You’re reading the My News Biz newsletter, which I will be sending you every other Thursday. My goal is to help you and other digital media entrepreneurs to find a viable business model that works for you. If you were forwarded this email, you can sign up here. 'Don't just create content -- drive social change'Journalist says news media need a new value proposition to stay relevant
You’re reading the Your News Biz newsletter. My goal is to help digital media entrepreneurs and small businesses find viable business models. This is the story of Jazmín Acuña, an innovative journalist from Paraguay. She has proposed that journalism take a new direction to stay relevant and revitalize “our public life, the foundation of democracies.” Her call to action or manifesto grows out of her six-month research fellowship at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and her own experience. (Her full report is here. Also in Spanish. )
A veteran journalist and innovatorAcuña co-founded Paraguay’s award-winning digital news platform, El Surtidor, after years of experience in news media and civil society groups. The publication reaches young audiences with visual journalism about climate change, gender issues, and abuses of power. (Disclosure: She is also a board member of SembraMedia.org, where I serve as treasurer.) I first saw her work about seven years ago when I was judging a journalism competition. I was impressed with El Surtidor’s data journalism, especially the data visualizations. Less focus on contentIn an article on the Reuters website (also in Spanish), Acuña laid out the ways journalism has to change. She begins:
Newsrooms spend too much time focusing on producing “content” and figuring out ways to distribute it on various platforms. Meanwhile, multiple studies show audiences find the news they receive to be irrelevant to the problems they face in their daily lives. News avoidance is a growing trend. (See also Reuters’ own study of changing audience preferences.) More focus on creating changeAcuña proposes that newsrooms focus on Change-Centric Journalism. It pursues “impact that improves the lives of people through care-based reporting and purposeful engagement with them.” And Acuña’s talent for creating eloquent visuals is evident in this graphic, which also can be viewed at this link: A comparative analysis of two models of journalism
The long game: changeAcuña’s model advocates playing the long game. It involves a news organization getting engaged with the community, not just reporting on it. (Jesse Hardman’s the Listening Post Collective in the U.S., which I profiled here, follows a similar model.) If a news organization finds injustice, corruption, or cruelty in community’s institutions, it must not let up. Editors and reporters sometimes get bored with covering a topic, but the mission of public service does not allow us to get bored with injustice or corruption. Digital audiences, someone said, are “Lazy, Selfish, and Ruthless.” The tech platforms’ algorithms demand something new to create anxiety, fear, hatred, and titilation, page views, and advertising revenue. I would agree with Acuña’s observation that the best newsrooms have “a deep commitment to and active involvement in seeing individuals, communities, and societies thrive.” Previously: Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Your News Biz, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
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jueves, 21 de agosto de 2025
'Don't just create content -- drive social change'
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