Sharing my takeaways from last night's unintentional Journalist Space discussion

1. The "need" for the question depends on the reporter's direction and framing of the story. (At our post-space debriefing, someone said this was clear when they watched the televised report) https://twitter.com/lakwatsarah/status/1384541702053007369

2. I put quotation marks because there was agreement among resource speakers that Pat Non already addressed the topic before the question was asked.

So why was it asked again?

The point of the press con was to clear these allegations.

Question could have been framed better.

3. There is an apparent generational gap between older, veteran journalists and younger generation of journalists on the subject, with the former mostly believing the need to ask the question point blank and the latter disagreeing.

4. Feedback from the audience is NOT picking on reporters and should be welcomed to improve and grow as journalists.

Acknowledgement that platform is relatively new and everyone is learning how to maximize.

On the other extreme, cancel culture tends to assume no redemption arc.

5. Editorial control over reports differs per company but there are journalists who are able to own the direction of their reporting.

"This looks like PR. I'm not reporting on this till I have more information"

6. On the "spirit of fairness" and "adherence to responsible journalism"

The belief that two sides in any story deserve the same amount of airtime is false equivalence.

Responsibility of the journalist to weigh which side deserves the platform more.

"If someone says it's raining & another person says it's dry. It's not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the window and find out which is true."

But also, important to know context.

What time did they check it was raining?
Were they in the same place? Etc.

6.2. Platform should be given to experts for issues. For example, on ivermectin, defer to doctors and other medical professionals for medical advice for the sake of the safety and health of the audience.

(Personal comment: And not on anecdotal reports from legislators)

6.3 Important question raised on media perpetuating the pasaway narrative.

Reporters tend to avoid passing judgment on human behavior.

Use of word "pasaway" usually comes from government official and is just quoted.

Still, if this can be omitted, then omit it.

6.4 Circling back to the hot topic of the day, another question raised was: should/could reporters have asked the ntf-elcac about their accusations before directing it at Pat Non?

Yes, but different beats cover this.

At debriefing, we wondered why separate beats are an issue.

Shouldn't beats work together in crafting a more complete narrative?

Maybe they do but this was not raised during the space. Would be an interesting topic to dig deeper into.

7. There was also a discussion on the role of network rivalries and how this affects coverage of issues concerning rival networks. I missed much of this since I had to jump to another call but I understand the concern and this has been something we havr seen happen in the past.

8. "I respect you, but I disagree with you"

At the end of the day no journalist can speak for another in terms of motivations and intentions behind reporting choices. Only TPP can answer why she framed question the way she did and omitted the call out in her report.

My personal opinion that no one asked for is yes there is an elephant in the room but they're looking in the wrong room. Ask red-taggers why they are red-tagging her. Ask them to provide proof of their allegations.

Closing: We covered so much ground last night from the immediate hot topic to the issues that came up in the past weeks.

To those who tuned in, please do share any learnings you had that I may have missed.

Thankful to our resource persons for all the insight.

The space really started out as a place for some of us to digest the day's events. While we all had strong opinions and feelings, we admittedly are not journalists. So hearing their views put an added layer of substance to the discussion.

The power of spaces