From the editor
Austin Bogues, a 2021 Nieman Fellow, is an ardent Superman fan. So ardent, in fact, that he brought some of his most cherished Man of Steel comic books with him during his stay in Cambridge. Austin has spent the first few months of his fellowship studying the impact of political, cultural, and social polarization on news consumers. And 2020 has given him plenty to work with, from the Black Lives Matter movement and the racial and economic disparities of the pandemic to the divisive November election and its aftermath.
But Austin is doing more than just chronicling the assault on facts, bipartisanship, and civility; he’s actively exploring best practices for journalists wishing to engage readers in constructive dialogue, dialogue that will hopefully halt and perhaps even reverse the retreat of so many into media spaces that only reinforce preferred narratives and comfortable biases. “Furthering the divide is today’s à la carte news consumer environment in which we get a range of options for news analysis and infotainment services that cater to our personal beliefs,” he writes in his Sounding. “With that and the ever-increasing competition for eyeballs and time, it’s hard to break through and have a tough conversation about what life might be like for people outside of our own echo chambers.”
One solution, in which Austin believes journalists can play a crucial part: “We can be the voices of disparate communities, we can get to know people who at a glance may have nothing in common with each other, but we can find the bonds that unite.” That’s been the undercurrent to so many of the stories that made a difference this year, as Covid-19 has laid bare long-standing issues of inequity and racism. Listening to the “voices of disparate communities” certainly characterizes many of the 10 most widely read pieces on Nieman Reports over the past 12 months.
In 2021 that type of listening—accompanied by fair and empathetic reporting—may turn out to be journalism’s true steel core, a superpower against which no kryptonite can stand.
Sincerely,
James Geary
Editor, Nieman Reports
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