Approaching the news with a different attitude:   Journalistic perceptions of constructive journalism in the Netherlands and in the UK  

Approaching the news with a different attitude:

Journalistic perceptions of constructive journalism in the

Netherlands and in the UK

Student ID: 12846902

Louise Breusch Rasmussen

Master’s Thesis

Graduate School of Communication

Master’s programme Communication Science

Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Journalism, Media and Globalisation

Supervisor: Dhr. Tom Dobber MSc

Date of completion: 29

May 2020

Word count: 8.197

Abstract

Over the past decade, scholars and media professionals have highlighted the potential of constructive journalism for rethinking journalism and the ‘news’ at a time where media outlets see their audiences drastically shrinking. Proponents of constructive journalism wish to reverse that tendency, by providing news consumers with a more balanced mix of critical and constructive stories. However, scholars and media professionals have yet to reach consensus about a clear definition of constructive journalism, especially what it entails for the role of journalists. Given the purpose and perceived need to redress mainstream journalists’ approach to the news, the present study seeks to qualitatively understand how journalists working in mainstream media outlets perceive and understand constructive journalism, as well as how the latter overlaps with mainstream journalism. The constructive journalism techniques that respondents were asked about include: the coverage of positive developments and solutions, contextualization of news stories and coverage of long-term trends, co-creation with news consumers and transparency of the journalistic working process towards the public. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 17 journalists from mainstream media outlets in the Netherlands and in the UK, the study shows that mainstream and constructive journalism overlap significantly on a number of points. Perceptions of constructive journalism techniques were largely influenced by journalists’ perception of their professional role and of ‘news’, as well as their respective workplace and the elusiveness of the concept of constructive journalism.

Introduction

For more than a decade, journalism scholars and professionals have acknowledged that journalism is in a ‘crisis’, and that the media industry needs to change (Hermans & Drok, 2018; Rosen, 1999). However, what exactly needs to change, and how, is not straightforward.

While scholars have pointed to the need for ‘rethinking’ journalism as a field and as a profession (Peters & Broersma, 2013), the news industry has addressed the crisis “as if it were mainly a financial one” (Hermans & Drok, 2018, p. 679). Yet, dwindling viewer and reader numbers, ratings and a lack of trust in the media inevitably throw up questions about what purpose journalism should serve in society, and what the ‘news’ should look like (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2001). In this context, constructive journalism has arisen “as a (news) philosophy and practice” (Mast, Coesemans & Temmerman, 2019, p. 492), which intends to counter increasing audience disengagement by redressing what is perceived as an overly negative and sensationalist news landscape.

However, constructive journalism continues to suffer from a lack of conceptual clarity, which weakens both its practical and theoretical value (Bro, 2019). While proponents emphasize that constructive journalism complements “journalism’s core functions” (McIntyre & Gyldensted, 2017) critics are concerned about the more active role that the movement espouses for journalists (Muntz & Trommelen, 2018). Consequently, the concept is in need of further study (Bro, 2019).

So far, scholars have mainly focused on defining constructive journalism and outlining the nuances in the debates around the concept (Bro, 2019). In this context, they have mainly applied constructive journalism as a conceptual tool to make sense of their findings (McIntyre & Sobel, 2018; Rotmeijer, 2019; Bødker, 2019, Wiard & Simonson, 2019), even though journalists on the ground never mentioned the concept of constructive journalism as such.

One area that remains less explored is how journalists working for mainstream publications perceive constructive techniques when questioned about them specifically. As constructive journalism aims to spur a reconsideration of the practices and purpose of mainstream journalism, it is relevant to explore how those affected by such reconsiderations –

mainstream journalists – perceive and understand constructive journalism (RQ1). By focusing on journalists’ perception of the concept in relation to their daily work, it is also possible to discern how likely they are to put constructive journalism into practice. In fact, McIntyre and Gyldensted (2018) have indicated that an increasing number of media outlets are incorporating a constructive approach to news, even though the approach is still slow to take hold. Exploring how journalists perceive constructive journalism could also help explain why some media outlets or journalists have not incorporated the approach - or whether they have already done so under a different label. Given that constructive journalism essentially “takes reporting back to its core values” (Constructive Journalism Institute, n.d.), it is also relevant to explore how constructive journalism overlaps with mainstream journalism (RQ2). Overall, the two research questions combined can contribute to identifying the points of constructive journalism that are still in need of conceptual refinement.

The present study relies on 17 in-depth interviews with journalists from different mainstream media outlets in the UK and in the Netherlands. Interviewees were asked about their perception of individual constructive journalism techniques, and whether they used those techniques in their work. Findings suggest that a number of journalists already did, albeit some more systematically than others. Some journalists considered specific techniques as running counter to their journalistic role. While some interviewees revealed a perception of their role as more passive conveyers of information, others acknowledged that they did have a more active influence over their stories Broadly, perceptions of constructive techniques appear to be influenced by journalists’ perception of ‘news’, the culture of their newsrooms, as well as the elusiveness of constructive journalism.

Constructive Journalism An elusive concept

The movement of constructive journalism was instigated by Ulrik Haagerup and Cathrine Gyldensted, who quit their jobs in journalism because they were dissatisfied with the news (Hermans & Drok, 2018). While they have been critical in propelling constructive journalism to a worldwide academic and professional audience over the past decade (Bro, 2019), the underlying ideas of constructive journalism are far from new, and even overlap with a range of other movements in journalism (Bro, 2019; Haagerup, 2014; Gyldensted, 2015). Already in 1904, Joseph Pulitzer emphasized that journalists needed to “better serve the public” (Bro, 2019, p. 505), which is also the principal motivation of constructive journalism, even though proponents disagree as to what exactly that entails. While it is widely acknowledged now that journalism must serve the public, “few remember that it originally was associated with being constructive” (Bro, 2018, p. 506). That begs the question: What is meant by ‘constructive’? And what makes today’s constructive journalism different from ‘traditional’ journalism?

