology, often talked about the importance of di- napalm photo, she said, “I don’t think that users spend an average of 50 minutes on “I suspect the way we move forward is not marketing, etcetera, can all be shrunk back versifying revenue. Today, that conversa- [Facebook] can maintain this ‘We’re con- Facebook, , and Messenger plat- relying on big paper investigative spotlight to a really small portion of what we do, tion has evolved. Media companies aren’t tent neutral’ stance forever. They have got forms every day, a stat that’s unimaginable teams, but it will be slightly more decen- and we put faith in the idea that Google, just tasked with creating more financial MEDIA COMPANIES to step up and take some responsibility.” for most media companies. That influence tralized, slightly more ecological, slightly Facebook, and whatever comes next will streams; they’re being forced to reconsider All this is happening at a time when jour- appears to be carrying over to an area where more systematic.” always make the distribution of high-qual- what they’re actually producing and distrib- AREN’T JUST COVERING nalism’s advertising-based revenue model is Facebook’s involvement is still relative- In the past year or so, several leading ity journalism a priority.’ But it’s easy to uting—and for which of the rapidly multi- shakier than ever, and news organizations ly new: live video. “CNN is only showing tech companies have carved out even more see how those publishing skills may just plying number of platforms. TECH COMPANIES, have all but lost their grip on distribution. Facebook Live video,” Scott Austin, a tech- prominent spots for themselves in the news disappear from publishing.” “Revenue is a proxy for product,” says Facebook drives an overwhelming volume nology editor at The Wall Street Journal ecosystem. The most recent example is the That prospect carries frightening impli- Bell. “Diversifying revenue doesn’t just BUT PARTNERING AND of traffic across the Web—up to a quarter of tweeted the night five police officers were Facebook live video initiative. Before that, cations for any journalist who believes in the mean new ways of making money. It actual- all site visits, according to the social media killed in Dallas. “Facebook has become a TV it was Instant Articles, a platform launched importance of autonomous news operations ly means changing completely what you do

COMPETING WITH THEM management firm Shareaholic in 2015, and broadcast network virtually overnight.” KIM KULISH/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES with a few high-profile publications last as a foundational value. “Being really dis- and being prepared to carry on changing.” P

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pening. Journalism there is a process. stance, and ran counter to expert editorial Underneath this first layer we have a opinion. Hansen again: sketch of a story—this is what has hap- pened, this is what we know now, with The long front page happened mostly by more editing of the story. And finally accident. We started to produce more, there is the traditional news story—writ- but we didn’t have a strong team to edit ten in full, edited, and then published. at that point, so the front page just grew. We would add a new story at the top and Coming from a traditional newsroom, just move the rest below it. Torry saw The New Wisdom of the Crowd the three-layer approach was sacrilege. The this and got mad—he felt we should pri- layers represented very different philoso- oritize more. So we reduced the length of In “The Content Trap: phies about news production. It wasn’t just the front page. But almost immediately, A Strategist’s Guide to Digital the difference between a daily news cycle—a traffic fell. We then started to look into culture that defines most newsrooms even this more, experimented with short and Change,” Harvard Business today—versus a live news culture; it was long pages, and it turned out that people the difference between traditional publish- really loved the long. School professor Bharat Anand ing and a wiki approach. The third layer was just like news production at a traditional pa- This also gave rise to our visual language examines the importance of per—edit a story, then re-edit, until you’re and philosophy. With each scroll, we offer ready to publish. The first layer was exactly something for every reader—culture, poli- making connections as a key to the opposite: publish first, even if as a single tics, sports, travel, technology—rather than The unorthodox Oslo-based Verdens Gang is the number one online paper in Norway sentence, and edit later—like Wikipedia en- “sections” as in a traditional paper. And we success for media companies tries. A key sentence Hansen brought back put the most important news at the top, but tively short front pages, the print cycle de- fueled by the jet stream. More than nine- BY BHARAT ANAND to the team: “We will be back with more.” if you scroll down the front page, we are ba- termining the news day, metrics that track ty-five thousand flights were eventually “That was a crucial sentence,” he says. “I sically telling you that you can get the main monthly unique visitors rather than daily, an canceled across Europe and as far away as don’t know if anyone else did that, at least stories of the past twenty-four hours. edit-then-publish approach, and sections. . Every flight in Norway was canceled, not from traditional media.” Hansen elaborated: “When we started In all these respects, VG chose a radically including medical search and rescue heli- Already these changes were creating a there were sections, like in the paper. From different approach. Indeed, as traditional copters—an unprecedented event. VG’s news culture dramatically different from the the beginning, Torry Pedersen said we news sites remain attached to their print response was not just to publish more con- Scandinavian