Truth < Need

This is an excerpt from my monthly newsletter, Re:filtered. You can subscribe here.

Last month, I wrote about how exiled media had lessons to offer for media everywhere at a time when Jim VandeHei of Axios called the "most difficult media moment ever".

TL'DR: Exiled media have a creative obsession with unconventional reach tactics. Many practice genuine community service. There are many exciting forms of solidarity that go beyond traditional newsroom reporting collaborations. 

Despite the creativity, many (not all) exiled media remain largely irrelevant in their home countries. The longer they are detached, the harder it gets to reverse this.

Over time, their irrelevance exacerbates news fatigue in places where great journalism really should be able to shine: those discovering them will build an opinion on exiled media having little to offer, and they'll be less likely to give the next venture or generation a chance.

In conversations last month, I've tried to argue that it may be more helpful to look at news fatigue less as a reflection of the sad state of the world but as a call to action for civic media projects to rebuild relationships with the people they are meant to serve.

Some people I've met this past month in the media funding space rejected this view, considering the mere continued existence of the practice of journalism to be sufficiently valuable.

It’s as if they see themselves as heroic Don Quixotes fighting the autocratic disinformation windmills, and just continuing to exist means they win. And perhaps that's also not entirely wrong.

But others openly shared that they just don't know what else to do with their best intentions and pots of money. Fair enough, this is really hard. And newsrooms are not necessarily conditioned to deal with the moment.

So for this month, I thought I'd share some ideas on how to look at this problem from a demand perspective. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on what's missing, what has worked, and what could be done. 

#1: What are real needs people have?

As part of a research project on exiled and underground media (more on it below), I have been looking at the research done on Civic Information Needs over the last few decades and was amazed by the conceptual clarity and extensiveness of the work done.

We really have no excuse to just keep publishing whatever we think is important. In many legacy newsrooms I've worked in, editorial judgment and independence have become the go-to rationales for getting away with the pursuit of personal interest, rather than a means of enforcing relevance by truthfully meeting information needs. I, too, had advocated for this many times, applying a generic definition of “the news” to everything that seemed important to me.

Applying the BBC's or other needs models (Inspire me, keep me on trend, etc.) to generic news helps somewhat in identifying more appealing or diverse angles, but does it really go beyond a tactic of trying to make my stories interesting for you?

Some fifteen years ago, the Knight Commission's Informing Communities report proposed Civic Information Needs (CINs) as "the information people need to navigate everyday life and participate fully in democratic society." 

It identified eight key CIN areas: emergencies and risks; health and welfare; education; transportation; economic opportunities; environment and planning; civic institutions and political processes; and public officials’ performance.

If you're coming from the news product space, you are at this point already probably visualizing in your head distinct offerings that could be created for all of these. If you're an editor thinking about your newsroom's beat portfolio, that's a pretty good starting point.

Crucially, though, needs aren't just functional, like those listed above. There are social needs like belonging, personal aspirations, and identity that media organizations can cater to so powerfully.

From Brooklynites carrying New Yorker tote bags to Russian fascists spraying the letter Z on walls and cars, symbols are the embodiment of identity needs met.

That's one reason kleptocratic populists have been far more popular than they ever deserve to be and are getting away with so so much deception. Demagogues have understood the power of meeting social and psychological needs of belonging, justice, and security—albeit in a deceiving and perverted way—more so than the Fourth Estate has.

If we don't start editorial strategy with some clarity and intentionality on needs met first, my worry is that we are just perpetuating the well-intentioned fallacies of early audience development, i.e., repackaging for different formats without putting value for the user at the core. 

That’s one reason many exiled media ventures have struggled to become intellectual homes to the disenfranchised despite the best intentions, massive passion, talent and technical ingenuity. (And it may be fueling illiberalism everywhere.)

I would love to hear your thoughts on finding needs beyond functional ones.

I've found the Bains model helpful and am catching up on related design research, e.g., designing for joy at Headspace.

The charts below are from Designing for Emotion by Aaron Walter: 

#2: How can needs be turned into media products?

Three recent studies on Chinese diaspora media consumption I read this month taught me a ton about the vastness of this opportunity space:

Lulu Ning, the editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language online publication Initium, presented her audience research last week in New York. Her research suggested that their highly-educated, liberally-minded global audience often finds itself not sufficiently represented by other Chinese language media, many being coopted by the Communist Party or other interests. At the same time, English-language journalism often doesn't feel like it's written for them.

She suggested that Initium could fill that void. It could be the destination for their efforts to understand the world because it's reporting done by journalists rooted in the same cultural context. There's a real opportunity here.

