The Fellows

80, on a scale from 0 to 100

This constructive interview took place on the 13th of June 2022. The interviewer, Kenneth Lund, is a journalist at Politiken and a fellow at Constructive Institute 2021/22. The interviewee, Ewen MacAskill, is a Scottish Pulitzer Prize-awarded journalist who worked for The Guardian for 22 years. From January to June 2022, they both joined the Listen Louder-project at Constructive Institute. The project listed new journalistic formats and tools that might improve the public conversation and reduce polarization. 

Ewen MacAskill, thank you for being here.

»It’s alright«.

I’ve been asked to write a personal essay for the institute’s annual report, but Orla Borg, Ulrik Haagerup and the staff at Constructive Institute have told us, repeatedly, that journalists shouldn’t express their personal views, shouldn’t be subjective. Do you see the dilemma?

»Totally. I’m a reporter and I always try to take my own opinion and bias out of it. I’m always uncomfortable writing comments«.

Actually, I was hoping you would be the commentator here. You are a Pulitzer Prize winner, you have followed Constructive Institute for six months, and I believe we share the same thoughts on journalism …  

»So, you want me to say what you think and let me take the blame? Well, that’s what reporters do, ha-ha«.

Exactly. According to Orla and Ulrik, constructive journalism should always begin with defining ‘the problem’. In your eyes, what’s the biggest problem with constructive journalism? 

»I think the biggest problem is the name. In Britain, and certainly America as well, doing ‘constructive journalism’, ‘solution-based journalism’ or ‘peace journalism’ is like having the plague. Most journalists don’t like it. It’s not considered to be proper journalism. Of course, I’m sympathetic to the idea of constructive journalism. That’s why I’m here. I believe we should point at solutions as well as problems, I just recoil from the name«. 

Why do you hate the name?

»The problems started back in the 1990s. There was a BBC presenter, Martyn Lewis, who said that there was way too much negative news, and we needed more positive news. Almost all journalists at that time were up in arms and said, ‘This is ridiculous, this guy is not a real journalist, he’s just reading from an autocue. Of course, news is about war and famine. What does he want? Stories about a cat stuck in a tree, rescued by firemen?’. Martyn Lewis put off a whole generation of British journalists«.

»Also, journalists shouldn’t cross the line into advocacy. When I hear the word ‘constructive’ I think of advocacy, of activism. Reporting from a fixed standpoint. That’s why I’m instinctively opposed to the word ‘constructive’«.

It sounds a bit old-school. Do you believe that journalists are able to report the news objectively?

»I don’t believe in objectivity no, but we should try staying neutral. Remain fair. I’m not saying that journalists should only write ‘he said, she said’ after a standard news story formula. Journalists should still be passionate and show the readers that we care. At The Guardian we call it writing with an attitude. But we can never cross the line into activism«.

Now let’s focus on solutions. We’ll delete the word ‘constructive’. What would be a better name?

»Institute for Better Journalism. I would be more comfortable with that. We are here to rethink journalism. What’s bad, what needs to improve«. 

Constructive journalism is also about catching the nuances. Where would you put constructive journalism on a scale between 0 and 100 where 0 is ‘sheer bullshit’ and 100 is ‘God’s gift to mankind’?

»Around 80«. 

Not bad. But what should change – apart from the name – for it to get a higher grade?

»I think the advocates should do more to emphasize the importance of investigative reporting. Here, the emphasis is mostly on solutions but to me the absolute core of journalism is investigative journalism, exposing hypocrisy, corruption, and misdeeds, and holding power to account. I know Orla and Ulrik agree with me on this, but they should put more stress on it«.

Not a big whisky drinker 

Constructive journalism is also about engaging the audience. Now, I’ve got a question from a reader, Kurt Strand from Copenhagen. He writes: ‘Dear Ewen. I was just wondering: do you think we should drink more whisky in Denmark? Best wishes from Kurt’. What’s your answer to that?

»I’m not a big whisky drinker. I used to drink whisky with my father when I was at home and I enjoyed it, I like the smell. But I can go from one year to the next without drinking whisky. Because I’m Scottish, people are always giving me presents of bottles of whisky, but I don’t drink it. So, my answer to Kurt is ‘no’«.

Maybe, Kurt should practice asking questions …

»I drink Guinness. People at The Guardian know that. Before I left for Hong Kong to check out the Edward Snowden story, one of the Guardian editors said I would need a codeword for our phone calls. She said: ‘If the story stands up, just say the Guinness is good’. I also like trying local beers when we are at bars here in Aarhus. But I prefer Guinness«. 

Before we finish, I want to ask you about the Listen Louder project here at Constructive Institute. What are you most proud of – the Listen Louder booklet or your Pulitzer Prize awarded Edward Snowden coverage?

»To me, the Snowden story is just one story among the others. There are many stories that I’m proud of. About the Israel-Palestinian conflict, about Obama becoming president. The Listen Louder project is different. It’s a collaborative project, more than half a dozen have been involved in it. And that’s what I like about it. That’s the strength of the project. We’ve all added different ideas – even ideas I initially didn’t understand. But that’s the beauty of it. I’m proud of it«.

Thank you for helping me with this essay, Ewen.

»No problem«.

Bio

Ewen MacAskill has been a journalist for almost 50 years now and has worked all around the world in various publications. For half of his career, Ewen worked on The Guardian starting as the chief political correspondent covering British politics. Later he became the diplomatic editor and travelled around the world covering various conflicts. After this, Ewen then became the Washington DC bureau chief and later the defence intelligence correspondent. Most famously, Ewen covered the Edward Snowden affair.