media giant Schibsted publishes Russian submarine Kursk. Hansen said, “For parent organization’s 150-year-old one. But needed a new approach. In every screen pic- brethren’s hip, it’s digital-first sites like tent—it was to create an app. By ten o’clock Verdens Gang or VG, the number one online three or four days it was out in the Bering there was more to come. Go to VG’s front ture, there should be a mix of news, sports, Twitter and Facebook that most resemble the first night, it had created “Hitchhiker’s newspaper in Norway and the nation’s number Sea as they tried to save the crew. It was an page today and you’ll see certain unusual and entertainment. The reason? There’s Schibsted. In March 2015 ESPN reorganized Central.” Hansen explained: two print daily. Schibsted’s approach to news ongoing story, a huge drama that went on features: a predominance of pictures rather something for every reader on every page.” its front page in a similar manner. Over the is noteworthy because it “boasts some the most and on—we had to keep updating. It was re- than text; an absence of “sections”; on the And then there were the pictures, as next several months, traffic soared. It wasn’t news. It was a tool. It was like a profitable sites of any traditional media organi- ally a wake-up call for me.” Then came 9/11. front page, a seamless blending of stories Hansen described: VG’s new approach to building and run- marketplace. “I have a car, I am going to zation in the world,” writes Harvard Business around politics, entertainment, sports, or ning its news site was in place by 2004. But Trondheim, if you want a ride, let me know School professor Bharat Anand in his new book We were one of the few news sites in culture; and, a long—indeed, a very, very As a photographer, I have always been in- that December another world event—the tsu- and we can share the petrol.” Or, “I am “The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide to the world that managed to stay afloat. long—page. In all these respects, VG’s ap- terested in perception psychology. So we nami that ravaged Southeast Asia—ushered in stuck here, need to get there.” We would Digital Change,” published by Random House We never went down. It was incredibly proach differs to this day from most major started with huge pictures. Torry came in a signature feature of VG’s online newsroom. hide their phone number but still make the this fall. One key to Schibsted’s success is recog- important for us, because we delivered news sites around the world. screaming, “What the hell is this?” But Hansen described what happened: connection between readers. That’s all we nizing that today connections matter more than news throughout, minute by minute. The The long, “infinite scroll” feeling of the because it was big, it was effective. When were doing, connecting people. content. This excerpt examines the evolution of main reason was our technical team. It front page was decided mostly by happen- we took it down, our traffic fell. We We created a simple tool for users to VG online: had the nerve, the attention, within min- agreed from then on that things should send us pictures or stories. We invited The result was remarkable: utes, to take everything else off our news be both big and small—not like the ar- them: Create your stories here. Tell us orry pedersen and espen site, except four lines of news in the be- chive, where everything is the same size. where you are. The response was incred- It took off. We were connecting people Egil Hansen are not manag- ginning. So our servers didn’t crash. We’d As journalists, we are telling you what is ible—we got stories by the hundreds. I by the thousands, not only in Norway ers you would expect to find update these four lines of news about the dramatic or important. think we were the first news organiza- but in the whole of Europe and beyond. in charge of one of the most disaster as we received it in real time. tion in the world with a picture on the There were bus trips organized through impressive business transfor- This decision about four lines that we The reason most news sites to this day ground sent by a telephone. This led us this from all the capitals in Europe— Tmations of any newspaper in the western made then turned out to be important— still have few pictures isn’t that they aren’t to ask a question we now ask over and Spain, Bulgaria, , everywhere. world—Pedersen started his career as an we built from there. effective—they are. The reason is that on- over during major events: “Can we help We were sending people to weddings, editor, Hansen as a photographer. But in line sites are still shaped by print prejudices. readers help each other?” to funerals. We were getting children 2000 they came together to lead the online Out of these experiences Pedersen and Create a newspaper in the traditional man- home. We sent a cat to a cat exhibition division of VG. Hansen developed an entirely new approach ner and the pictures that accompany news In the years that followed, this question in Finland. It was just amazing. And During the next year and a half, two to journalism—a “three-layer” approach. stories are the last thing put in, not the first. became a focal point of VG’s newsroom then people started sending pictures to events occurred that were entirely outside Said Hansen: Go today to most news sites launched approach during major events. In 2009 vol- the newsroom to say thank you. “We are the managers’ control but would change “The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide by traditional papers and you’ll see a format canic ash from eruptions in Iceland spread on our way to Bulgaria, thank you, VG.” their entire approach and philosophy. The The first layer is live or near-live: We to Digital Change” by Bharat Anand little changed from ten years ago—a lot of from Iceland to Scandinavia, then to the So two things happened. We got pictures

