Unquestionably, we are today experiencing a breakdown of community in America. The social divisions are so big that perceptions of truth and goodness among the warring parties are radically at odds. There is no “common truth” or “common good.” Nor is there a news media that most people believe and trust.
Right now, the record-breaking distrust of news media is a fire that is destroying journalism unless it is put out. We need a firehose to douse the fires. Certainly, the rise of online modalities may be the cause of 50% of the decrease in revenues and circulation of print news media. The loss of classified advertising to online sites reduced local newspaper revenues by up to 40%. But distrust probably accounts for the other 50% of the drop.
The desire for news is actually not decreasing, according to various surveys, but the distrust in Mainstream News Media (MSM)’s new reporting is closing the door to their relevance in actual news consumption. Increasingly, individuals are doing their own fact-checking because they have experienced news-media fact-checking as skewed by political, secular, and elitist agendas. There are also a growing number of alternatives distributed through newsletters, Substack, and the like.
According to an article published a couple of weeks ago in the Columbia Journalism Review, the majority of Americans see the news media as an alien, hostile group of “elites who are acting in their own interests….people increasingly feel compelled to discount the journalism they encounter because they believe it to be politically biased, economically compromised, or simply produced by out-of-touch elites. People believe journalists knowingly attempt to sensationalize the news to make more money or misrepresent the news to suit either a liberal or conservative perspective.”
To believe in the chimera of “fact-checking” by the same people who are so distrusted in the production of news in the first place is a surefire way to undermine any trust left in reporting. Such journalism projects have in fact created more distrust, division, and intolerance of other perspectives.
Consequently, the trust in news media is lower than that for almost all other social institutions (congress lies in the bargain basement of the trust department). It is commonly believed that the news media sows hostility and disorder in the community. In contrast, the military, police, and small businesses are the most trusted (exactly the targets of so much media hostility or, in the case of small businesses, pity). The contrast is between the news media as leaders of disorder versus the forces of social order.
Transformational Journalism
We need a news media that repairs community, trust, and social order. We call this “transformational journalism.” The highest goal of journalism is not speaking truth, not investigating, or doing fact-checking. These qualities are essential but downstream from the source of the best journalism: the news reports that are aimed at building communal fellow-feeling that is the basis of community. We believe that this goal means that we need a transformation in the way that we do journalism. The foundation for such a “Transformational Journalism” is Journey’s idea of “sympathetic objectivity” (S/O).
We practice sympathetic objectivity in the provision of innovative, revelatory, and representative pictures of religion in New York City today and yesteryear in its geographic context. The result is authoritative trusted news reports by a new community-building journalism.
With a tip of the hat to the strategic terminology of Christian Buddhist Phil Jackson, our new triangle journalism offense—sympathetic objectivity, flips the old journalistic triangle of skepticism—objectivity—empathy/sympathy into leading with sympathy/empathy, following up with objectivity, and adding skepticism if necessary.
While he was articles editor at Fast Company, Jeff Chu well characterized the S/O approach, “Open minds and open hearts make for better interviews. Skepticism later if necessary.” But note that even skeptical reports are then received by an audience that now believes the news media is on their side. So, even criticism of a sacred cow is more likely to be given a hearing. Sympathetic objectivity reduces the social friction of investigative journalism.
This reversed approach has won regard around the world. Le Monde, Suddeustch Zeitung, Swiss national radio, the Southern Weekly in Guangdong, China, and many others have featured Journey’s unique journalism.
Starting in 2010, Journey has been pioneering the development of “sympathetic objectivity.” (There was a long period in which I used the approach of “empathetic understanding” that was developed by Max Weber in the early 1900s, but I came to see as flawed.) In 2013, we published our classical programmatic statement of the use of “sympathetic objectivity” in journalism. Since then, a fast-growing literature on empathy in journalism, sociology, and politics has developed, sometimes inspired by Journey’s sympathetic objectivity. Some of the notable works include Mario Luis Small and Jessica McGary Calarco’s Qualitative Literacy (2022), Ari Goldman’s lectures and articles on “Empathetic Objectivity,” (2020-2024), and John Inazu and Time Keller’s Uncommon Ground (2020).
But we have much more development to do on “sympathetic objectivity” and to spread the word. This year we plan to fill in more details of the intellectual roots and current applications of S/O.
