Sensationalism, misinformation, algorithmic bias, toxic content … all these factors are part of a trend known as news avoidance and journalists increasingly feel they’re losing the public's trust.    

Global communications firm Edelman measures trust in social institutions through annual global surveys. Its 2023 report stated Australia was on a path to polarisation, with approximately half the respondents surveyed citing journalists as a divisive force. There are also concerns about “distrust in the media”.

That’s bad news for journalists such as Liam Mannix, the national science reporter for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Mannix, speaking on a Constructive Journalism panel during Monash University’s 2024 Creative Directions Festival, said “people hate journalists”.

“They trust us less than used car salespeople.”

Mannix said polarisation was “a huge issue”, and stories that made people angry or ridiculed their opponents fuelled it.

“We need to defuse this conversation and bring people together.”

The good news is there’s a global network of journalists who, like Mannix, are using ‘constructive journalism’ to bring people together, and Monash University is in the thick of it. 

Constructive journalism - launched by Danish not-for-profit, the Constructive Institute, in 2017 - is a solutions-focussed approach to journalism involving nuanced reporting and open dialogue with the public.

Earlier this year, Monash University partnered with the Constructive Institute to establish a hub for the Asia Pacific region.  

The Constructive Institute Asia Pacific was recently bolstered with the appointment of former ABC news director Kate Torney as its new Director. Torney will be taking up a Professorship of Practice in the School of Media Film and Journalism commencing in November 2024.

The hub’s Deputy Director, Dr Stephanie Brookes said it will offer fellowships for working journalists, provide a “scholarly home” for collaborative research into constructive journalism, and bring constructive journalism to the forefront of Monash’s educational programs.

“I really think constructive journalism can be a core, foundational principle of what we teach and how we teach our students, giving students the opportunity to learn about what constructive journalism is, and can be, but also - as we always want our students to do - to think critically about ‘how can it be better, be different?’” 

For the Creative Directions Festival, Brookes invited three journalists - Mannix, First Nations content manager Madeline Hayman-Reber, and freelance cartoonist Megan Herbert - to discuss their efforts to penetrate the echo chambers with solution-based, nuanced stories.     

Mannix, fresh from a five-month fellowship at the Institute’s Danish headquarters, said he is now asking “what can be done to cover events in a way that builds the community?”. 

“Journalism that points to problems is typically very oppositional to governments. If we look at solutions - ‘where else has this problem and how have they solved it?’ - we may produce a different sort of response … [and] make journalism more valuable to people.”

Hayman-Reber, a self-described “proud Gomeroi yinarr woman, journalist and activist” and content creator for Common Ground, said she was inspired by the vision of a society where “everyone gets to write their own story”.

Hayman-Reber said she had seen the difference a constructive story can make. When youth crime in Alice Springs was in the spotlight, First Nations not-for-profit Children’s Grounds succeeded in changing the narrative by focussing on the constructive solutions adopted by Indigenous-run services.

Freelance cartoonist Megan Herbert showed the Creative Directions audience a series of cartoons to illustrate how she uses “the power of empathy” to “break through and bridge gaps, one cartoon at a time”. 

Herbert said the ‘gaps’ were the distance between opposing views, and ‘breakthroughs’ happened when she found a perspective that engaged an oppositional reader.  

But what if the dial doesn’t move? Brookes asked the panellists for the hacks they used to keep going. 

Hayman-Reber is prepared to go public with her frustrations. “I call it out”, she said, while also asking herself, “who can I talk to?”

Mannix takes a long view. “You may only move a very small proportion … but if you keep doing it, over time you see change.”

Herbert schedules a daily reminder in her calendar: “How are you being of service today?”