first was the explosion and sinking of the are telling you things as they are hap- (Random House) SOLUM/NTB SCANPIX STIAN LYSBERG text, few pictures, similar font sizes, rela- rest of Europe and as far south as Morocco, for an ongoing news story that involved

56 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 57 Books

basically everyone. And because people the shots and who got priority. “There was seeking the relevance for content companies, as something quite interesting, to be this: Price according to Ask not what your core sent the pictures with their phones, we a huge demand for information,” recalled ultimate value shifts from content to its com- and quite different. Whereas where you have a competitive business is, but know had their numbers and could interview Hansen. VG created a wiki-based map of all plements. In his book, Anand offers users of other smartphones advantage, not just based on when you’re someone them. It strengthened our reputation. the communities in Norway, allowing users complement four lessons about complements: spent about 70 percent of their rules that make sense for others. Complements are Growth often comes 4 else’s to post information on where and when time on plain-vanilla phone ser- marvelous when it comes to cre- Creating an app for users to upload car people could get the shot. Again, the results not from providing Expand your vision, don’t vice—making calls—exactly the Exclusive connections: ating value for your customer. pool information is not a natural starting were remarkable: “Within minutes it started better content, but from narrow it Some comple- reverse was true of the iPhone. From industry comple- But when it comes to capturing point for a news story about a volcano—un- to work, and within hours the information offering better and ments are obvious: Hot dogs The nine apps alone—the com- ments to product com- that value, they invariably ben- less you ask the question the VG newsroom was complete.” cheaper complements 1 and ketchup, printers and plements to hardware and voice 3 plements Did it matter efit at your expense. Consider now asks during any major event: “Can we “Can we help readers help each other?” cartridges, razors and blades, services—were accounting for whether 99-cent iTunes songs razors and razor blades, printers help readers to help each other?” Hansen may seem an odd question for a news or- right and left shoes. But many more than 55 percent of time or free pirated music was the and cartridges, CDs and con- described its significance: ganization to ask. News, you might think, are not. spent by Apple iPhone users. real complement to iPod sales? certs: In each case, one product is something that’s broadcast; it isn’t “so- While Schibsted has capitalized on Tire manufacturer Michelin Both yielded similar quality benefits from lowered prices of That’s the question we ask, not just cial.” But the question shifted VG’s mindset the power of “user connections”— offers restaurant guides, even- Dare to price low—but music. Both could be played the other. So it’s important not whether there’s a story we can tell them. about what it did—from “being important” fostering the development of net- tually becoming so successful in know where to do so however long the user wanted. just to know what business you If there’s a crisis or breaking news event, to “being relevant,” as one editor put it. It works that connect users—Bharat doing so that it creates a world- Managing complements And both made similar contri- are in—an increasingly popular we ask that question always. We will say, changed the way VG covered news, and it Anand’s research also underscored wide standard for assessing food 2 requires not only identify- butions to iPod profits. But the strategic question—but to know are you there? Do you have pictures? changed what VG covered. And with dra- the importance of “product connec- quality. It’s not that making tires ing them and increasing their two differed in an important whether you’re someone else’s Click here. So if something is breaking, matic results, as Hansen described: “For tions.” One example is the case of somehow translates into skill supply; it requires pricing them respect: iTunes benefited iPod complement. you will see immediately it’s up there. It’s each large news event, we gained traffic complements—where a user’s val- at recognizing good food; it’s right. But what’s “right”? Apple’s users only; because of its DRM “Companies are sufficiently just part of how we work now. and reached a new peak. These stories are ue from consuming two products is that making customers aware of pricing of iPod and iTunes vio- technology called FairPlay, no focused on their strategy and absolutely critical for us.” P greater than the sum of her values high-quality food in faraway plac- lated perhaps the best-known other MP3 player could access not on their complements’ strat- The 2009 swine flu epidemic put more from consuming each alone. As es spurs driving. rule in the book for pricing iTunes. Pirated music, on the egy, but that’s how the game is wind in the sails of the new approach. The Adapted from “The Content Trap: The Anand points out, this particular Complements often explain complements—the familiar ra- other hand, aided every MP3 often played,” Yale economist Norwegian government had recommended Strategist’s Guide to Digital Change” by Bharat idea isn’t a new concept, and it’s the success or failure of innova- zor-razor blades model. manufacturer. Barry Nalebuff told me recent- that every person get a flu shot and had de- Anand, published by Random House. Copyright been popularized recently by econ- tive products, too. A big reason “Price the durable cheap, The fuss over apps isn’t be- ly. “You can have the world’s livered supplies. But it was up to each local © 2016 by Bharat Anand. Used by permission. omists Adam Brandenburger and for the Kindle’s success wasn’t and make profits off the con- cause the total number of apps best gas pumps. But if you don’t community to decide where to administer All rights reserved. Barry Nalebuff. But it has special the features that improved sumable,” was the conventional matters to the average, or avid, have a convenience store, you e-reading, but a key complement thinking around complements user. What does matter is ex- just lost to somebody who does. that facilitated e-purchasing: pricing. The rule had worked clusivity over them. Create one GMAC made more money from wireless connectivity. Growth beautifully for decades—for million apps and it might appear GMAC [its auto financing arm] and innovation often come not Gillette and other manufactur- like you’re creating a powerful than from selling cars. Railroad from offering better content, ers. It had also worked marvel- ecosystem for your device, but companies recognized a decade but from offering better and ously in other product settings, their competitive effects are ago that they were worth more cheaper complements. such as printers and cartridges, neutralized if they are available for the fiber rights alongside It’s good not to define prod- or consoles and videogames. on competing platforms. Create their tracks than for the railroad ucts or business boundaries too Why did Apple reverse this “killer apps” exclusive to your themselves.” narrowly. To do this, ask what tried-and-true approach? It platform, and that is the night- Content businesses contin- complements your customers had to do with who was on the mare scenario for your rivals. ue to learn about the econom- find useful when they buy from other side of the table when it Consider Maps. In 2012 Apple ics of complements the hard you, not just what features they came time to splitting profits. removed Google’s acclaimed way. Ninety-nine-cent and care about in your product alone. For every song downloaded, app from the iPhone, replacing DRM-free music was a choice At its launch, the iPhone only one studio held the artist’s it with one of its own. It did so by Apple, free office applica- was basically a phone with a rights. So Apple’s position was not because Google’s product tions through Docs a choice by few added features. It had all of a bit like negotiating against a was bad or unpopular. Quite Google, and $9.99 e-books a nine applications: Maps, Stocks, monopolist. But when it came the reverse: About 25 percent of choice by Amazon. In each case Weather, iPod Calculator, Mail, to the $100 in profits that Apple smartphone users used it active- the choice related not only to a Camera, and a few others. At commanded from the iPod, ly. The frightening scenario for a strategy for propping up value first glance, the apps weren’t the company was negotiating product developer (in this case, in the company’s core business what made the iPhone unique; with dozens of near-commodi- Apple) is negotiating with a pro- but to reducing the price of, BlackBerry and Nokia phones ty component assemblers. The vider of the killer complement or even commoditizing, the also had some. But Apple’s were power there rested with Apple. (in this case, Google). complements. Therein perhaps accessible by simply touching “Price hardware low, services View Apple’s decision to re- lies the greatest challenge for the screen, and the product was high” is a rule that’s sensible for move Maps through the lens of content producers: Their future easy to use. Apple’s hardware razors or printers, where a single software quality and it appears will depend not only on what innovation seemed to be driv- firm made both products. But it foolish. View it through the they make but on how effective- ing sales and success once again. wasn’t for Apple, since it didn’t. lens of complements manage- ly they manage value-creating

FREDRIK SOLSTAD/VG VIA NTB SCANPIX FREDRIK SOLSTAD/VG Within a year, however, the Indeed the real lesson about ment and it suddenly appears opportunities in adjacent areas. Torry Pedersen of Norway’s VG advocates a three-layer approach to covering breaking news consumer research indicated complements pricing turns out far less so. —bharat anand

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International Fellows

Introducing the 79th Class of Nieman Fellows Twenty-three journalists, including the first Nieman Fellow from Jassim Ahmad Georg Diez Christian Feld Nkem Ifejika Ukraine, are studying at Harvard united kingdom germany germany united kingdom/nigeria for the 2016–17 academic year The head of multimedia A reporter and columnist A -based political A presenter at the BBC innovation at Reuters, studies covering politics and culture correspondent for ARD World Service in London, is how journalism organizations for Der Spiegel, studies how German TV, is designing a exploring media ownership and are exploiting technology, a new web-based journalistic program to teach European organizational structures in focusing on platforms and platform could enable a journalists about policies Nigeria, and how these might U.S. Fellows storytelling formats. worldwide digital salon. governing cyberspace. be overhauled.