Constructive journalism has been defined as a “public-oriented” form of journalism that “seeks to cover current affairs and news, adding solution-, action- and future-oriented perspectives” (Hermans & Gyldensted, 2019, p. 536), as well as greater diversity of opinions and perspectives. The intention is to give a more balanced, accurate and comprehensive portrayal of the world by avoiding “a bias towards negativity in the news” (Hermans & Drok, 2018, p. 679). The idea is not to replace critical reporting with “harmless positive news” (Haagerup, 2017, p. 23), as is often misunderstood. Rather, constructive journalism aims to redress a ‘fixation error’ on critical reporting (Gyldensted, 2015, p. 60-61) by expanding ideas of what is considered news and how those events are covered. Indeed, Haagerup (2008) first described constructive journalism as a news value: progress and solutions should be considered just as relevant and newsworthy as wrongdoings and conflicts. However, based on the various approaches listed above, Gyldensted and McIntyre (2017) have since defined

constructive journalism as an umbrella term for “a form of journalism that involves applying positive psychology techniques to news processes and production in an effort to create productive and engaging coverage, while holding true to journalism’s core functions” (p. 23). As mentioned earlier, constructive journalism is born out of the ‘crisis’ in journalism, and the realisation that news coverage needs to change. Proponents aim to “increase societal well-being by replacing cynicism with hope and apathy with civic engagement, and by lessening polarized debate” (McIntyre & Gyldensted, 2018, p. 663), seeing this as a necessity not only for the media industry but also for democracy. Haagerup (2017) has also suggested that the above would help journalists regain the public’s trust, and consequently help media outlets regain their news consumers. What becomes clear from these characterisations is an underlying normative assessment (Althaus, 2012) of a democracy where the public needs to be engaged for society to function, as well as an assumption that democracy is suffering from the current format of news. However, literature on constructive journalism has so far not included that normative assessment explicitly.

A more active role for journalists?

Constructive journalism is based on the premise that journalists actively influence public perceptions of society as well as public debates; an idea it has taken from public journalism (Hermans & Drok, 2018). In contrast to more passive journalists who are exclusively focused on remaining objective and detached from their stories, proponents of constructive journalism are interested in providing coverage that can facilitate public debates and serve as an inspiration for how societal problems can be solved (Hermans & Drok, 2018). However, scholars have acknowledged that it is simplistic to perceive journalistic roles through an active-passive binary, and that they are better understood through a continuum (McIntyre & Sobel, 2018; Aitamurto & Varma, 2018), where active and passive are but two extremes. Such a lens allows room for overlap and nuance in perceived journalistic roles.

A consequence of the above is that constructive journalism might blur the boundary between journalism and activism. Media professionals in constructive outlets are well aware of the possibility of being perceived as advocates, even though they don’t see themselves as such (Aitamurto & Varma, 2018). In contrast, the Dutch constructive outlet, De Correspondent, has openly embraced “journalistic activism” (De Correspondent, n.d.). However, even though De Correspondent’s reporters include commentary and personal reflections in their articles, they still strive to provide high-quality, fact- and research-based information, like mainstream, quality outlets.

Even the two key proponents of constructive journalism - Haagerup and Gyldensted – have different ideas about how much pro-activity their concept involves (Bro, 2019). Whereas Haagerup (2014) separates constructive journalism from activism, Gyldensted suggests that journalists can be subjective and even activist, as long as they are transparent about it (Skytt, 2018). While Haagerup (2014) has focused more on how constructive journalism can contribute to public debates and improve the quality of journalism, Gyldensted (2015) has emphasised the effects of constructive journalism on the public, and on ensuring concrete action (Bro, 2019). Unfortunately, the authors don’t discuss each other’s positions, leaving the debate about constructive journalism elusive.

Constructive journalism techniques

The following section outlines the individual techniques of constructive journalism based on the definitions provided above. All elements overlap with other concepts in journalism, but have been identified as ‘positive psychology techniques’ that can empower, engage and inspire the public (Gyldensted & McIntyre, 2018). These techniques include: more context, nuance, diversity, solutions- and future-oriented perspectives, as well as more coverage of positive developments, transparency and audience engagement.

In order to create balanced news coverage, journalists have been taught to portray conflict and disagreement through the eyes of someone who is ‘for’ and someone who is ‘against’ (Gyldensted, 2016a). Yet, a broader diversity of perspectives and opinions is needed from “the silent middle” (Gyldensted, 2016a) in order to make the news more reflective of reality and appealing to a wider public. While Gyldensted and McIntyre (2018) have identified depolarisation as a positive psychology technique, the idea was originally associated with peace journalism (Gyldensted & McIntyre, 2017), and can also be found in investigative journalism (Gyldensted, 2016a) or longer features.

Constructive journalism also suggests using more context to let news consumers appreciate, discuss and think about societal complexities (McIntyre & Gyldensted, 2018; Constructive Journalism Network, n.d.). “The intent is to go from covering incidents to covering contexts” (Hermans & Gyldensted, 2019, p. 539), which also includes incorporating more data to show gradual developments for instance. Some constructive outlets call this idea “shifting the focus from the sensational to the foundational” (De Correspondent, n.d.) or “not breaking news but what’s driving it” (Tortoise, n.d.). Yet, this idea is also not innovative, and is closely associated with slow journalism (Harbers, 2016), investigative journalism (Gyldensted, 2016a), long-form or narrative journalism, or simply ‘quality’ journalism (Le Masurier, 2015).