Kenneth Lund has been working at Politiken since 2009, the last seven years as opinion editor and journalist at the opinion desk. Previously, he was a political reporter at Christiansborg (2012-2014) and online opinion editor at Politiken.dk (2009-2012). As a fellow at Constructive Institute, Kenneth has looked for new ways of engaging more young people in the public debate. 

Read more about Listen Louder at: www.constructiveinstitute.org

The Fellowship of the CI

More ambitions than just “thank you for joining”

”Sorry for asking, but what do you have there?”.

The question was asked by a twenty-something young student in a rhetoric class at Aarhus University on a grey November day 2021. She pointed at my A4 sized notebook and had probably noticed that I was the only one in the room using handwriting combined with small drawings, arrows, and connected dots. Not taking notes instantly and tapping on a computer was obviously a strange thing, and the fellow student was asking because she was curious to know about my way of remembering the lecture and what was discussed.

I had a seat in the classroom because being a fellow at Constructive Institute also includes going to the university ‘gift shop’ to pick courses to attend from amongst the hundreds of academic subjects. Being (an almost) 66-year-old man at the beginning of my fellowship that in itself was very privileged. Not just for the often-complicated theoretical inputs, but also due to the meetings and discussions with bright students from different fields.

Two now completed notebooks of 125+ pages prove the outcome of courses attended. So do academic books on rhetoric, narratives, and conflict solving. And, not to forget, stacks of printed pdf files with yellow underlining markings and notes in mostly narrow margins. 

My courses were chosen to fit my Constructive Institute project. In short, it was about finding new ways and concepts for public debates. Being a journalist for more than 40 years, I had begun to realize how unambitious most debates in the media business are. I found that trench digging very often was the only outcome instead of trying to find at least just a small stretch of a common ground. On top of this, the tone in the public debate had evolved into something which excludes dialogue and understanding. The explosion of social media has significantly changed the public space, it promotes hate speech and is in some ways undermining some of the core values in a democratic society.

Could I, as a one-man band playing only few strings, change this? Of course not. But my aim was to contribute and help traditional media to play a more active role as moderators in public discussion. Offering good examples for debating, but also by being more active on their own social media profiles and online comments . By taking more responsibility for the way we all talk and perhaps most important, by inviting and including local communities in the public conversation.

Fortunately, I met a lot of open doors. Several media businesses are working hard to try and renew debate formats, but still, they are searching for functioning concepts that can be implemented as usable journalistic tools. For that reason, this was the focus during the second part of my fellowship, working together with not only a fellow fellow from the Danish newspaper “Politiken”, but also bright journalists from the Norwegian public service broadcaster “NRK”, the British “Guardian” and the German “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. 

Together we gathered good concepts and tools. It is not a complete list, but an inspiring beginning. A 60-page book was presented and distributed at a constructive journalism conference in Bonn, Germany, June 2022. And at the same time a webpage, hosted by the Constructive Institute in Aarhus, was opened with an invitation to journalists, editors, and others working in the business to contribute with their ideas and examples on how to change the traditional way of doing public debates.

A month earlier, I was invited to talk and present some of the findings at a journalism school teachers conference in Aarhus. Until now, late June 2022, I have done a handful of talks for other journalists and editors, three were held for fellow students at university courses, and one was for people working with debates. On top of this, I held talks at public meetings organized by a local church, a community club, and a peoples high school.

Later this year I will follow up with courses, training and talks for journalists and editors. A book diagnosing the public debate, explains how conflicts deepen, and how alternative concepts and new tools can make a change is expected to be published spring 2023.

I too often used a sentence to finalize debates during my 35+ years anchoring tv- and radio formats – “I can tell, you will not get any closer to at least some kind of agreement… but thank you for joining us tonight” –hopefully this will never be repeated. At least not by me, and not by colleagues in the business who step by step work to raise the bar for more ambitious public moderation. 

How seven years went by in ten months 

When I had my very first day on boarding school many years ago, we all got a t-shirt saying; “one year at boarding school is like seven years without”. At my very last day I cried and understood exactly the meaning of those cheesy words. Boarding schools and peoples’ high schools shapes you for live in such a short period of time that it’s simply overwhelming.

My ten months as fellow at Constructive Institute can be described just as that. These opportunities are rarely giving to you as an adult and therefore I have also lived this year with an extra amount of gratefulness. The combination of a broad, professional program and talented people who are sharing your mission but have completely different experiences and skills to add to the discussions is what creates the magic. 

Deadlines and standard expectations are erased for a year, but your brain does not stop working because of it. You realize, in some situations it works better. The process adds just enough naivety to allow yourself to dream, you can do better than you did yesterday. 

To me that meant building an app for high school students together with one of my co-fellows, Bjarke Calvin. I’m not sure how the two of us would have met outside this fellowship with absolutely no shared friends, a 20-years age difference, him living in Copenhagen and me in Odense. But Bjarke and I share the exact same mission, creating a new type of social media that will engage young people in storytelling using the values and very best tools from journalism. The goal is creating a safer, creative space that’s driven by enlightened instead of algorithms feeding polarization. We call it ‘Yournalist – the school paper of the future’ and it’s made by us but mostly by the students we have met during this year.

When I return from my fellowship, TV2 Funen have agreed to do a pilot project together with us and one of the most innovative high schools at Funen to test the potential of Yournalist and the idea of taking journalism into the schools. I really couldn’t ask for more from a fellowship, and it feels right moving in this direction on behalf of the young generation.

Getting where we are already with this project and where I am with my mindset would normally have taking years. Perhaps seven years as it said on the t-shirt I still have in my closet. But it took ten months and a bunch of brilliant people. And even though I’m just as critical as I were before the fellowship (I’m still a journalist, you know), I feel much braver and more optimistic for what the future brings for our business and our audience.