Michelle Boorstein Lolly Bowean Tyler Dukes Felicia Fonseca Kim Kyoungtae Maciek Nabrdalik Chisomo Ngulube Karin Pettersson Religion reporter for The General assignment reporter Investigative reporter for Arizona-based correspondent malawi sweden Washington Post, studies the for the Chicago Tribune, WRAL News in North Carolina, for The Associated Press, An editor for Munhwa A documentary photographer Chief editor for TV News The in chief renegotiation of religion’s place studies the cultural differences studies best practices for studies the plight of American Broadcasting Corporation, and member of the VII Photo at the Malawi Broadcasting at Aftonbladet, Scandinavia’s in American public life. Her between African-American j-schools and newsrooms Indian tribes and their efforts studies the role of media Agency, studies the social Corporation, is examining biggest daily paper, studies examination will include legal descendants of American trying to democratize to build sustainable economies in peacefully solving transformations caused by how to maintain journalistic how extreme right-wing and issues, sociological changes, slavery and the children of data-driven reporting for that don’t rely heavily on international conflicts, migration, with a focus on standards during an era of racist movements use digital and the history of secularism. black immigrants. underserved communities. federal system. focusing on northeastern Asia. religious practices. media convergence. platforms to reach audiences.

Katherine Goldstein Roland Kelts Brady McCollough Jeneé Osterheldt Subina Shrestha Robert Socha Alisa Sopova Marcela Turati A former senior editor at Tokyo-based author, Projects reporter for sports A lifestyle columnist for The poland ukraine mexico Slate and Vanity Fair, studies contributing writer to The and news at the Pittsburgh Kansas City Star, studies A filmmaker and Deputy executive producer A freelance producer and An investigative journalist digital journalism strategies for New Yorker and columnist Post-Gazette, studies the theories of discrimination and correspondent for Al Jazeera, for TV documentary reporter for The New York covering the Mexican drug hiring and retaining a diverse for The Japan Times, studies future of football in America, their application to storytelling studies international human programs at TVN Poland, is Times in Ukraine, studies war, studies current and past workforce and the particular streaming media content and focusing on medical research on diverse subjects. Her rights issues as a lens into how comparing European and U.S. different writing techniques systemic violence and its challenges facing working the spread of Asian popular and the role journalism plays in research will include black and Nepali women and minorities developments in virtual reality in English, with a focus on impact, focusing on resilience mothers in the industry. culture in the West. communicating the findings. women’s studies. may achieve political rights. and video storytelling. American journalistic tradition. and the role of the press.

Jason Rezaian Mary Louise Schumacher Heidi Vogt A reporter for The The art and architecture critic East Africa correspondent Washington Post and the for the Milwaukee Journal for The Wall Street Journal, paper’s former Tehran bureau Sentinel, studies emerging studies religions, particularly chief, studies what the new strategies within the fields of the way Islam, Christianity, In selecting the Nieman class of 2017, Nieman Foundation cura- recently the London bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times and arc of U.S.- relations architecture and urban design Hinduism, and Judaism adapt tor Ann Marie Lipinski, a 1990 Nieman Fellow, was joined by a 2015 Nieman Fellow; Rohit Deshpande, Sebastian S. Kresge means for American foreign for addressing issues of racial to societies with an increasing Laura Amico, the news editor for multimedia and data projects Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School; and James policy in the Middle East. and economic inequity. diversity of faiths. at The Boston Globe and a 2013 Nieman Fellow; Henry Chu, most Geary, Nieman’s deputy curator and a 2012 Nieman Fellow.

