David Bornstein is the co founder of the Solutions Journalism Network,
an organization that works with news organizations to produce rigorous
reporting on responses to social problems. The goal to rebalance
the news in a way that provides people a sense of investment and
to provide communities with the information they need to participate
in a healthy democracy. Tonight, he gives his brief but spectacular
take on telling the whole story.
I mean, I like to think about news just as a feedback system, you
know, good feedback system to work needs to let you know what you
need to be afraid of what you need to be aware of, and you need to
know what you can do about it. You need to know where the efficacy
is. If you only do one without the other, you're going to cause people
to put their heads buried their heads in the sand. And if you only
do the other thing that you're sort of a Pollyanna and you're making
people feel good, but you're not really giving them information.
That's
True to reality, but in balance, you can activate people, and I think
journalism at its best should activate people to be powerful players
in a participatory democracy.
There's just a great sense of well being that comes from that that
way of living and I think that journalism or any media should help
build that capacity should help seed it. It doesn't take away from,
you know, letting us know about wars and corruption and malfeasance
and what we're seeing, you know, obviously in politics around the
world with populism.
Um, but at the same time if we make that the only focus of our attention
We will.
We will be leaving the best of human nature on the table. Basically
the main way that the news harms democracy is by providing a view
of the world.
That is largely deficit framed. I mean, we are amply informed about
what's going wrong about what's ugly, but what's corrupt.
Because we don't have a similar amount of information about what's
growing. What are the new possibilities emerging? We have a very
flawed kind of one sided view. It's as if your parents were only
ever criticizing what you did and never letting you know where you
have possibilities to grow Many people who would, I think would love
to participate in contributing to a better community. Even a better
society or world have a
An impoverished sense of their power to do so.
Particularly when it comes to communities that have experienced poverty
historically or communities of color in the United States, especially
You have narratives that have been deficit framed.
For, you know.
For As long as we've had journalism, you could look at major news
organizations across the United States. You look at the Metro daily,
the large newspaper in that community.
And you take a community of color and you type in the search, and
you'll find in many cases that the majority of stories are about
violence.
As if to say that is majority of activity in that community. Now,
I'm not denying
That we should cover violence. The point is, it's not the only truth.
We should tell the whole story.
And if we don't tell the whole story about communities, we are creating
bias in the minds of people who often have power over those communities.
What we're seeing what I see.
Just because I'm I'm a little bit. I'm not sort of the spider at
the center of this web of solutions. Journalism is my head is filled
with with stories of solutions all the time. Which really inoculates
you against, You know some of the bad stuff that's been coming our
way in recent years as cats, the world doing the right thing and
let that also spread
My name is David Bornstein. And this is my brief but spectacular
take on telling the whole story.
Lot to think about their and you can watch more brief but spectacular