Another technique is to avoid portraying those who experience suffering, exploitation or poverty as passive victims. Gyldensted (2015) gives the example of “stories about poor African women” (ref), who are often portrayed as passive victims. Haagerup, the former Executive Director of News for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) recalls how DR journalists were sent “to cover conflicts in Africa (…) but hardly to cover various aspects of the fast-improving living standard on the continent. Our stories were exact, but put together they were depressing” (Hirondelle, 2018). A survey among the viewers of Sweden’s public

broadcaster revealed that their image of Africa was thirty to forty years behind because the news did not focus on developments and progress on the continent (Gyldensted, 2015). As with the idea of balance, journalists have been taught that portraying harrowing conditions of victims is a way of speaking truth to power and performing their journalistic responsibility (Gyldensted, 2016a). In order to avoid victimisation, journalists can interview their sources about “possible resources, collaborations, common ground and solutions” (Gyldensted & McIntyre, 2018, p. 669) or how they are coping with a given situation. Gyldensted and McIntyre (2017) have associated this technique with restorative narrative, a form of journalism that includes coverage of restoration, resilience and recovery.

Gyldensted and McIntyre (2018) have also suggested “looking for positive outliers, or stories that show progress” (p. 667), which echoes Haagerup’s (2014) description of constructive journalism as a news value. The idea is also closely aligned with that of identifying and covering solutions (Solutions Journalism Network), and with a future-oriented approach to news (Gyldensted & McIntyre, 2018, p. 668). However, adding more coverage of positive events to conventional news reporting is often misunderstood as simplistic feel good stories (Gyldensted & McIntyre, 2017), which risks skewing the overall image and the purpose of constructive journalism. The idea goes beyond simply showing a clip of a new-born panda at the end of a news bulletin (Dagoula, 2018). What distinguishes ‘positive’ stories from ‘feel good stories’ is that the former have a civic or societal purpose. For instance, a story about a cat saved from a tree does not have a civic value. Unlike coverage of a state that has succeeded in gun control for instance, it is not something that inspires public debates or solutions (Gyldensted, 2015).

As mentioned above, constructive journalism aims to engage citizens through the news. While all scholars see engagement as allowing the public to debate and act upon the news, only some describe actual participation and co-creation as a part of the idea (for

instance Mast et al., 2019; Gyldensted & McIntyre, 2018; Constructive Journalism Network, n.d.). Narrowing the distance between the public and journalists can be useful for identifying a wider diversity of perspectives and making the news more reflective of reality (Gyldensted, 2016a). While co-creation was previously associated with alternative media (Kenix, 2011), including citizens’ journalism and public journalism (Bro, 2019), ‘mainstream’ media have increasingly picked up on the idea, especially since the advent of the Internet (Batsell, 2015). Yet, there is “a tendency to equate the public with a ridiculous vox pop somewhere on the street” (Gyldensted, 2016b1), which, in turn does not add the civic value and diversity that is intended with audience engagement. However, such misunderstandings are partly still due to a lack of clarification of audience engagement (Nelson, 2019). In addition to engaging the public, audience engagement is also perceived as an important means of being transparent and thus regaining the public’s trust in the media (Harbers, 2016).

One of the most characteristic aspects of constructive journalism is the idea of a solutions-oriented perspective (Constructive Journalism Institute, n.d.; Aitamurto & Varma, 2018). While constructive journalism shares its “problem-solving goals” with solutions-journalism (Bro, 2019), the latter only focuses on solutions, whereas constructive solutions-journalism includes many other elements (Gyldensted & McIntyre, 2017). A number of media professionals don’t see it as their job to explore solutions to societal problems (McIntyre, 2015). However, McIntyre and Gyldensted (2017) suggest that doing so “is in keeping with the social responsibility theory of the press” (29). Hermans and Drok (2018) also describe covering solutions as an integral part of what it means to be a ‘critical’ journalist. Gyldensted (2016a) has also observed solutions-oriented approaches in investigative journalism At the same time, the investigative journalists Muntz and Trommelen – two key figures in the debate among Dutch media professionals on constructive journalism – have argued that “journalists

should investigate problems – not solve them” (2018). According to them, journalists who cover specific solutions in order to provoke societal change and improvements are unable to provide balanced and factual reporting at the same time because their research will be limited to the factors of the outcome they wish to see. In this view, covering solutions is blurring the boundary between journalism and activism.

Journalistic routines – a barrier to change?

Even though news consumers appreciate constructive elements in news coverage (Hermans & Gyldensted, 2019), constructive journalism has been spreading relatively slowly, in part due to its conceptual elusiveness. Yet, an experience described by Haagerup (2008) suggests that editorial decisions might also influence this development. He describes how a journalist identified a constructive story by looking at employment rates of immigrant women in Danish communes. One commune stood out with a 100% employment rate, which was due to one social worker in particular. However, the journalist’s editor did not publish the story because it had no element of conflict. In contrast, Gyldensted (2015) recounts how her editor accepted that she had identified and covered a constructive angle on a story about homelessness, even though he had originally asked her to write “a classic journalistic story: homeless Americans feeling the cutbacks” (xx). Such editorial and journalistic decisions are also a result of how journalists are taught. Haagerup (2017) recalls his teacher saying: “a good story is a bad story. If nobody gets mad, it’s advertising” (13). Once such ideas become routines, they are difficult to change, especially because it would require rethinking the values that have informed the purpose of journalism for decades (Ryfe, 2012). Indeed, news values – the idea about which events are newsworthy and ‘important’ to cover - have become so internalised that journalists can rarely explain them as more than a “gut feeling” (Schultz, 2007).