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journalism prize. Bestowed by Sabam Siagian, the first Boston’s public broadcasting 1966 the nonprofit Global Center, editor in chief of The Jakarta station WGBH, he spent two “the bravest man i ever met” Robert Caro, a Pulitzer Prize- dedicated to developing socially Post, died in Jakarta on June years as managing editor of Judy Nicol Havemann, NF ’80, describes how Robert Timberg “changed many minds, including mine” winning biographer, is the responsible media, the Danny 3. He was 84. The first Nieman “Frontline” and a decade as 2016 recipient of the National Schechter Global Vision Award Fellow from , executive editor of “NOVA.” Robert Timberg, Klaaste, who never walked out of a room without automatically Book Foundation’s Medal for for Journalism and Activism Siagian began his career at the At New York’s WNET, he was Marine, reporter, checking his back pocket for his “pass.” Distinguished Contribution to will be awarded annually Christian newspaper Sinar executive director of , acclaimed Timberg said he decided to become a journalist almost as American Letters. to an individual emulating Harapan (later renamed Suara television series and specials author and Nieman a fluke—his wife told him he had written good letters from Schechter’s journalism and Pembaruan) and became the centered on science and natural Fellow in the class Vietnam. He got a master’s degree from , and social activism. Jose Antonio editor in chief of the English- history. Over the course of his of 1980, died on landed a job on the Annapolis Evening Capital—without ever 1976 Vargas is the first recipient. language Jakarta Post in 1983, career, Grant won 13 Emmys September 6 in publishing a word, or learning to type. Yoichi Funabashi is the a position he held until 1991. and eight Peabody Awards. Annapolis, Maryland, After his Nieman year, he had risen to White House recipient of the 2015 Shorenstein He continued writing columns of respiratory failure. correspondent for when he wrote “The Journalism Award, presented 1979 about Indonesian foreign Nightingale’s Song,” profiling his fellow Naval Academy grads by the Walter H. Shorenstein Hanns Victor Lewis, a former policy until his last months. 1981 He was the bravest man I ever met. Shockingly disfigured by a who had become leading figures in the government during the Asia-Pacific Research Center at acting national news editor David Lamb, a longtime land mine that blew off his face when he had only 13 days left in Reagan years. At the time, Vietnam vets were still suspect in Stanford University to honor at The Boston Globe, died on foreign correspondent for his tour of Vietnam, he endured 35 reconstructive operations. At many quarters, but Timberg’s deeply researched journalistic a journalist who has helped October 30, 2015 in Corpus 1980 the LA Times, died on June Harvard, we hung out. He never once mentioned Vietnam. account of John McCain’s ordeal as a prisoner of war in Vietnam American readers understand Christi, Texas. He was 70. Lewis William R. Grant, an 5 in Alexandria, Virginia. Oddly, he chose one of the most public of careers, journalism, changed many minds, including mine. the complexities of Asia. was an information specialist award-winning reporter and Lamb, who had been battling in the most visible of venues, Washington. He turned out to be In his 2014 book, “Blue-Eyed Boy,” he finally wrote about his Funabashi is the former editor in in the United States Army television producer, died on lymphoma and esophageal good at it. He was a reporter’s reporter. He hated show-offs and wounds. It drew on all the threads of his extraordinary life—his chief of Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. from 1968-1969. He joined the May 15 of complications from cancer, was 76. He had reported “bullshit, self-help” articles and books. great writing talent, his wide reading, his energy, fundamental Globe in 1979, where he also pneumonia. He was 72. He had from the frontlines of the During Nieman seminars, when the questions veered kindness, competitiveness, smarts, and yes, bravery, to tell the held the position of assistant worked at The (Louisville) Vietnam War for United Press toward “accommodating cocktail party chatter,” in the words story of, in his words, “how I decided not to die.” 1978 foreign editor. He finished his Courier-Journal in Kentucky, International and covered the of Paul Lieberman, Bob was the Nieman who most often He reluctantly agreed to be the master of ceremonies when Danny Schechter, who died in journalism career there before the , and the fall of Saigon for the Times. He asked tough questions. He was friendly with the entire Nieman the National Endowment for the Humanities launched what by 2015, is the namesake of a new retiring to Corpus Christi. San Francisco Chronicle. At returned to Vietnam 20 years class but gravitated toward the “foreign” Niemans—Suthichai that time had become the obligatory federal veterans program Yoon, whose English-language newspaper, the Nation, in for those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. the mind of south africa was continually threatened with being shut down for This self-controlled, acclaimed author whose book exemplified “ ” its fearless reporting; Daniel Passent, who was the political transparency and openness looked out over a sea of high-level Daniel Berger, NF ’63, recalls the South African journalist who columnist for Polityka, the chief newsmagazine in Poland, as the officials of government agencies and lost it. found common ground with Nieman Fellows from the American South Communist party clung to power; and South African Aggrey He asked, “Where the fuck were you when WE came home.”

Allister Sparks, NF ’63, former editor Allister was always eager to absorb all he could of American of South Africa’s Rand Daily Mail, died life. We were invited to witness a Harvard football game (Yale, later to open the paper’s Hanoi Globe columnist as well as in Johannesburg on September 19 of of course) from the press box and attend the coach’s locker bureau. He also was the Times a climate and energy writer 1998 2001 complications from pneumonia. room press conference. Allister showed up, wearing a silk ascot bureau chief in Cairo, Nairobi, for the Union of Concerned Howard Berkes of NPR Ken Armstrong of The round his neck, no doubt the attire for a sporting event in and Sydney before leaving Scientists, he is examining race has been recognized by Marshall Project is a winner The struggle between the forces of Johannesburg but a bit conspicuous in a Cambridge locker room. the paper in 2004. Lamb was and climate change. the National Council for of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for segregation and civil rights in the South A year or two later, a South African diplomat from the author of several books, Occupational Safety and Explanatory Reporting, sharing was the big story when the Nieman Washington came through the Midwest, to enlighten some of including “Vietnam, Now: A Health (COSH) for “Inside the prize with T. Christian Fellows came together in September us about the misunderstood regime he had the honor to serve. Reporter Returns.” 1990 Corporate America’s Campaign Miller of ProPublica for “An of 1962. The class was heavy with I dropped Allister’s name. The diplomat was happy to tell of an Yossi Melman is interviewed to Ditch Workers’ Comp,” a Unbelievable Story of Rape.” Southern (white) journalists who had indignant parliamentarian so infuriated that he punched out in “Zero Days,” directed collaboration with ProPublica’s been covering it. Allister in the legislative halls of Cape Town. The government’s 1983 by Alex Gibney. Melman, Michael Grabell. COSH called Into this group walked that year’s disapprobation may have helped Allister rise to the editorship of Eli Reed’s photography a journalist specializing in it one of 2016’s outstanding 2004 South African fellow, Allister Sparks, who had been covering apart- the Rand Daily Mail. retrospective, “Eli Reed: A security and intelligence health and safety stories. Masha Gessen’s book “Where heid, its excesses and discontents. It was a perfect fit. Discussions Allister kept up his American connections. He and the late Long Walk Home,” published affairs, was a consultant on the the Jews Aren’t: The Sad and raged comparing the two situations, trying for each country to Saul Friedman, NF ’63, exchanged visits. Allister’s London in 2015 by the University cybercrime documentary. Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, distinguish the particular from the universal. There was much talk and American contacts served him well when the ownership of of Texas Press, was named 1999 ’s Jewish Autonomous of W.J. Cash’s classic book, “The Mind of the South.” This made the Daily Mail, discouraged by the black readership Allister was one of Photo District News’ Chris Hedges is the author of Region” was published by such an impression on Allister that he wanted to render the same attracting, unceremoniously dumped him. He was able to carry photography books of the year. 1994 a new book, “Unspeakable: On Schocken in August. service to his own country, and almost three decades later did, on covering the story as a foreign correspondent in his own land Larry Tye is the author of the Most Forbidden Topics in with “The Mind of South Africa.” for The Washington Post and the Observer of London. In the “Bobby Kennedy: The Making America,” written with David Allister had done his spell in London, and enlightened us latter’s service he won the Louis Lyons Award. 1984 of a Liberal Icon,” which was Talbot. The book, published 2005 on the differences in folkways of ourselves and the denizens of I always thought that the value of the Nieman year was best Derrick Z. Jackson spent published by Random House by Skyhorse Publishing in Ines Pohl will assume her new Fleet Street. Some years later, as the Baltimore Sun’s London exemplified by the richness Allister took from it, and contributed the fall semester at Harvard in July. Tye traces Robert F. October, explores issues such position as editor in chief of correspondent, I realized how his insights had prepared me. to it, and I believe he agreed. Kennedy School as a Joan Kennedy’s path from staunch as the rise of Donald Trump Deutsche Welle, Germany’s

