10/24/2022
It started with a question.
“How could news better represent the real world?”
News gives a very distorted perception of the world.
There’s so many wonderful and amazing things constantly happening. The news rarely focuses on positive topics, and yet it barely scratches the surface at covering what’s wrong with the world. An expose on abuse in one organization means that the same problem is likely happening in the majority of organizations within that sector. Despite this there’s usually only one story, one lawsuit, and occasionally one set of reforms among a sea of ignored problems. There might be a public misperception that the problem has been solved.
Reading a news story about abuse is stressful if you believe the world is generally free from abuse. It’s better to know that abuse is normal and feel satisfied that the story is being given the attention it deserves. It's even better to be elated when good things happen versus seeing good things as "normal". But what would news look like if this attitude was adopted?
It would have two parts.
The first would present bad news in the format of a rating site. When abuse is normal, all you need is a basic understanding of psychology and systemic issues to predict all the places abuse is happening. Every organization or group that has high to moderate impact would have its own rating, with one page that sums up overarching industry ratings for quick scanning. Here's what it could look like.
Industry
(Insert Industry)
Industry Sub-Categories
(Specific services or expertise within the industry)
Relationships within the organization
Public
Clients
Employees
Employees with Authority
Contractors
Labels
Narcissistic or Emotional Misconduct
Sexual Misconduct
Medical Misconduct
Physical Misconduct
Financial Issues or Misconduct
Neglect
Discrimination
Toxic Attitudes
Death
Industry Specific Issues
Other
Frequency
One-time Occurrences
Infrequent Occurrences
Abuse or Chronic Occurrences
Likelihood
Low
Moderate
High
Confirmed
The ratings would be categorized by labels and sub-labels of types of incidents. Labels are generic. Sub-labels are specific, prioritized according to relevancy and ordered chronologically by estimated likelihood. People could leave reviews regarding their personal experiences with the organization and some journalists could moderate the reviews and make further contact to confirm the accuracy of the reviews. They can additionally make social media posts in collaboration with activists to highlight specific issues for the public to push for change. Each identified rating would have a link to a description of what would need to change for the rating to be resolved.
The legal system functions on the basis of "innocent until proven guilty". This is a very important legal protection. And it doesn't leave room for prevention as an important measure of accountability. Many events that warrant class-action lawsuits are never prosecuted and even when they are the damage it has caused can never be repaired.
This system would predict where abuse is happening before it becomes serious enough to reach the attention of the public.
Ratings are equivalent to headlines, reviews are equivalent to quotes, and solution descriptions moves towards activism rather than journalism. So where’s the story?
Journalists would write articles about how problems were solved. When bad news is predictable, the breaking news is good news. Imagine reading and watching the news and feeling inspiration instead of dread. That's how to better represent the world.
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