In sum, constructive journalism raises a number of discussions about the roles of journalists as well as the purpose and values of their profession, and the concept’s elusiveness complicates these debates even further. So far scholars have mainly used constructive journalism as a lens through which to perceive journalistic practice (Bødker, 2019; McIntyre & Sobel, 2018; Rotmeijer, 2019). An exception is Harbers (2016), who has conducted a case study of the Dutch constructive outlet De Correspondent, using content analysis to explore how the outlet’s principles and redefinition of journalistic quality were put to effect in journalistic articles. In a similar vein, Aitamurto and Varma (2018) have studied metajournalistic discourse of outlets that promote constructive or solutions journalism, focusing on the normative role that the websites of these outlets revealed. Consequently, less attention has been paid to how those that are meant to implement and use the concept – mainstream journalists - perceive and understand constructive journalism. As the concept is based on a wide array of individual techniques, it is relevant to explore not only how journalists perceive the overall concept, but also what their thoughts are on its individual techniques. Consequently, the present study addresses the following question:

RQ1 How do journalists working for mainstream publications perceive and understand constructive journalism?

The question aims to explore whether constructive elements are seen as welcome changes to journalists’ work, whether they are already familiar with constructive approaches and whether they implement them in their work. Given the elusiveness of constructive journalism and its overlaps with traditional, quality journalism, it is relevant also to consider:

Methodology Research Design

Given the explorative nature of the research questions and the elusiveness of constructive journalism (Bro, 2019), the research questions were approached qualitatively. Qualitative research is well suited for identifying overlaps and exploring nuances in understandings and perceptions (David & Sutton, 2011). Semi-structured interviews with journalists were chosen to explore the research questions through the eyes of the relevant professionals (Hermanowicz, 2002); giving them enough freedom to elaborate on individual questions while keeping the overall interview focused on the purpose of the study (David & Sutton, 2011). Finally, semi-structured interviews allowed for considering how the wider context, such as different newsroom cultures, influences individual responses (David & Sutton, 2011), allowing to situate journalists’ perceptions of constructive journalism in relationship to their work and professional role (Corbin & Strauss, 1990).

Sampling

172 semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten journalists from mainstream, quality media outlets in the Netherlands and seven from mainstream outlets the UK.

As constructive journalism can be understood differently in different historical and political contexts (McIntyre & Sobel, 2018), the UK and the Netherlands were chosen for having sufficiently similar cultures and contexts to make findings comparable, but yet different enough to make the overall study broader in scope. Both countries have experienced the movement of constructive journalism or solutions journalism and are home to news outlets that apply principles of constructive journalism (De Correspondent and World’s Best

2 _{One interviewee gave very short answers, even after being prompted (7-minute interview),}

News in the Netherlands and Tortoise 3 as well as Positive News in the UK). In addition, established contacts with relevant professionals in both countries facilitated the sampling process.

The choice of sampling journalists from ‘mainstream’, ‘quality’ media outlets was based on the fact that a number of constructive journalism techniques overlap with quality journalism (Bro, 2019). As “there are no clearly delineated and agreed-upon definitions for what constitutes alternative and mainstream media” (Kenix, 2011, p. 3). the term was mainly used to distinguish outlets that do not refer to ‘constructive’, ‘solutions’ or ‘slow’ journalism in their branding from those that do. A broad definition of ‘mainstream’ also allowed for broad sampling and thus for achieving maximum variation and representativeness of the concepts and ideas that were explored (Corbin & Strauss, 1990).

Interviewees worked for various media outlets as shown in table 1, including broadcast, print and freelance journalists. Snowballing during the research process provided an opportunity to interview two audience engagement managers (J3 and J5) at two Dutch outlets. As audience engagement was one of the constructive journalism techniques that journalists were interviewed about, it was considered relevant to interview the audience engagement managers when the opportunity arose. Both had previously worked as journalists, which also contributed to their relevance. Given their specific role, the interview guide for these two interviews was slightly adapted, as explained below. The sample also included one freelance journalist (J15) who was experimenting with more constructive forms of storytelling out of personal and professional interests while freelancing for mainstream media outlets. As RQ2 sought to explore how mainstream and constructive journalism overlap, J15 added a relevant nuance to the sample.

3 _{Tortoise is branded as a slow news outlet. However, as established above, constructive}

Table 1

Sample of journalists

Title Employer Employer type

J1 Editor, Print Trouw (NL) Commercial, Daily

newspaper

J2 Reporter, Print De Volkskrant (NL) Commercial, Daily

newspaper J3 Audience engagement

manager

De Volkskrant, NL Commercial, Daily newspaper

J4 Journalist, Print De Groene Amsterdammer, NL Commercial, Weekly magazine

J5 Audience engagement manager

NRC, NL Commercial, Daily

newspaper

J6 Editor, Print Het Parool, NL Commercial, Daily

newspaper

J7 Journalist, Print NRC, NL Commercial, Daily

newspaper

J8 Journalist, Print NRC, NL Commercial, Daily

newspaper

J9 Reporter, Broadcast RTL Nieuws, NL Commercial Broadcaster

J10 Journalist, Broadcast Freelance (Formerly BBC), UK

Commercial and public broadcasters

J11 Producer, Broadcast Channel 4 News, UK Public broadcaster J12 Reporter, Broadcast Channel 4 News, UK Public broadcaster J13 Journalist, Print South West News Service, UK News agency

J14 Assistant Editor, Print Forbes, UK Commercial magazine

J15 Journalist, Broadcast Freelance, UK Commercial and public broadcasters

J16 Journalist, Print The Guardian (UK) Commercial, Daily newspaper

J17 Journalist, Print The Guardian (UK) Commercial, Daily newspaper

In order to identify relevant interviewees, news articles were first skimmed on the websites of various relevant media outlets in the Netherlands and in the UK. Journalists were then contacted via email or Twitter (Appendix 1), and interviews were arranged at a time most suitable for the journalists. As enlistment was slow at first, professional and informal networks were contacted in order to connect with relevant journalists. This combination of non-random and snowball sampling was helpful for establishing contact with relevant journalists (Bryman, 2012) and for speeding up the sampling process. Once the interviewing process began, journalists were asked if they knew other journalists that could be interested in being interviewed. 96 journalists were contacted in total over the course of two months (Appendix 2). Out of 17 respondents, eight were contacted through snowballing (Appendix 3). Interviews were conducted between mid-February and early April 2020. The original aim was to conduct 20 interviews. However, as no new data or themes emerged during the open coding process of the last five interviews, it was considered that theoretical saturation had been reached (Bryman, 2012) and that 17 interviews were sufficient.