Then there's a recent study out of New York by Documented on the information needs of Chinese migrants in the city, suggesting the same lack of intellectual home among this far more diverse group. It clearly outlined actionable and unmet information needs, including education and public safety.

Lastly, there's a fascinating study of the information needs of Chinese migrants crossing the Darién Gap from Colombia into Panama to eventually reach the United States, by Internews. Even though the interviews were relatively few, the insights on needs were so rich. These migrants seek:

1. Reliable information about the migration route, including details about the journey, potential risks, and alternative plans.
2. Access to accurate and up-to-date information on current events affecting their route, such as changes in immigration policies or migration-related incidents.
3. Information about available migrant clinics, potable water sources, and other support facilities in the areas they pass through.
4. Guidance on accessing financial resources and overcoming challenges related to the incompatibility of Chinese banking systems with local banks.
5. Mental health support to cope with the stress and emotional challenges experienced during the migration process.
6. Information on potential risks posed by local authorities, including extortion and discrimination, and guidance on how to handle such situations.
7. Information on legal rights and documentation requirements in the countries they pass through.
8. Reliable and timely updates on security situations and political developments that may impact their migration process, particularly in areas with strict and fluctuating immigration controls.
9. Access to trusted networks and communication channels to connect with other migrants, share experiences, and seek support during the journey.

That is so much actionable information for a newsroom. Again, if you're in the product space, your mind will have already gone to multiple possible editorial offerings that could meet real needs here for tens of thousands of people.

Is your newsroom equipped to identify needs and build an editorial strategy around them? Or are you telling stories that a group of editors think are important in general and then adopting a generic needs-framing to optimize distribution?

Committing to a clear service from the start and building the capacity for such research to happen within media organizations could make a huge difference. 

#3: How does investigative reporting fit in?

Reporting as a craft has rapidly advanced and democratized in recent years. We have unprecedented abilities to gather and analyze information at scale and often remotely. That energy gets lost if stories are more directed at generic self-expression than need-based service.

I learned this the hard way with the Environmental Reporting Collective, and this remains the case with so much climate crisis reporting five years on.

Who really cares about the trafficking in pangolins (a story we worked on)? Very few environmental advocates, and perhaps some journalism award juries.

Is it our job as journalists to cater to them, or should we start by looking at problems that real people have and then take it from there?

If I could start that project again, my first task for the participating newsrooms would be to figure out how this global problem that we want to talk about overlaps with key challenges their communities are facing.

Sometimes it happens naturally or because a gifted editor has good instincts. In Indonesia, the ingenious team at Tempo magazine found ties to the drug trade. In Malaysia, the R.AGE team tied the poaching to questions around identity and belonging.

#4: What is success?

A frequent challenge I faced at Radio Free Europe was one that remains pervasive across many media outlets: trying to overcome the perception that getting in front of people was the key determinant of success in media. We publish, people see our work, and that's it. Rinse and repeat.

The latest iteration of this among public media executives is: Let's focus on engagement instead! We get in front of people, see how many like the posts, and develop a feedback loop. Great intentions, some progress, but this only further perpetuates a digital broadcasting mindset. It continues to put a newsroom at the mercy of the big algorithmic distribution platforms in the fatal hope of preserving reach.

So what else can be done? Views are great and engagement is great, but they require a contextualizing strategy. They require a theory of change that commits a media venture to meeting functional, emotional, or social needs.

So the first question for any newsroom manager is really: What are you really trying to achieve? And only as a derivate of this, ask yourself how you measure success.

We all want to help people in some way navigate this world more easily, or with greater joy.

Just remember that your truth is not necessarily someone else’s need, and without a need, your truth won't bring about change.

#5: How could newsroom roles change?

In a presentation last week, Cristian Lupșa had thoughtful suggestions on what kind of different divisions of labor, roles, and skills a newsroom would need to get there, expanding on the work of Sue Robinson.

Media organizations, he argued, need to develop new roles (or skills) of mediators, facilitators, and conveners of their communities. He elaborated on this in the latest edition of Draft Four, his newsletter, which you should really read.

Based on the thoughts above, I would add some more:

1. someone who identifies topical and emotional needs so that a newsroom can cater to them with intention even before starting out. 
2. someone who validates that needs are met and highlights emerging opportunities while operating.
3. someone who thinks about getting in front of people and articulating the intent and value of this work.
4. someone who thinks technically about developing desirable media consumption experiences, and enables a connection over time between a media venture and its users, and then among users. 

This is an excerpt from my monthly newsletter, Re:filtered. You can subscribe here.