Does journalistic independence mean distancing yourself from the community you cover? A pair of young reporters say that’s outdated advice. Here’s what they do instead.

Jonah Chester got his start at a high-school newspaper and graduated from journalism school in 2019. He went on to cover local governments in Madison, Wisc., developing a specialty in infrastructure reporting.

Today he uses that cumulative knowledge to cover flooding and sea level rise for The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C. But there’s one part of his training he rejects outright: The idea that reporters should keep their distance from the community they cover.

“Even as recently as when I was in school, my professors were emphasizing that you need distance in order to be objective,” Chester says. “That method might have worked 20 years ago, but it doesn’t work today.”

“We’re in an era where nobody trusts journalism. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that nobody’s ever met a reporter.

“If we want a more sustainable future for journalism, then we have to realize we are community members. We live in the same places you do. We have to make the effort to get out in the community. We have a vested interest in helping to find solutions.”

The people behind the stories

Chester is half of a two-person reporting team for The Post and Courier’s Rising Waters lab.

He is joined by engagement reporter Toby Cox, a former Peace Corps volunteer who brings a community-oriented approach to reporting. She developed a focus on engagement as a Fulbright scholar, reporting on religion and spirituality in Kyrgyzstan during a joint digital storytelling fellowship with National Geographic.

Cox said engagement was also a recurring theme during her graduate studies at Harvard Divinity School, which she tailored around understanding how to report on the spiritual impacts of climate change.

The reporters are leading the second iteration of Rising Waters. The staff of the original project was named 2021 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Local Reporting “for an ambitious look at how water levels in the city were rising faster than previously thought,” and for how the reporting “explored broader social, environmental and regulatory challenges posed by climate change.”

Shortly after Chester and Cox came on board, the newspaper hosted an event for community members to get to know them. The gathering brought together representatives of conservation groups and everyday citizens. It was held on a small patio outside the newsroom; guests had to RSVP since space was limited.

“We wanted it to be a real community conversation, not us sitting on a stage,” Cox said. “People would ask nuanced questions, and we were able to introduce them to someone who could answer better than we could. Our role was really just to facilitate the interaction between the community members and the experts.”

At the event, one woman suggested that the team should maintain a calendar of environment-related local events, an idea they adopted.

“I’ve really been trying to let the community guide me,” Cox says. “Neither of us are from here, so the past few months have been about learning about Charleston and its complicated history, and learning about all the different layers we need to be aware of here. That wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t listen to the community.”

Funding in-depth reporting

The Rising Waters team coordinates story planning with the central newsroom, but its work is funded separately by philanthropy. The newspaper’s Public Service and Investigative Fund supports work in three “pillar” areas: environment, education and exposing corruption.

(The latter effort, Uncovered, is a collaboration with smaller news outlets around the state. See how it works in this 2023 feature by Ted Koppel for CBS Sunday Morning.)

In a 2021 story for BetterNews.org, The Post and Courier’s editor-in-chief, Autumn Phillips, described how the paper raised more than $1 million to get the fund off the ground. As part of strategies to diversify revenue, she said, the family-owned newspaper separated its investigative work to be funded by philanthropy and accessible outside its paywall, while everyday reporting is supported by digital subscriptions.

“The main lesson we learned is that showing the value of the work inspired people to donate,” Phillips noted. Among other lessons: “With each ‘Uncovered’ story, we ran a ‘What it cost’ box, including staff time, FOIA fees and travel. The first story cost $38,000 to produce.”

On its website, the Post and Courier’s Public Service and Investigative Fund connects the goal of exposing problems and corruption with a positive, constructive local purpose.

Balancing reporting with engagement

For the Rising Waters lab, the two-person team is focused on covering South Carolina’s climate emergency. Scientists predict sea levels at low-lying Charleston will rise by about 1 foot by 2050. The development of coastal forests and farmlands into resorts and neighborhoods has accelerated the problem.

Chester and Cox work to connect stories around science, policy and impacts to people and places. Their coverage explains big-picture trends and efforts, but also conveys timely updates like sea-wall construction updates and current flood forecasts.

“I think people are really happy to have someone covering this,” Chester said. “Everybody’s got a flooding story.”

The reporters said their editors have been supportive as they have carved out a pace of reporting that can blend in-depth, 2,000-word stories alongside 800-word dailies. They contribute stories to the main paper’s print and online editions, and produce a weekly newsletter. Their goal for in-person events is to host one per quarter.

Despite the sobering topic, the team has taken a constructive rather than alarmist approach to their reporting. Of Constructive Journalism’s three pillars — solutions, nuance and conversation — Cox said: “This is what we’ve been aiming for, but we didn’t have a name for it.”

Some of the ways the team incorporates a constructive approach include:

Welcoming feedback (including corrections) — The reporters have developed close working relationships with key sources like the city’s chief resilience officer. The tradeoff is that those sources also let the reporters know when they don’t like a story. “Jonah and I are really open to feedback, and we’ve made that really clear to people in the community,” Cox says. The team said the way they have worked to build connections in the community shapes the feedback they get. Says Cox: “People trust us. When we make a mistake, we say, ‘Thank you for flagging that and we’ll have a correction.’ We also own our mistakes. They understand we’re human.’”
Structure to guide reporting — After their first six months on the job, the reporters audited their work and identified six main categories of reporting. This perspective has helped them make choices about which stories to pursue, in order to fill gaps in their overall coverage. “We can use that guide to notice, ‘We haven’t covered much lately about a resilient community. How can we add to that a little more?’” Cox said.
Tone of voice — While stories follow journalistic norms for writing style, a constructive lens is evident in how stories are packaged. Headlines often have a curious tone. The weekly newsletter is written like a personal message from a friend; it finds a lighthearted angle without trivializing the topic.
Audience-driven reporting — As a component of engagement reporting, Cox produces two Q&A stories each month in which she responds directly to questions readers have asked. “A lot of readers have given really good questions,” she said. “Covering questions like ‘How does this work?’ provides good background to other stories we write.”
Reporters are people, too — The team works to report in an objective way, but they say there are limits to how objective reporters can actually be. “I’m not a robot,” Cox said. “I’m operating on a set of values, and those values inform how I filter information and convey information to my readers. I think what’s more responsible is transparency — understanding what values I’m operating on and conveying that to people.”

Elevating what works elsewhere

Solutions journalism — defined as rigorous reporting on efforts to solve problems — has been a key element in both the original Rising Waters project and the ongoing work.

It has included in-depth reporting about how other coastal cities are responding to rising sea waters. It also includes coverage of efforts by Lowcountry officials and community groups to mitigate the effects of flooding. A recent story showed how residents of a historic Black neighborhood are digging a new tidal channel in an effort to save their salt marsh.

“The constant crisis narrative does weigh on people, but there are a lot of people taking action,” she said.

She said the term “solutions journalism” gives the wrong idea about the purpose of such reporting.

“I don’t think it’s my role to tell people the solution to this complicated situation,” she said. “I see journalism as a way to connect people and ideas — to show people how things are connected in a way they might not have expected.”

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Featured image by Grace Beahm Alford for The Post and Courier