All interviews in the Netherlands were carried out face-to-face in the respondents’ newsrooms, except for one that took place in a regular coffee shop. Physical meetings helped put the interviewees at ease and establish rapport (Leech, 2002), enabling a natural flow of conversation (Hermanowicz, 2002). Respondents often offered to give a tour of their workplace before the interview, which also contributed to establishing rapport. The interviews with the seven journalists from the UK were conducted via phone, and one on video call, depending on interviewees’ preference, due to travel restrictions. Phone conversations initially made it more difficult to establish rapport with the journalists. However, the covid-19 situation and its consequences at the time served as a starting point for most conversations, and, in its own way, helped create a form of mutual understanding and rapport.

Interviews

Considering that the aim of the study was to identify how journalists perceive constructive journalism, it would have been counterproductive and restrictive for the respondents to impose a clear definition of the concept at the onset. Thus, the interview guide was based on the individual techniques of constructive journalism as listed above (Appendix 4). Before the interview, the purpose of the research was explained to the respondent in further depth. Respondents were handed an interview consent form (Appendix 5) and asked for the permission to be recorded. For interviews that were conducted via phone, consent was received orally. The shortest interview was 7 minutes and the longest were around one hour, while the average was roughly 40 minutes. The researcher had prior interviewing experience from working as a qualitative research assistant.

Interviews started with a question about what part of their role journalist mostly value, followed by a question about what their primary aim was when doing a news piece. Sometimes, these initial questions led to longer responses, as though they had been grand tout

questions (Leech, 2002). In such cases, the interview guide was put aside in order to follow up on the initial response. Alternatively, the interview guide was followed more strictly. Following this initial part of the interview, participants were asked whether they were familiar with the concept of constructive journalism. If so, they were asked what they associated with the concept, letting them voice their understanding before asking further questions and thereby influencing their perception. If not, individual techniques were described to them at length, one by one, and then ended with: “what do you think about that idea?” The question about ‘positive’ stories included the term ‘positive’ even though it was criticized for being ambiguous or misunderstood (Gyldensted 2015). This decision was made to allow for a variety of understandings, which was the overall goal of the interviews.

Prompts were rarely needed, but included questions such as: “can you explain how?” Or “can you explain why that is important to you?” The interviews with the audience engagement managers were mostly focused on letting them explain the purpose and value of audience engagement as well as how audience engagement was implemented in their newsrooms. Thus, these two interviews were more conversational, as they were largely based on follow-up questions to further the researcher’s understanding of a specific phenomenon in a specific context.

To wrap up, interviewees were asked if there was anything there was anything they wished to add. A number of journalists indeed used this opportunity to bring up new ideas or stress what was important to them. Interviews were transcribed on the day of the interview in order to analyse the flow of the interview and adapt the interview guide for upcoming interviews if necessary (Appendix 6). The latter also contributed to achieving theoretical saturation (Corbin & Strauss, 1990).

All names have been hidden to protect the privacy of the interviewees. Titles and names of the respective media outlets have been included with permission from the interviewees.

Analysis

All interviews were transcribed and coded manually, as a matter of the researcher’s preference for exploring the data. A thematic analysis of the data was conducted based on a combination of inductive and deductive coding, as meaning was both derived from the actual data as much as possible (Corbin & Strauss, 1990) while codes were based on ideas derived from reading the academic literature on constructive journalism prior to the interview and coding process (David & Sutton, 2011).

The open coding process began after the first five interviews were transcribed. Only sentences that were directly relevant to answering the research questions were coded. The open coding process initially yielded 58 codes, which were gradually narrowed down to four final categories by deleting redundant codes and grouping together codes under larger categories (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Codes that did not occur often enough to be significant and that were not seen as constituting a significant exception to other codes were discarded. This process was based on a repeated reading of the transcripts and a revision of the codes (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). The final four categories were: The elusiveness of constructive journalism, the perception of journalistic roles, the perception of news, and different types of news. These were used to structure the findings of the study.

Results A puzzle

“constructive journalism all of a sudden came about 4-5 years ago and then we thought ‘that’s what we’ve been doing all our lives’. We just didn’t give it a name” 4 (J1).

“I was working on a program on issues around homelessness. Many young people are spending years in what’s supposed to be temporary state accommodation, but I discovered an agency that was placing those young people with families, and the outcomes from those different forms of engagement were miles apart. The young person I spoke to was going to university and volunteering with the police force, whereas many of the young people in hostels don’t go to school; they often have drinking and drug problems. But that element of the story got dropped because it’s not seen as news” (J15).

The two quotes above represent a larger puzzle that gradually emerged from conversations with journalists about their thoughts on the elements of constructive journalism. As mentioned earlier, the concept developed out of a criticism that the news provides an imbalanced account of the world, which is biased towards negativity and sensationalism. Yet, the contrasting ideas of the quotes above beg the question: how could such criticism develop in the first place if journalists were using constructive journalism techniques all along? How is it possible that some journalists think they have always been doing constructive journalism when others are criticised for including constructive elements in the news? The answers lie somewhere at the intersection between what journalists perceive as ‘news’, what they perceive as their professional role, which, in turn is influenced by individual newsroom cultures, and the elusiveness of constructive journalism. In order to contextualise these various aspects, it is most useful to start with the latter.