The old and new paradigms
The old way of doing journalism is based on the idea that a journalist is the prosecutor and judge of the people being covered by the news media. It is rooted in the investigative journalism paradigm.
While we also highly esteem investigative reporting, we don’t think it is the primary paradigm for journalism. Rather, most reporting in democratic societies should be rooted in a concern for building healthy social trust and community well-being. Journalism should flip the journalistic triad and start with genuine sympathy and empathy for members of their community, move to objectivity, and then if called for, add criticism.
The reporter should start with an affirmation that the person whom he or she is interviewing has at least one great story to tell about his or her life or organization. If the reporter is alert and excited to find the “news” about the person’s religious contribution to life, he or she will find the story could enrich the journalist’s life and that of the whole community. This involves a sympathy with the interviewee’s life, hopes, accomplishments, and struggles and empathy so that you can almost feel the other’s mindset in your mind. As one goes through the process of objectively weighing the value of the claims, a journalist may discern a need for skepticism.
The movie director Wayne Wang brilliantly used this method in constructing the script of his first made-in-America movie, “Chan is Missing” (1982). He eventually made several big hits including “The Joy Luck Club” and “Maid in Manhattan.”
The story is that a taxi driver’s friend named Chan Hung has disappeared with some money that was supposed to be used to purchase a taxi. His friend Jo sets out to find out what happened to Chan and the money. Maybe, Chan was the victim of an intra-Chinatown dispute and needs rescuing. So, Jo starts sleuthing in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
In one memorably happy scene, Jo interviews a mutual acquaintance of Chan’s, an agent in an insurance office just off the main street of Chinatown, Grant Avenue. The agent, a Mr. Lee, is one of those no-nonsense, tightlipped businessmen, more apt to give curt and to-the-point answers. It might seem hard to get Lee to give up much information, but Wang had discovered a secret weapon.
The insurance agent was a real-life character in Chinatown who was known to friends as having one story that he told over and over again in different versions about how he taught another Chinese man to do business in Chinatown. It was a very interesting story. However, most of his friends avoided hearing the story that he told again and again, but Wang figured this might be the one dramatic tale that Mr. Lee had, a great story, even if just one story. The story could go quite long and inevitably would have asides in detail about other people including Chan. His storytelling is primal detail freely flowing. What better source for a moviemaker— or a journalist! Wang ended up using the story in his movie, too.
Empathy is not enough.
The president of Columbia, Minouche Shafik, announced an extensive “empathizing” tour (“Listening Forums”) of student groups at the end of 2023. She visited many, many groups. It was an incredible effort that says a lot about her deep character. But saying that she heard what they were saying, felt their pain and that Columbia believed in values was not nearly enough. The pro-Palestinian students wanted action, not just feelings! They wanted to hear what elements of their viewpoint the president learned from and would adopt and how she would help heal Palestinian pain.
Unquestionably, President Shafik’s efforts were a big step forward in thinking about how to build a community together. But community is not just built on empathy to understand and feel the pro-Palestinians’ pain. She also needed sympathy which means collecting first aid for the Palestinians and learning and adopting the best features of their social innovations.
There are various types of sympathy, two of which are most important for journalism.
Typically, sympathy is a feeling of sorrow over the misfortunes of someone else. This is a powerful calling card for a journalist. If one can feel deep sorrow over even the travails of your enemy, you have created a humane connection. Typically, over time, the remembrance of great suffering may even become memorialized, and, perhaps then continues to be honored but also restricted to holidays and remembrance events. Once the misfortune enters into the memorial calendar, the practical impact on real life starts to shrink into pure emotion, a schmaltzy moment. So, the impact of this type of sympathetic understanding doesn’t have as long as a shelf life as a second type of sympathy.
Sympathy can mean a feeling of unity with someone else. In a vague abstract way, we feel a unity with all human beings as fellow kind. Legally, this type of sympathy can be quite important. But as a generalized statement, it is not very attached to any one person. However, a specific sympathy with someone’s contributions to one’s own well-being has an impact. It can be built upon the basis of appreciating that person’s or group’s positive contribution to the journalist’s and society’s own well-being and progress. This is a narrower type of sympathy because it doesn’t require that you have a fellow-feeling for the whole personality or group with all of their imperfections. Rather, it is a discovery and statement that in some ways the other person, even an enemy, has contributed to my own knowledge and well-being.