LEFT: MICHELLY RALL/GETTY IMAGES; OPPOSITE: JOSHUA MCKERROW/THE CAPITAL GAZETTE CAPITAL RALL/GETTY MCKERROW/THE OPPOSITE: JOSHUA IMAGES; LEFT: MICHELLY Shorenstein Fellow. A Boston anti-communist to liberal icon. and Black Lives Matter. international broadcaster,

62 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 63 Nieman Notes

in March 2017. Pohl joined The series exposed the began NGO Madaktari, a group Justice, Denied,” about Jane Spencer has joined Deutsche Welle in 2015 as a inhumane practices common that sends hundreds of doctors environmental problems that shining a light on slavery and resegregation Guardian US as deputy editor, foreign correspondent based in in Southeast Asia’s fishing around the world to create a disproportionately affect The AP and honored for their investigations strategy. She will spearhead Washington, D.C. industry and led to the release new model for global health. minority communities and the innovative projects, focusing of more than 2,000 slaves. little done to address them. She The Nieman Foundation hosted the ceremonies for three prizes earlier this year: on mobile and video. Most Stefan Candea is the co- contributed to the Center for recently she worked at Fusion. 2007 founder and coordinator Public Integrity project. Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism Andrea McCarren won her 2010 of a new investigative The Associated Press won the 2015 Taylor Award for its series Beauregard Tromp has 21st Emmy Award for regional Beth Macy is the author of journalism network, European Raquel Rutledge has been “Seafood From Slaves,” which exposed the inhumane, abusive been appointed deputy editor news reporting at the 58th “Truevine: Two Brothers, a Investigative Collaborations recognized by the National practices pervasive in Southeast Asia’s fishing industry. The series of South Africa’s Mail and News and Documentary Emmy Kidnapping, and a Mother’s (EIC). Network members Council for Occupational led to the release of more than 2,000 slaves, prosecution for a Guardian. He has been news Awards - National Capital Quest: A True Story of the Jim weigh possible story ideas, and Safety and Health (COSH) for number of offenders, and significant reforms. The AP journalists editor at the paper since early Chesapeake Bay Chapter in Crow South,” published by EIC partners—including Der her Milwaukee Journal Sentinel behind the series were Asia regional reporter and 2009 Nieman 2016. He has reported from June. She was recognized in the Little, Brown in October. Spiegel and El Mundo—work investigation into a chemical Fellow , correspondent Robin McDowell, three dozen countries in Africa. general assignment reporting together to develop tools for linked to hundreds of injuries national writer , and Myanmar reporter Esther category for her reporting and investigative reporting. and some fatalities in workers Htusan. The Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism was producing work on “What is a 2011 at flavoring companies across established by the Taylor family, publishers of The Boston Globe 2015 Free Range Kid?,” about “free Tony Bartelme is the author the nation. The story, “Gasping Steve Taylor and Margie Mason from 1872 to 1999, to encourage fairness by U.S. journalists. Celeste LeCompte is the range parenting.” It aired on of a new book, “Send Forth the 2012 for Air,” was named by COSH recipient of a 2016 Mirror Award WUSA9, the D.C. CBS affiliate. Healing Sun: The Unexpected Kristen Lombardi was as one of 2016’s outstanding for for her article “Automation True Story About Teaching honored with a Dateline health and safety stories. The Tampa Bay Times won the 2015 Bingham Prize for “Failure Factories,” a multimedia series in the Newsroom,” published Brain Surgery in the African Award from the Society of disclosing how district leaders in Pinellas County, Florida transformed five local elementary in the Summer 2015 issue of 2008 Bush.” It tells the story of U.S. Professional Journalists and a David Skok is an associate schools into some of the state’s worst through resegregation and intentional neglect. The Nieman Reports. The cover Gaiutra Bahadur has been neurosurgeon Dilan Ellegala National Association of Black editor and head of editorial Times team behind the series included education reporters Cara Fitzpatrick and Lisa Gartner, story, which was recognized named a Sheila Biddle Ford who, after taking a sabbatical at Journalists Salute to Excellence strategy at the Toronto Star. investigative reporter Michael LaForgia, data reporter Nathaniel Lash, photographer Dirk Shadd, in the “Best Single Article Fellow at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du a remote hospital in Tanzania, Award for “Environmental Skok formerly was The Boston and editor Chris Davis. The Bingham prize, established in 1967 to commemorate the work and life – Digital Media” category, Bois Research Institute, part of journalist Worth Bingham, honors investigative reporting for stories of national significance explores how algorithms are of the Hutchins Center for where the public interest is being ill-served. helping reporters expand African & African American NIEMAN’S FIRST NOBEL coverage, engage audiences, and Research. She is spending the Members of class of 1988 reflect on Nobel prize winner J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project respond