News You Can Use or News That Moves? Journalists’ rationales for coverage of distant suffering

Abstract

This study investigates how journalists covering international humanitarian crises make decisions regarding what types of information to include in stories. Specifically, the inclusion/exclusion of solutions-oriented information is addressed, since crises represent a key time during which the potential for international engagement is discussed in the mainstream media. Interviews with journalists covering hunger crises in Africa reveal an internal tension between maintaining a neutral, unbiased position and writing in a way that supports engagement and action. Ironically, perhaps, journalists find that including solutions-oriented information amounts to unethical and biased coverage, despite the fact that inclusion of solutions to social problems is an accepted and institutionalized aspect of the US news media’s mandate to the public. Reasons for this seeming contradiction are discussed, and I argue that solutions-oriented information not only can be included without demonstrating bias, but that it ought to be included to support ethical coverage that properly informs citizens about potential paths for political engagement.