Draft:Empowerment journalism

• Comment: The issue with this article that sticks out is that the sourcing is mostly comprised of articles from, or interviewing members of the Global Reporting Centre, who coined the term. When you put these articles to one side to see if the other sources have anything to say about the concept, there isn't anything left. If the concept is confined to the practice of one independent journalism outlet, it should perhaps be treated in the article for Global Reporting Centre. Otherwise, more independent sourcing is needed, given the agreed approach is to express caution in having Wikipedia legitimise a term that only a single entity is creating and using. ＶＲＸＣＥＳ (talk) 06:11, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

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Empowerment journalism is an approach that emphasizes collaboration between journalists and communities to produce stories that are both accurate and meaningful to those directly affected. This method seeks to move beyond traditional "parachute journalism," where reporters briefly visit a community without fully understanding its complexities, often leading to superficial coverage. Empowerment journalism involves co-creating content with community members.

The term "empowerment journalism" was coined in 2016 by Peter W. Klein, a journalist and professor at the University of British Columbia. The Global Reporting Centre, which Klein founded, developed the Empowerment Journalism Guide, as an effort to empower marginalized communities that report being ignored or misrepresented. The approach puts storytelling power in the hands of story subjects, an approach that violates mpst news standards that require independence from story subjects.

One of the earliest efforts to use "empowerment journalism" was the anthology film "Strangers at Home," which featured stories from marginalized communities in Europe, including immigrants, Roma people, Jews and Muslims. PBS NewsHour featured an 8-part series called "Turning Points," which put storytelling agency in the hands of Indigenous people in the Arctic, who told stories of struggles and resilience with alcohol dependence.

This approach to reporting is still in its infancy, not yet accepted by many mainstream news organizations. As noted by scholars Maya Lefkowich, Britney Dennison and Peter Klein: "By reimagining the 'newsroom' within – rather than distinct from – communities, [empowerment journalism] illustrate[s] tensions and opportunities for journalists to transition from gatekeeper to collaborator and empower story 'subjects' to produce and own their content."