to breaking news. The current academic year working Susan Southard won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for “Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War.” , administered on a biography of Janet Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, a 1988 Nieman Nikolaus Wachsmann won the Mark Lynton History Prize for “KL: A History of the Nazi by Syracuse University’s S.I. Rosenberg Jagan, an American Fellow, is the recipient of the 2016 . The Concentration Camps,” while Steve Luxenberg was honored with the J. Lukas Work-in-Progress Newhouse School of Public Marxist who in her 70s was Norwegian Nobel Committee selected Santos for the prize “for Award for “Separate: A Story of Race, Ambition and the Battle That Brought Legal Segregation Communications, honor president of Guyana. his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long to America.” Established in 1998, the Lukas Prize Project includes three prizes honoring the best excellence in media industry civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 in American nonfiction writing. reporting. Kate Galbraith has been Colombians and displaced close to 6 million people,” according honored by the International to a statement. Santos has said he will donate the prize money to Association for Literary help victims of the conflict. Globe’s managing editor and D’Angelo Hrovatin to honor the paper as a military 2016 Journalism Studies (IALJS) Santos’s Nieman classmates Rosenthal Alves, Eduardo vice president, digital. investigative journalism with a correspondent and defense Grzegorz Piechota is the for her article “New Print Ulibarri, and Eugene Robinson reflected on their history social message. Bennhold was analyst. Most recently, he recipient of the Silver Shovel Magazines Are Embracing Juan Manuel Santos and his wife with Santos, who was deputy publisher of ’s El Tiempo recognized for her New York served for two years as a Award, which recognizes Narrative and Finding their Maria Clemencia Rodriguez newspaper prior to his Nieman year. 2013 Times story “Migrant Children, senior policy advisor to Israel’s lifetime achievement Niche.” The story, published in “I was delighted to see that [Santos won],” said Alves, director David Abel is the story Arriving Alone and Frightened.” minister of education and and contributions to the the Fall 2014 issue of Nieman of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas, Austin. “I think it’s director, writer, and diaspora affairs. International News Media Reports, was reprinted in the good for Colombia. I think it’s very fair because Juan Manuel has had an obsession for working to- producer of “Sacred Cod,” Alexandra Garcia was on The Association. Piechota began Spring 2015 IALJS Literary ward this in a country where he knew that this is a very complex issue. He knew he would face fierce a documentary about the New York Times team that won Laura Wides-Munoz has his career at Poland’s Gazeta Journalism newsletter and opposition, and that the peace would be used as a political tool, as it was.” collapse of New England’s an Edward R. Murrow Award been promoted from director Wyborcza in 1996 as a reporter, named the year’s best article. Robinson, a Washington Post columnist, added, “I can only imagine his disappointment at the cod fishing industry. It from the Radio Television of news practices to vice rising to head its multimedia vote rejecting the agreement, and my guess is that his reaction to the Nobel will not be one of per- premiered at the 2016 Camden Digital News Association president for special projects newsroom. sonal pride, but of hope that maybe it can get the peace process underway again.” International Film Festival. for their work on “Outlaw and editorial strategy at Fusion. 2009 Santos’ classmates were not surprised when he embarked on a career in politics. Ulibarri, a Costa It will air on the Discovery Ocean,” a multimedia series on Chris Weyant is the Margie Mason is among Rican journalist, said that Santos had the traits necessary to become a successful, compassionate Channel in 2017. lawlessness on the high seas. Betsy O’Donovan is the new illustrator of a new children’s the Associated Press staff politician. “I have also always perceived him as a highly focused, methodical, and strategic person, general manager of DTH Media book, “Can I Tell You a members who contributed qualities that have shown during the long, complicated, and to an extent, unprecedented and admi- Katrin Bennhold is winner Yaakov Katz is the editor Corporation, publisher of The Secret?,” which was written by to “Seafood From Slaves,” rable peace process in Colombia.” of a 2016 Marco Luchetta in chief of The Jerusalem Daily Tar Heel, the University Anna Kang and published by a series that won the AP Alves added: “Sometimes we joked this guy one day will become president of Colombia. International Press Award, Post, Israel’s leading English- of North Carolina at Chapel Harper Collins in May. It is the the 2016 Pulitzer Gold … A couple of decades later, sure enough he was and is the president of Colombia.” a prize given by Italy’s language newspaper. Katz Hill’s independent student third children’s book by the

Medal for Public Service. ABITBOL OPPOSITE: LISA PRESS VERGARA/ASSOCIATED FERNANDO Fondazione Luchetta Ota spent nearly 10 years at newspaper. husband-and-wife team.

