Combatting partisanship through intelligent interpretivism and public engagement

While reading Bridget Thoreson's August 2020 article in Poynter about a trending involvement of the community in the newsroom, I was surprised. It seems so apparent to involve the public with the news, especially the interviews and polling, to figure out what most people want to see in the news. Why does it seem there is a division between the journalist world and the media consumers? The general public is those we are supposed to be serving. Why wouldn't we consult them on the types of things they want to see in the news? That is especially an issue in political journalism. Pew Research center outlines just how divided Americans are politically in this article. How have we been involved in such a substantial partisan divide as a nation? I suspect that news organizations are to blame. It is no coincidence that the polarization of the United States has accompanied the significant consolidation of the nation's media. Now, there are countless corporate sponsors with vested political interests controlling almost all American media somewhere up the chain. That's not to say that an oil baron vets every piece published, but there is undoubtedly pressure to make news conforming to a specific ideology. Diversity is the greatest asset to free information, but when six megacorporations control most information, you have to wonder about the quality of political journalism. 

Perhaps some of these tensions could be eased by a more bottom-up approach to political stories where the general opinion of the local community is gauged and shared and then used to contextualize the information coming back from the statehouse or Washington D.C. Undoubtedly, facts are always the facts, as Harry Bruinius mentions in "Why journalism is shifting away from 'objectivity,'" non-partisan, strictly-facts reporters are being drowned in a constantly changing media environment and partisan fighting. Consumers don't necessarily want content that fails to take a point of view and offers a false balance. They want intelligent observations from journalists who are not pushing an agenda but are true to their ethical and moral values. It is essential to acknowledge that having a code of ethics as a journalist does not mean you're partisan. Still, as a journalist, you have to be careful not to fall into unconditional support for one party and hatred for the other.