Hellenic Institute of Constructive Journalism

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CONSTRUCTIVE
JOURNALISM

 

 

Characteristics of Constructive Journalism

  • Adds to Journalism a 6th question to the 5 well-known ones (who, what, where, why and when): “What now?”
  • Is informed by an understating of how news impacts culture and behaviour.
  • Applies understandings from positive psychology, in order to engage and empower audiences.
  • Is journalism that “cares”.
  • Is critical, but with a constructive rather than negative mind-set.
  • Is independent.
  • Has high societal value.
  • Fosters thoughtful conversation, collaboration and consensus building.
  • Ultimately, it is committed to the improvement of the state of the world.

Solutions, not just presentation of events

Constructive journalism recognizes that in the world there are errors and defects, failure, abuse, exploitation. However argues that at the same time there is always evolution, development and opportunity. In this way it ‘broadens’ the world. It explores opportunities, it looks into dilemmas from all sides and suggests remedies. It neither ignores problems nor does it trivializes them. Instead, it focuses on how these problems can be solved…

For a better tomorrow…

Does not simply repeat what goes wrong in the world. It works so as to come up with possible solutions. It takes a problem solving approach, where the media itself actively addresses problems that concern their audiences. As well as considering what is important and relevant, it considers the perspective and interpretation given to stories. (Many journalists expose in a fascinating way the world’s problems, but they usually fail to highlight and explain solutions that offer room for improvement, even though if these initiatives show strong proofs of effectiveness or efficiency. As a result, people have a much better understanding as to what goes wrong in society rather than what is being done to improve.)