Can you admit you want your audience to change?

For most of us reporters, “no” is the only right answer.

We can be upfront about having hopes (usually only if they are vague) for our work; that people should feel something, or better understand something or at least someone. At our most bold, we hope they might do something, but it is important that something remain undeclared, lest we stray too far away from reporting and into advocacy.

As critical as I am about reporters and news organizations clinging to outdated and unexamined notions like objectivity, I'm generally not on board with trying to steer audiences in a certain direction. But I don't think it's out of the question.

**This post will take about 6 minutes to read. It outlines reasons reporters should be clear with audiences about their goals. I also include a framework I plan to use to evaluate whether I should ask my audience to consider changing their behavior.

Using an information gap framework to drive reporting choices keeps newsrooms out of the business of trying to convince audiences of anything most of the time. Reporting to fill information and accountability gaps has a clear purpose. Audiences are asked to use this reporting for nothing more than to meet their needs. I want most of my work to fill information and accountability gaps identified by my community.

That doesn't mean that I'll never want my audience to change. I'm considering when and why more carefully based on the reporting I've done since starting this project.

One reason reporters need to do this, like yesterday, is because we can't ignore the background noise of behavior modification: I'm saying this for me because I need the reminder. It's easy to get caught up in doing the work and forget that our reporting is carried on platforms or pushed by audience teams in the business of behavior modification. Their desired outcomes could be anything from more time on platform, to putting trust in a particular messenger, to developing a different news consumption habit. But the goal of changing behavior is the same. Journalism that travels on these platforms and claims to operate above these imperatives must seem discordant at best and insincere at worst. Instead of leaving the audience to wonder about your goals, call out explicitly what your work is trying to do. This is especially true if you want your audience to change.

I don't yet have reporting that will ask an audience to change, but in embarking on this new project, I think I'm likely to get there. I'm already comfortable saying we should change our individual and collective actions to make climate change less dangerous. I also want us to think differently about the human migration across borders already happening, and that will keep happening. I hope people can be less fearful of these changes, and instead be more accepting and prepared for them.

If I'm asking my audience to act or change, I'll use these guidelines:

I'll be led by the reporting: If my reporting tells me the status quo will cause harm, I hope I'll say that. If my reporting leads me to believe in some clear solutions, I hope I can communicate those clearly.

I'll rely on frameworks functional societies must uphold: Verifying if there's been a violation of a human or civil right can be hard. But it's easy to say violations of human or civil rights are bad. They're bad! If there is widespread contempt for human or civil rights in my community, I'll feel comfortable asking my community to remember these basic frameworks are necessary for everyone.

In service of the community more than anything else: The risk of asking an audience to act or change is that it can damage your credibility as a reporter if your audience disagrees with you. It could also move you away from journalism and into straight opinion (shudder). In a worst-case scenario, it's unethical. It feels quaint to worry about something like an ethics violation in 2024, of all years, but it does matter. It really matters. If you're asking your audience to act or change, whose interests are you perhaps supporting? Interrogate, report and disclose these interests. But if action and change are in the interests of the majority of the community, or a smaller group within the community at risk of serious harm, these asks seem justified.

Under what circumstances would you ask your audience to change or act? Am I overthinking this, or perhaps not being rigorous enough? Just hit reply to this email and let me know. Have a wonderful week.