An elusive concept

4 _{Some quotes have been shortened due to word limitations. The following (…) has been used}

Out of 17 interviewees, only eight – one from the UK (J11) and seven from the Netherlands (J1, J4, J5, J6, J7, J8, J9) – had heard of constructive journalism before. Another two journalists from the UK were familiar with the approach, but recognized it as ‘solutions journalism’ (J15, J16), which highlights the ambiguity of the concept and its overlaps with other forms of journalism. Yet, those who knew the concept described it differently, and some interviewees who were not familiar with the concept compared some of the techniques to their daily work, or to “investigative journalism” (J2), “slow journalism” (J2, J4) or “storytelling” (J9, J15).

One journalist (J4) repeatedly revised his understanding of the concept throughout his interview. While he actively distanced himself from constructive journalism, it was initially difficult for him to clearly pinpoint the difference between constructive journalism and his own work:

“I think that constructive journalism becomes (…) activist journalism, because they are promoting certain solutions. I think that’s not our task … but it’s such a close line because of course, we are constantly doing that here in this office, but we don’t present it as such.”

Yet, even though he clearly separated his professional role from constructive journalism, he described several techniques that are commonly associated with the concept, such as covering solutions and future developments as well as offering more perspectives in his stories. However, he considered all of those techniques a “part of classical journalism”:

“the only thing – and I think that’s what sets us apart from constructive journalists – we won’t commit ourselves to certain solutions. (…) It’s not that we don’t like to offer perspective, it’s not that we don’t like to offer ideas, actually we love that! (…) we should be a bridge between new ideas and people who are positive about the future and society. But that’s all classical journalism.”

Towards the end of the interview, as he described a story he had written, he still questioned his own perception of constructive journalism: “what I like about that story is that it shines some light on people who try to change society for the better. So you can also… yeah… is it constructive? I’m not sure”. Such nuances emphasize the elusiveness of constructive journalism, as his story would have been constructive according to Haagerup (2017) or Gyldensted’s (2015) conceptualisations.

J9 thought that she and her colleagues were doing constructive journalism. She considered solutions an integral part of how she “build[s] her stories”, but saw the idea of covering more positive events as going against her professional responsibility to cover events factually and objectively. The fact that journalists had different opinions towards individual elements of constructive journalism reveals that it is not a package that can always be applied to any news story. In fact, J1 stated:

“We might consider ourselves to be constructive journalists in the sense that we don’t just want people to scream and shout, but we want them to think about ways to solve problems as well. But we don’t subscribe to constructive journalism as a full package thing”. J9 also emphasised: “Every day in news is different, so you cannot have one approach to constructive journalism. Every story I cover is different. It’s not like I have a menu that I’m following”.

Indeed, as will be shown below, individual techniques were sometimes implemented more intermittently than systematically. The varying opinions confirm that constructive journalism suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity and that journalists have different understandings of how the concept overlaps with other forms of journalism. These overlaps, in turn, become even more complicated as journalists have different perceptions of what is a part of their professional role.

Perceptions of professional roles

Most journalists (J1, J2, J4, J9, J14 J15, J17) considered covering solutions as an essential part of ‘traditional’ journalism: “A good news story will always have an element of providing possible solutions” (J14). Interviewees all drew a clear line between promoting and simply covering or describing specific solutions, and suggested that they should not come up with solutions themselves, but rely on expert knowledge, research and facts. Other interviewees endorsed the idea of a solutions-oriented perspective, considering it a necessary journalistic contribution to society. However, they also saw it as an approach that was considerably more time-consuming and that often necessitated more words or airtime depending on whether they were working in broadcast or print (J2, J10, J6, J11, J12). In such cases adding solutions to news stories was done more intermittently rather than systematically incorporated into news work. For instance, J11 suggested that when the same topic was covered repeatedly over a longer period of time, such as the climate crisis, there would be more scope for exploring solutions because the topic would need to be covered from new angles.

One respondent (J7) rejected the idea of pro-actively identifying and covering solutions because he did not consider it a part of his job. He only covered a solution if it was mentioned in an interview like any other piece of information. J8 was wary of covering solutions, but did not reject the idea entirely. He mainly thought it difficult to cover solutions in the context of his beat - politics:

“I mean, really, what am I gonna write? Don’t break the law? I think the room that you have to provide solutions very much involves the beat that you’re covering (…) It’s different if you’re working in the smarter-living department because that’s what you’re all about”.

It is worth recalling in this context, that constructive journalism is not a “package” that can necessarily be applied to different beats or stories.

From active conveyors to passive messengers. As with solutions, journalists’ perception of the idea to cover more positive stories was influenced by perceptions of their professional role. Some journalists saw the idea of covering positive events as going against their professional responsibility of holding power to account: “I don’t think it’s up to us to make those choices or to shift the balance. I think we have to deal with what the world is about” (J7). This quote also suggests that the view of the world as a “tough” place has become internalised as a result of his responsibility to speak truth to power. J9 also mentioned:

“It’s not particularly that I want to bring negative or positive news. I just bring news. Sometimes it’s positive, sometimes it’s…I can’t do anything about it. For me news is facts and balance. I don’t do positive or negative news”.

Such a focus on facts and balance suggests a perception of the journalistic role as a passive conveyer of information with no real influence over the format or tone of news stories. J6 rejected the idea of only covering positive stories, but considered it important to have “a balance” or “a mix” of stories. Similarly, J8 suggested: “If good stuff happens, sure, you should report on it. If bad stuff happens, you should report on it as well”, suggesting a view of the journalist that is more a passive conveyer of information, who should not have a pre-established attitude to news.

