Newsrooms reckon with how collective identities have changed

"Organizations such as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Committee to Protect Journalists continue to provide rapid response services as journalists and news organizations continue to be threatened and targeted by an increasingly hostile autocracy, but it's not enough unless newsrooms take the responsibility to build real credibility with audiences again by exploring how collective identities have become more complex and nuanced."

"Over the past year, I have been mapping a narrative-power analysis rooted in communities that are eager to participate in civic discourse but have not yet been invited into it. At its core, this work is about base building - cultivating loyal, diverse audiences over the long term by understanding how people make meaning, form identity, and build power together."

"Many of us inside and outside the journalism industry have not yet created the psychological safety required for a healthy democracy - one capable of holding disagreement, ideological tension, and pluralistic perspectives. This can feel like an abstract or daunting mandate for newsroom leaders, especially when the concrete steps are unclear. But there are tangible actions they can take now."

"Newsroom leaders must develop a more nuanced understanding of how civic identity is formed. Identities have become increasingly intersectional. For example, bilingual immigrant audiences are often treated as a single category, when in reality a faith-based or hyperlocal lens may further differentiate how they consume information and interpret the world. Understanding these layers allows newsrooms to anticipate how identity lenses shape - and validate - audiences' worldviews."

American journalism institutions must proactively set strategies to protect themselves from crossing key media red lines that would be extraordinarily difficult to undo. Rapid-response organizations continue to assist threatened journalists, but newsrooms must rebuild credibility with audiences by engaging with increasingly complex and intersectional collective identities. Narrative-power base building rooted in communities can cultivate loyal, diverse audiences by understanding how people make meaning, form identity, and build power together. Journalism must create psychological safety for pluralistic perspectives and disagreement. Newsroom leaders can take tangible steps now by developing nuanced understandings of civic identity and anticipating how identity lenses shape audience worldviews.

Read at Nieman Lab