Journalism's blossoming values

When we think about journalism's values, what do we think of? It's probably things like fairness, accuracy, honesty, transparency. These are no doubt essential. But it's beautiful to see other values emerging: Care. Compassion. Thoughtfulness. Appreciation. Community — both within journalism and as a value to be practiced in reporting.

If journalism is fundamentally about sharing information, then we have to be aware not just of the quality of that information but the qualities we as journalists live out on a daily basis. It's always been true, but the last eight years or so have vividly illustrated that a fact is easily ignored when its messenger is not trusted. These emerging values don't discount the importance of accurate information; they acknowledge that people make decisions on what is trustworthy by considering much more that. And they tacitly ask journalists, "Have you ever stopped to think about your values?"

The most recent SJN newsletters have a few examples of these values — both in the opportunities coming from the network and in story form. What are your values? Do you live them out, and how? Do you even — gasp! — share them with people in your reporting process? Right now, every journalist should thinking about this.

• In the July 17 edition of Above the Fold, Tyler Thomas of The Cherokee Phoenix wrote about the newsroom's sense of duty to its legacy, while also building with a community of Indigenous journalists. You can also meet the new Student Media Challenge schools, itself a community of student journalists trying to move the needle in and around campus. Then, you can grab the new blog from Swati Sanyal Tarafdar . She used her experiences as SoJo student, trainer and mentor to answer some FAQs to get your story moving. All that, plus a job at The Greater Good Science Center (reporting on love!), the Beyond Print Toolkit from Lenfest Institute for Journalism and American Press Institute , and a pretty astute journalism observation from Rutger Bregman . You can grab all of that here.
• In the July 24 edition, SJN's Ambika Samarthya lays out some values she's prioritizing for journalism after her annual Buddhist retreat. Stephanie Jane Capper wants to be your SoJo coach, Rasheed Adebiyi, PhD, arpa and a team of dedicated journalists are doing their best to spread solutions journalism in Nigeria, and the The Walkley Foundation for Journalism and Corinne Podger released an epic treasure trove of SoJo training materials. If you want SoJo in other languages, that's here too. You'll find Arwa Kooli 's piece how-to piece in Arabic, and you'll get Camille Alexandra Padilla Dalmau , Stella Bin , and Jonathan Gutiérrez hosting a webinar in Spanish. What more could you need???

Well, you might need stories, in which case you can read The Response and Solutions Worth Sharing. The latest Response is fully dedicated to stories of creative conflict resolution, where proudly modeling values can be key to getting out of the fight. Check it out for Abdullahi Muritala 's story on the prolonged peace achieved after religious conflict in Iseyin, Nigeria; Cinnamon Janzer 's peek at Minnesota's attempt to help its government work together; and John Diedrich and Alison Dirr 's look at the "police dialogue team" that kept things calm during political protests.

Over at Solutions Worth Sharing, Spanish-language fact checkers are the subject of the Democracy edition, courtesy of Timothy Pratt 's story. And in the world of climate, you can read Phil McKenna 's story on Massachusetts' "first-in-the-nation geothermal heating and cooling system." Read that one here.