The responses of other interviewees suggested a more active stance. For instance, J10 started out by saying the same as the journalists quoted above: “It’s about telling it as it is. Not in either a positive or a negative way, not in a scare mongering way, not in a lightening way. If it isn’t like that, you can’t make it like that”. Yet, she later elaborated:

constructive side of it could be a little more about the tone and the people that you interview and the angles that you take even if it isn’t the kind of flowery, lovely, light-hearted story”. Her response indicates recognition of a journalist’s power to shape the coverage of an event without misrepresenting it factually. The idea of ‘tone’ suggests that it is perhaps better to see constructive journalism as an attitude that journalists can bring to the news, rather than a package that needs to be followed, as some interviewees indeed suggested above. J15 also explained:

“Our rail fares go up on 1st January every year by the level of inflation, so it’s pretty normal. But we always do a news story about [it], and we ask people ‘Do you think it’s bad that rail fares are going up?’ and they say ‘Yes, it’s bad’. Obviously. But we never ask (…) ‘Do you think there should be a different way of organising the rail system?’”

Thus, it is possible to shape the narrative around the event by asking different questions and different sources, or by thinking in a future-oriented way. As mentioned above, such a perception suggests that constructive journalism is an attitude that journalists can take towards the news.

The various quotes above confirm that it is not useful to use the terms ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ to describe news events as it risks being considered as deviating from factual, objective coverage, and therefore as deviating from a journalist’s role. Indeed J15 suggested that it was better to talk of “constructive stories” rather than “positive stories”. The quotes above also reveal how journalists see their role. For instance, J11 explicitly stated that it was his job to bring to light abuse of power and societal issues, so that solutions could be developed. Indeed, according to McIntyre and Gyldensted (2018), journalists often focus on negative events “despite the intention being positive” (p. 664). Even those journalists who saw themselves as having an influence over the tone and approach to the news mentioned that

‘news’ in their very nature are mostly negative (J6, J10, J11, J12). Thus journalists’ perception of news appeared to be related to their watchdog function: “We are probably more likely to cover stories of people sleeping on the streets (…) it’s important to do both of those things, but what is the thing that is going to prompt change?” He also acknowledged: “there’s a fine line between getting people’s attention and sensationalising things”, which speaks to the acknowledgement that journalists do have an influence over the tone in news stories.

These perceptions are the result of journalists being trained to see negative events as more newsworthy as Haagerup (2017) has also suggested. J12 explained: “it’s kind of hardwired into our mind that news have to be negative”. Thus, journalists’ perceptions of ‘news’ and of their professional role are intimately connected. These perceptions, in turn, were also influenced by individual newsrooms and the type of news that interviewees worked with.

Newsroom cultures and different types of news

As described above, J4 mentioned a number of constructive journalism techniques, which he systematically drew on in his work, even though he did not see them as constructive journalism. Though his nuanced understanding illustrates the elusiveness of the concept, he also suggested that the newsroom he worked in, as well as his editor had influenced his way of working. For instance, when describing a nuanced, in-depth feature he had written, he added, “that’s not because we’re better than other journalists, but that’s because we have more time. Because we have made the decision to be slow”. Thus working at a weekly magazine provides a working structure and format that allow him to cover news differently than a reporter working on the evening news for instance. He also explained “[what] we tend to forget is that we can interview people about problems but we can also of course ask them about solutions. (…) it’s a form my editor told us”. Thus, his approach to news was not only

shaped by the structure of his newsroom, but also by his editor’s guidelines. For J2, a recent editorial decision “not [to] publish the very first take of a news topic” on their website, and to rely on news agencies instead for covering breaking news had freed up more time to investigate other stories that they had a chance to improve and strengthen: “Our boss says, well, let us take more time for bigger stories”. J14 also thought that journalists should focus more on covering long-term trends for instance, but said: “[it’s] a matter of how many resources a newsroom has, how willing your editor is to work with you on this…” Such quotes suggest the importance of decisions being implemented at a level above individual journalists.

For broadcast journalists, the barrier was often a matter of time: “I make 2 minutes in the 20 minutes. So I have to fight for my place” (J9). This idea was echoed by other broadcast journalists in particular (J10, J11, J12): “a lot of news (…) are not necessarily structurally very well able to (…) give the amount of airtime or print to really go into interesting, detailed solutions” (J11). In this case, it is not so much the newsroom culture as the type of news that determines a journalist’s ability to explore a given topic. Print journalists expressed a similar thought: “Journalism isn’t necessarily about news. A newspaper is about news (…) if you are in the business of dailies, then you need to bring news” (J1). Other print journalists also stressed that ‘breaking news’ were different from investigative pieces or long-form stories in the weekend edition of the newspaper (J1, J2, J6, J14), and that newspapers needed to provide a balance of both. Consequently, even though journalists explained that they already used various techniques, the latter were incorporated intermittently rather than systematically, depending on the type of ‘news’ and story, as well as the available resources on any given day.

The purpose of this study has been to explore the nuances in mainstream journalists’ perceptions of constructive journalism (RQ1), and to understand how mainstream journalism and the latter overlap (RQ2). For reasons of brevity, the section above has not elaborated extensively on all the techniques that interviewees were asked about. Despite this limitation, the findings reveal that a number of respondents perceived various constructive techniques as practices that they already used in their work, which suggests that constructive and mainstream journalism overlap on a number of points. However, these overlaps are also the consequence of the elusiveness of constructive journalism as a concept. While some respondents saw contextualising news stories, covering long-term trends, solutions and positive developments as regular parts of their work, their views suggested that they incorporated these elements more intermittently than systematically. In this context, the perceived difference between news and other forms of journalism was particularly significant, as the latter were considered structurally better able to incorporate constructive techniques.

In contrast, some respondents also perceived covering positive stories and solutions as running counter to their professional role. In this context, it became clear that news were often perceived as being negative in their very nature, which was closely connected to journalists’ idea of holding power to account and serving the public. Perceptions of journalists’ professional roles, in turn, also revealed that some saw it important to remain more passive conveyors of information, whereas others acknowledged that they had an influence over the tone of their news stories. The deep-rooted values that were expressed through these roles thus present a barrier for including solutions and the coverage of positive developments in the news.

