“We need stories of hope and possibility, stories that reflect the reality of our lived experiences.”
— Janet Mock, Redefining Realness
There is a necessity to ground community journalism in community truths. Those truths are not always as cut and dry as facts, but rather are negotiated through deep listening and engagement with the people you are trying to serve. Community truths makes space for, and recognize the diversity of lived experiences that shape how we understand our place and how we respond to the issues that face us.
A critical responsibility of journalism is to bear witness. Yet newsrooms large and small struggle routinely with the simple practice of listening and holding up an accurate mirror to complicated, nuanced truths in their communities. The causes of this are varied; staffing, time constraints, cultural bias, risk aversion, language barriers, just to name a few. But the end results are the same: Important stories go untold, or are told through a narrow lens that doesn’t reflect the lived experiences of the community.
Kassi Underwood, author of the book May Cause Love, spoke to this issue on a recent podcast. “I can hear journalists over the phone stop typing when I say something new. When I say something that is already part of the public conversation on abortion, I can hear them typing. And the minute I say something different — it’s silence,” Underwood said. “I don’t know if that’s because they’re listening or because they think ‘Oh that’s not useable or something like that’. But that has been frustrating because that was part of my loneliness — not being able to say everything.”
Underwood was sharing her story on the podcast The Abortion Diary, a project created by Dr. Melissa Madera in the summer of 2013. The project operates under a simple premise: “What if millions of people broke their silence and told the truth about their lives and their choices?” Madera’s podcast has created a container for listening to individual truths about a subject matter where listening and open dialogue are often replaced by talking points and heated debate. As such it is an interesting example to explore how difficult issues can be better covered in journalism and discussed in community.
Through her podcast, Madera has traveled around the country physically bearing witness and recording the personal stories of more than 240 people. The podcast stands out for the way it presents personal stories in their full complexity without judgement. “Every experience is different,” Madera told me. “We’re not one person or one group. We’re a community of people just like any community of people with different people inside of it. […] It’s not one kind of story. It’s all kinds of stories.” Each episode follows a similar format: the person with the lived experience narrates their story, speaking for however long they wish and at their own pace. There is no framing, no leading questions, no judgement, just listening. On each episode Madera is not credited as the show’s ‘Host’ but rather the ‘Listener.
This kind of verbatim story sharing is more closely aligned with documentary film than traditional journalism, but there are important lessons here that journalists and media funders should take seriously. Listening builds trust. When journalists and newsrooms deepen their capacity for listening they are investing in trust. As journalists work more intentionally and thoughtfully with communities to bear witness, the deepened trust in communities will lead to more trusted journalism. This is an arc that cannot be driven by generating clicks or shares, but rather, it is anchored in service to community. That trust can help reposition newsrooms as partners and leaders in communities. Investing in listening is investing in leadership — a form of leadership forged from journalists and communities working together.
Community is often described around a sense of place, not a shared experience. However, Madera’s Abortion Diary is an example of how community can form around shared experience and through bearing witness. Madera describes seeking community as a catalyst for the project:
“This project really came from a need to listen. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to listen to other people’s stories. I wanted a physical community. I was actually looking for a physical space where I can be in community with other people who’ve had abortions and I couldn’t find that. So then I looked for an online space where I could listen. […] I wanted to hear people’s voices, and that’s where the podcast came to be. And I didn’t know anything about podcasting, so I had to learn that part, but I knew I wanted to be in a situation where — or in a place where I would be listening to people share their stories.”
As part of my research for the Engaged Journalism Lab exploring how philanthropy can support diverse, inclusive newsrooms, I visited local newsrooms, interviewed experts and community groups, sat with journalists and listened. This included sitting with professional listeners like Madera to understand how philanthropy can better support deep listening and diverse stories across different issues and mediums. There is an opportunity for media funders to support mechanisms and models for deep listening.
Podcasts are obviously associated with listening, but in fact, there is a growing collection of community listening projects across the country such as The Listening Post in New Orleans and tools like GroundSource. In many cases, the journalists are the ones in search of community, not vice versa. Madera highlights the power of also building community among those seeking community. When she failed to find media that featured complicated, nuanced truths about abortion experiences, Madera slowly and story by story, created one of the most robust, deep and diverse media platforms on one of the most contentious issues of our time. The project is entirely funded by listeners.
For media funders, it is worth examining how forums for listening can fill a void in communities and how journalists in diverse communities can become better listening stewards. Madera says funders seeking to support this work should understand that they are investing in facilitating a process, not a product. Process is not quick, building trust requires time.
“I can see the difference in people through telling their stories, but it’s not a quick fix. It’s like people share their stories and then they start feeling comfortable sharing their stories with other people,” Medera told me. “I keep on telling people that my project is not about changing people’s minds. That is never why I started this project… it’s about people being able to tell a story they normally would not have shared, and about feeling like it’s part of their life that they can talk about in the world. That only happens in their own community, so this is a community project.”
Building community through listening is leadership. Finding people who want to share their story, and treating it with respect is leadership. Media funders should invest in models of listening leadership that are anchored in service, building trust over time and reflective of diverse experiences.
Sabrina Hersi Issa is an award-winning human rights technologist and leads global research and analysis for philanthropy. She organizes Rights x Tech, a gathering for technologists and activists and runs Survivor Fund, a political fund dedicated to supporting the rights of survivors of sexual violence.