The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther once allegedly said that he would praise even Satan for contributing drinking song tunes like the one he used for “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” I don’t think he was talking about a wholesale sympathy for the Devil, but rather was observing that all of God’s creatures have something positive about themselves or their actions that could benefit everyone, though their total contribution might be pretty negative.
We must in some way see ourselves as allies with the Other in sharing resources together.
Then, our fellow-feeling is based not upon a sadness for the Other’s decline, but on a positive connection of appreciation for the gifts that we have received from the Other. Yet, at the same time, we remain free to be critical of the bad things that someone has done. This is a difficult psychological minuet of “love what you do; hate what you do.”
It takes a pretty strong psychological self-assurance to appreciate some aspect of our enemy. And you will likely not be reinforced by the judgments of your own group. Personally, we fear that we are entering into a grey zone that could become a slippery slope into the dark abyss and would prefer the safety of Black and White boundaries between Good and Evil. A deficient way of handling ambiguity is to claim a tolerance for everyone. This is a chilly solution.
A democracy is not sustainable just on the basis of a “tolerance” of competing viewpoints or “understanding” of the arguments of the opponents. A rational understanding is not an emotional connection to another person or an audience, though it may lead to one.
A democracy flourishes when the fractious groups see some hint of value added in what each other does. “Bless your enemies” becomes much easier to do over the long run in a democratic society when you see how your enemies help you at times. From every side come Good Samaritans, not just from the anti-Trump people or the Trump people, for example. African Americans often complain that they are seen as “problems” to be fixed. Rather, they rightfully believe that they bring many assets to the table that no one else does with the same quality and creativity. Most “fixers” neglect to look at the majority of African Americans who are upwardly mobile, educated, middle-class+ citizens with a heroic tradition.
This is why we call our approach “sympathetic objectivity.” One must start with a fellow feeling for the people who are the focus of reporting. “Fellow feeling” goes beyond the usually abstract idea that we are all made in the image of God. This abstraction has to be filled with some concrete emotional unification.
This union of fellow feelings is garnered in two important ways of having sympathy: first, a feeling of the pains and sufferings of the objects of our reporting; and second, and more importantly, is a recognition and thankfulness about how you benefit from something created by the people on who you report. This means a functional unity between yourself and the object of reporting. This is not a symbolic “we-are-all-one” humanistic unity. This is a fellow feeling based upon a mutual sharing of ways to be more functional in life. Functional unity is much more rooted in the reality of social interaction than is mere symbolism.
If you can learn from your enemy lessons on how to be a better person, then you will never look upon your enemy in quite the same way. And it is likely that your opponents will feel a little more respect and trust for you because you see something good in them.
The parable of the Good Samaritan, as reported in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verses 25-37, was controversial because Jesus said that his fellow orthodox Jews should learn how to live more compassionately from their violent opponents, the heterodox Samaritans. The equivalent comparison today would be telling Israelites that they need to learn about compassion, or some other things, from Hamas and accept them into their lifestyle. I think you can see how the controversy over Jesus’ teaching became a flashpoint. But Jesus’ point was that if you tell your enemy that you admire his compassion or some other things that he or she does, that enemy will be more likely to at least listen to your ideas and watch appreciatively some of your practices. We call this “functional sympathy:” You tell the party that you are reporting upon that you have adopted some of their practices in order to do a better job. In a small way, they are now on the hook for helping you to succeed using some of their methods!
However, even that sympathetic objectivity approach may have been enough to keep the peace on campus. There is one more element to sympathetic objectivity that is often overlooked.
Moral boundaries are also needed
There is one additional principle that one will discover while watching the president’s handling of the situation of pro-Palestinian versus Jewish and other students at Columbia University. You need empathy and the two kinds of sympathy, but there is one thread in the interaction that must not be neglected.
President Shafik needed to deeply and thoroughly explain her morality which identifies some actions as immoral. She needed to work very hard to identify and build the moral culture of Columbia. The students, quite rightly, noticed the hypocrisy that Columbia celebrated the 1968 occupiers as part of the “Columbia spirit” while coming down hard on their 2024 occupation. Both actions in 1968 and 2024 had immoral and violent elements. Jesus did not endorse the Samaritans’ occupation of Jewish lands and their attempts to block, harass, and sometimes kill orthodox Jews who attempted to come through on their way to Jerusalem to worship. Jesus showed empathy and sympathy without abandoning his religion or morality.