This study is not without limitations5. Firstly, it has not covered the financial aspects of implementing constructive journalism, which could be significant given that respondents

pointed to a lack of resources and time for covering news constructively. At the same time, the purpose of constructive journalism is to re-think routines, and a deep-rooted approach to news (Gyldensted, 2015; Haagerup, 2017). It was therefore significant that some respondents indicated that approaching the news more constructively could be a matter of attitude. In this view, journalists become more responsible for considering how they present the news, even when they are structurally limited to give time to solutions or larger contexts. As critics of constructive journalism are concerned about the concept’s implications for the boundary between journalism and activism, the perception that journalists could approach the news differently without undermining their profession, is important.

While perceptions give a good indication of journalists’ work and their values, they do not always reflect practices on the ground (Amiel & Powers, 2019; Domingo, 2008), especially because it is difficult for journalists to separate their deep-rooted norms from their perceptions and intentions (Gyldensted, 2015). Consequently, more qualitative and quantitative studies of the output of mainstream journalists are needed to assess how, and to what extent they use constructive journalism techniques in their work. Despite indications of deep-rooted values, roles, and perceptions of news, the present study has reinforced Gyldensted’s (2015) observation that news coverage and routines are changing, even if slowly.

In this context, editorial and managerial decisions seem particularly important for informing a different way of thinking about the news, and for implementing a different approach to the news more systematically.

This finding is especially important because journalists’ perceived difference between breaking news and other forms of journalism appears as a barrier for change. As constructive elements are considered present already in other forms of journalism such as features, longer reports or weekend editions of the newspaper, there is little incentive to apply constructive

techniques systematically to daily news. This barrier becomes particularly difficult to overcome for respondents who expressed a perception of news as mainly negative, especially when this perception was tied to understandings of their role and responsibility towards the public. Consequently, changing that role and the approach to news that it entails is difficult as some respondents would perceived this as losing their professional credibility (Peters & Broersma, 2013).

The above-mentioned practical implications are also significant for academic work on constructive journalism. Future theoretical and empirical work on the concept and its techniques could benefit from making a clearer distinction between news and journalism to assess precisely how individual techniques are applied, in what form, and in what type of news or context. Similarly, findings suggest that it is more useful to consider constructive journalism as individual techniques, or indeed as an attitude, rather than as a package. Future studies could also benefit from exploring individual techniques of constructive journalism more in depth in order to refine the concept. For instance, more nuances are still needed on the fine line between merely covering or describing and endorsing specific solutions, which some respondents pointed to. Finally, given that journalists have different perceptions of individual techniques, and set different boundaries for which techniques are a part of their role and which ones are not, willingness to considering the values of constructive journalism could also be different if the concept is not presented or discussed as an overall package.

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Appendix 1 Contacting journalists for interviews

The message below was sent out in the form of an email or via social media in order to recruit participants for the study. As it was aimed at journalists, and as the study only involved interviews and not surveys or focus groups, the explanation of the research was kept as short and simple as possible at this stage. Journalists are known for having busy schedules, and long explanations were seen as a risk of putting them off from reading the invitation to

participate in the study. For the same reason, the term ‘investigate’ was used instead of ‘studying’ or ‘researching’ in the first paragraph. As some interviewees were contacted through snowball sampling, emails or messages often started by referring to the name of another journalist/respondent.

At first, the term ‘constructive journalism’ was not mentioned in order not to prime participants ahead of the interview, and to avoid that interviewees would start looking up different definitions of constructive journalism6. Instead, the phrase ‘alternative forms of journalism’ is used to designate the various characteristics of the former, such as the use of audience engagement in the news-making process. However this was changed after sending out the first roughly 15 messages as one respondent suggested that it had confused her (because she was familiar with constructive journalism and did not consider it as ‘an alternative form of journalism). A BBC journalist who was contacted for the sake of snowballing only also suggested that it was best to be as specific as possible when contacting journalists as ‘alternative forms of journalism sounded vague to her and could risk putting potential interviewees off. As the respondents that were recruited were open about not being familiar with the concept of constructive journalism, it was considered that they were not primed in any way that was significant to the outcome of the study at least.

It was later also indicated that interviews would be done “over the course of the next two months” in case journalists were interested in participating, but did not have time at the moment of being contacted. It was also included that it was unnecessary to be familiar with the concept of constructive journalism, in case the term would put journalists off.

1st round of emails and messages

(For emails only) Subject matter: MA Thesis research - University of Amsterdam Dear …

6 _{In fact, one interviewee (respondent 16) mentioned that she had looked up the term}

constructive journalism when she was contacted. However, she later explained that she recognised the approach as ‘solutions journalism’, which was significant in her work.

I am taking the liberty to contact you because I am currently investigating how journalists from major news outlets perceive alternative forms of journalism and their potential for the field of journalism.

In this context, I am interested in interviewing journalists and editors in the UK and in the Netherlands about their opinion for the purpose of my MA thesis at the University of Amsterdam.

An interview would last approximately 30 minutes, and would be audio recorded. It will then be transcribed and analysed for my research project. I can guarantee that your anonymity and your personal information will be safeguarded.

If you are interested and willing to be interviewed, we can arrange to meet wherever and whenever works best for you.

For more information about my research, please feel free to contact me at any time. Thank you in advance. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards, Louise Rasmussen

Erasmus Mundus MA Media, Journalism and Globalisation Email: Lbr@pt.lu

Mobile: (+352) 621 68 71 32

For those that were contacted via Twitter, the researcher’s email address: Lbr@pt.lu, was also indicated.

2nd round of emails and messages Dear…

I am writing to you in the context of a study that I am currently doing for my MA thesis at the University of Amsterdam.