64 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 65 Sounding Nieman Online

From the Archives Democracy While covering the Middle East through intimate window into how the country’s “Islam: Reporting in Context and With the years, many people in the countries I citizens see democracy and the role of gov- Complexity,” the cover story for the At the Dinner Table cover have asked me how citizens of the ernment in their lives. A project that will Summer 2007 issue, examined the A photographer United States see democracy. Most of them push people to pay attention to the politics challenges journalists encountered in have wrestled with the concept in their own that shapes their lives. A visual record that their coverage of Islam and of extremism sees a disconnect country, experiencing protests or war. documents the state of democracy at this in the wake of 9/11 terrorist attacks. The between U.S. citizens In Iraq, the first person to ask me this was moment in U.S. history. package features a look at the media’s and the government a prostitute. Halla styled herself from post- Who knew my year at Harvard would misperceptions of the war in Iraq, an ers of Britney Spears. She turned to pros- coincide with such an unusual presidential Islamic scholar’s insights on the many titution to support her two kids after her campaign and the rise of Donald Trump. I faces of Islamism and jihadism, and civilian husband died in 2003 as the result took Jane Mansbridge’s democratic theo- photo essays by Anja Niedringhaus, Iason of a U.S. bomb. I answered her by mention- ry course in the Kennedy School, explor- Athanasiadis, and Alexandra Boulat. often feel my job is to trick ing ideas from the Bill of Rights. But, since ing political philosophers from Aristotle people into paying attention to the then, the question has haunted me. To many to Muhammad Asad. Matthew Desmond’s Engaging Your Audience world around them. Beauty, light, people across the globe, democracy is inter- class, Poverty in America, was eye-opening. In excerpts from an American Press and composition are my tools to draw twined with capitalism and money. To oth- Many of my classes overlapped in ways I Institute report, Mónica Guzmán, NF ’16, one’s eye into the events and issues ers, it means the ability to vote or freedom never expected. In Helen Vendler’s class on offers practical guidance on how to build Imany would rather avoid. of speech. But the word democracy often is Yeats I read words lamenting, questioning, Filmmaker Laura Poitras, , and , executive editor of The New York audience—and relevance—by listening When I started as a photographer, I influenced by their own experiences with the and remembering war. Times, discussed journalism’s role in exposing government abuses during a Sept. 11 celebration to and engaging with readers. The former described myself as a community jour- U.S. military, drones, and corruption. Reconciling ideas about democracy from of the Pulitzer Prize centennial. Additional videos now online feature biographer Robert Caro, Seattle Post-Intelligencer online journalist nalist. At the Concord Monitor in New After covering failed and fledgling democ- what I studied and what people believe has “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, and reporters and Sacha Pfeiffer talked to 25 news leaders and innovators Hampshire I started a column called racies in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, I been a challenge. Taking advantage of my nieman.harvard.edu/pulitzer across mediums to create a set of best “This Life” to spotlight everyday people am intrigued by the definition of democra- time at Harvard, I picked the brains of many practices in audience and community and the often invisible moments of life. cy in my home country. I see a disconnect of the most dedicated minds on this topic. engagement. While spending days in the homes of between U.S. citizens, the government, and I invited professors from Harvard and ac- strangers, I learned a new and more im- how people cling to the word “democracy.” tivists from Boston to my tiny Cambridge portant tool: intimacy. For the past few years I’ve felt compelled apartment for “democracy dinners” where, Years later, as a staff photographer for to return home to produce a long-term eth- prodded by good wine and food, candles, The Washington Post, I found myself on nographic study of democracy in the United and a record player, intense conversations The Newsonomics of Podcasting the deserted streets of D.C. an hour after States—a multimedia piece providing an on democracy unfolded. News industry analyst Ken Doctor explores American Airlines flight 77 hit the Pentagon. There were disagreements and allegianc- how the on-demand audio world is Before I knew the details of 9/11 I witnessed Andrea Bruce es. Professors and authors contributed their growing and adjusting to its success. The police frisking Sikh taxi drivers wearing expertise and experiences to help find an an- five-part series looks inside the business turbans. Confusion and cultural ignorance swer to what democracy means today, and of podcasting and examines host-read ads, surfaced. The Post sent me to Iraq and suggested questions for the people I will financial support from listeners, and the Afghanistan. I had never considered the pos- meet while on the road for this project. We role journalism and news can play in the sibility of being a war photographer. discussed where one should go, what met- evolving medium. In Iraq, covering suicide bombings and rics to use, and what questions to ask. “The wonderful thing roadside bombs became a gruesome daily My project on democracy in America be- routine. I quickly grew frustrated with the gan in North Carolina a day after the presi- disconnect between the war and our readers. dential election. I move to a different county about power is that it’s I returned to the tools of the commu- every month, having more democracy din- Digital Innovations and Storytelling nity journalist and started another column ners along the way. Coverage has started New York Times multimedia editor Yuliya called “Unseen Iraq,” this time for the Post. with an @ourdemocracy Instagram feed. I dangerous to exercise Parshina-Kottas and “Frontline” managing Again, I focused on highlighting the seem- am trying to use photography, once again, to producer Andrew Metz were among the ingly invisible moments of life but this time bridge a society so polarized we seem unable it. It’s also dangerous presenters at 2016 Seoul Digital Forum, for those involved in war. I never stopped My plan is to travel to see each other clearly. P an international conference examining covering the bloody reality of war, but re- around the country virtual reality, Instagram, and other trends alized that people wouldn’t care about the Andrea Bruce, a 2016 Nieman Fellow, is a to not exercise it.” in digital storytelling. The white paper, suffering of others unless they could relate asking people questions freelance photographer and co-owner of the —BOB WOODWARD “Doing Good Journalism in Unexpected

to them first. Intimacy. about democracy photo agency NOOR ABITBOL LEVINSON; OPPOSITE: LISA LEFT: JONATHAN ASSOCIATE EDITOR OF THE WASHINGTON POST Ways,” outlines the takeaways.

66 NIEMAN REPORTS fall 2016 FALL 2016 VOL. 70 NO. 4 The Nİeman Foundatİon for Journalİsm TO PROMOTE AND Harvard Unİversİty ELEVATE THE STANDARDS One Francİs Avenue OF JOURNALISM Cambrİdge, Massachusetts 02138