Active Listening
Persevere Beyond the Noise
January 30, 2020
https://www.emersoncollective.com/media-journalism/
AXIOS:
Emerson Collective initial launch partner for new NowThis division
NowThis, the millennial social video media outlet that’s part of Group Nine Media, will announce today the launch of NowThis Impact, a new editorial division that covers social issues and is underwritten by non-profits.
Why it matters: Underwriting editorial content is becoming a bigger trend as more philanthropy and non-profit money floods into journalism.
Details: Emerson Collective, a social change organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, will serve as the company’s launch partner.
- NowThis is looking to announce additional underwriters in coming months.
- It will work with issue experts to form content partnerships around certain issues that contain specific calls to action.
- The new product aims to meet the content appetites of NowThis’ audience of progressive and civically-minded millennials.
Be smart: It’s not the first time Group Nine has dabbled in “call-to-action” media/journalism. Its animal franchise, The Dodo, has in the past directed its audience to adoption resources.
Disclosure: Emerson Collective is an investor in Axios.
A C T I V E L I S T E N I N G
How To Listen To People You Disagree With
JOURNALISM
Early last year, Amanda Ripley had a revelation: she wasn’t a great listener. “It was hugely disturbing, because it’s my job,” she says. Ripley is a journalist who writes for The Atlantic and The Washington Post. She was studying conflict as a way to understand political polarization. Through her research, she realized that one key to understanding – and sometimes even resolving – conflict is whether the parties involved feel heard or not.
Most people aren’t great listeners – including doctors and bosses and all kinds of people whose job requires listening. As Ripley sees it, journalists are conditioned to over-simplify polarizing topics or complex characters so that readers can more easily understand the reporting. But in doing so, journalists flatten incredibly complicated, nuanced topics and leave people more entrenched than ever. Ripley wrote about this revelation in a viral piece last year, Complicating the Narratives.
Now, Ripley, an Emerson Collective Senior Fellow, is working with the Solutions Journalism Network to train journalists on how to conduct better interviews, particularly about polarizing subjects. Ripley’s work is part of a larger movement to bridge political and cultural divides and revive healthy democractic debate in the U.S.
Ripley recently spoke with Patrick D’Arcy, Emerson Collective’s Director of Fellowships and Portfolio Communications, about the broader implications of her research on conflict and the essential, overlooked role of listening in a healthy democracy – and the Thanksgiving dinner table.
People will put up with a lot of difference if they feel heard. People will open up to different ideas and opinions.
https://www.emersoncollective.com/articles/2019/11/how-to-listen-to-people-you-disagree-with/
Essay: https://thewholestory.solutionsjournalism.org/22-questions-that-complicate-the-narrative-47f2649efa0e
“What do you want to understand? Conversation techniques, interview questions, and stellar story examples born from a conflict mediation training — for journalists”
https://youtu.be/FtCfGswZSjg
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CONSIDER
Senator Cory Booker:
“This is a moral moment. The moral vandal that’s in the White House right now, he may win this day, but he will not win our nation. We are America. We’re going to find a way to regroup, heal, [and] be the moral nation that I know we are.”
“Never stop being a prisoner of hope.”
Marianne Williamson:
“The president’s defense team arguing for what is basically unlimited presidential power is chilling. Even if they get away with it – which they probably will – it’s important to remember that we the voters are the ultimate judge and jury. We’ll deliver our judgement in November.”
Philosopher/author Martha Nussbaum:
“To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control.”