In the tech world we've adopted the term community-led as a way to express that we have community as a big part of our efforts in business. It was filled in alot of hype and then a somewhat of a crash. Parts of living through that whole experience still makes me cringe. However, overall, I think as community professionals we have probably benefited from it.
In reality, I feel pretty much every industry could potentially evolve to be more community-led.
Community-centered journalism
I've noticed, for example, a trend in journalism towards 'community-centred journalism'. As a bit of proof of this trend, I've curated 68 resources on journalism, many of them on community-centered journalism and there are plenty of books available on the topic too.
Community-Centered Journalism (CCJ) is distinctly different from traditional journalism in its fundamental definition, purpose, and operational approach. While both aim to inform the public, CCJ represents a profound reorientation of journalistic practice to address the current crises of trust, relevance, and sustainability facing the news industry.
One repeated message I keep reading about CCJ is that it is defined by its collaborative nature, focusing on doing journalism with and for communities. It means giving voice to community needs, concerns and aspirations. This approach means journalists are seen as "someone who is of the community and trying to do this journalism for that community.
This is in contrast to doing journalism on the community. Which is traditional journalism.
I'd highly recommend copying and pasting the journalism links available here into a NotebookLM to get a quick overview of what community-centered journalism is. It's really quite accurate and handy!
The mindmap view below was generated from NotebookLM, it's a great way to see the type of things that CCJ tends to cover.
There are definitely interesting things to learn from the perspective of community-centered journalism, however the vast majority of it involves the similar community practices that many of us will adopt in the businesses we create or work for.
Journalistic Centered Community Building
Nevertheless, I've long had a strong pull towards community-centered journalism. This is mostly from the perspective that if journalism can be community centered, then perhaps community building can be journalist focused too.
And, IMHO, it works.
Having journalistic skills only makes us better community builders. It forces us to listen. To research. To gain different perspectives. To focus on build bridges. To step outside of our comfort zones. And perhaps the most obvious, it helps us get good at forming ideas and communicating through writing.
When community is glue work, the challenge becomes where to draw the line of our roles. The reality is that we need to be multi-disciplinary. It doesn't mean we all need to be journalists now. However, much like many of us will run events. Or focus on community or website ops. Or do social media. We should also throw journalistic skills into the mix of requirements for community teams.
We don't all need journalistic skills, but maybe someone within the team does. Or maybe we can aspire to be amateur journalists. We can learn to be curious and adopt a few good journalistic habits here and there. In time we will then get better at it. The ability to tell stories of our people will only enhance our ability to build better communities.
Knowing how to support journalistic efforts. This is valuable too. Even if we don't see ourselves in a journalism, writer or creator type role, having an understanding of what helps create good journalism is still valuable. A big part of community is glue work and looking for efficiencies. If the people we speak to, the spaces we create, the conversations we hold or the data we collect can support journalism, then it is our duty to find ways to facilitate that process. To find efficiencies. And to embed our community culture across the board.
Some community efforts that have had a journalistic vibe:
- Trends that was acquired by Hubspot
- Starter Story: stories about starting businesses
- Farnam Street has a focus on podcast, blog and learning, with the addition of a community more behind the scenes
- Indie Hackers started out as interviews and stories from founders
- Ministry of Testing: we're journalistic in the fact that we are researched focused and we publish Testing Trends.
Community Centered Everything
Community-Centered Journalism, alongside community-led in tech are great signs for how the world is adopting a community mindset with how they practice their professions.
These are not the only examples of industries and professions being more community-centred in their efforts. I've seen similar shifts in architecture that consider more about things like third places and placemaking and the well-being of people.
There are many such examples in the health care, government and education space too. There is a community shift, should we choose to look. We most definitely don't have to re-invent the wheel wherever we go.
Similar principles will apply wherever we go. We can apply community everywhere. We can probably apply journalistic practices to community everywhere too. Journalism is part of how human and business systems exist today, it makes sense to adapt our communtiy efforts to that too.
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