TUESDAY 27 JULY 2021

In this newsletter you'll find a podcast and a chapter on one of the most important topics of this year's Digital News Report. You'll also find a new paper from one of our Journalist Fellows and a piece on a project tracking how Nigeria is tackling maternal mortality. 

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Explore Digital News Report 2021 here | Check out data from your country | Downdload a PDF version | Read our methodology

The issue. Do audiences want impartial news or do they want news with a point of view? This year's Digital News Report tries to answer this question by asking people in the 46 markets covered by the report. Our findings, explained by co-author Craig T. Robertson in this chapter, are quite clear: across all markets, 74% of our respondents think news outlets should reflect a range of views and leave it up to people to decide.

⚖️ Equal time? We also find that 72% of people think that news outlets should give equal time to different sides of debates on political issues. Despite prominent discussions on social media, only 17% are in favour of outlets giving less time to weaker arguments. On the question of neutrality, 66% think news outlets should try to be neutral on every issue and 24% think there are some issues where it makes no sense to be neutral.

👵 Age and ideology matter. Older people strongly support ideals of impartiality. Younger people are more likely to say news brands should argue for points of view and give less time to weaker arguments. They also think neutrality sometimes doesn’t make sense. Similarly, left-leaning people are more likely to say news outlets should argue for particular points of view and give less time to weaker arguments. They are also more likely to say that neutrality sometimes doesn’t make sense. 

"Partisan voices have their role in public discussions and so do impartial news providers. People admit they are often drawn to partisan voices. They say they're fun. But they also want a clear dividing line between that and the news"

Craig T. Robertson
Research Fellow
Listen on: Spotify | Apple | Google

The issue. Maternal mortality is one of Nigeria’s most persistent health challenges. Research suggests the country accounts for 20% of global maternal deaths. The rate has remained high for two decades despite efforts to address the issue by government and by several national and international initiatives.

The project. To help reporters cover this issue, Nigerian journalist Ashley Okwuosa and engineer Chuma Asuzu launched the Maternal Figures project, a fact-checked database of 160 interventions that have been implemented to reduce maternal mortality in the country. The database serves both as a resource for journalists looking to produce in-depth reporting and a chance to investigate the impact of interventions, our contributor Laura Oliver report in this piece. 

The topic. "Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying the roots. This is the spirit of peer review, where the goal is not to vilify but to improve quality," writes our Journalist Fellow Mark Zablon Oloo when presenting his new paper on how Kenyan journalists are working together to issue a weekly quality review in the form of the Media Observer newsletter. 

The paper. Mark's paper outlines how the Media Observer works, the key benefits it yields, and how other regions can implement their own peer review initiatives. "Feedback is a vital part of any communication process," he writes. "And while the feedback we receive in comment sections and on social media from our audiences is helpful, receiving feedback from colleagues who know how the sausage is made is incredibly valuable."
 

📃 Read Mark's paper here

With press freedom under threat around the world... we are doing all we can to help journalists fight back. Our new fund brings journalists working in difficult environments on to our signature Fellowship Programme so they can build the networks, skills and knowledge they need. Please donate any amount you can from £25 to the fund so more journalists under pressure can spend time with us.

🇰🇿 The rise of new media. "People across Kazakhstan have turned to YouTube, Telegram, and Instagram to conduct investigations, discuss events, report on protests, and push against the government’s narrative," write Sher Khashimov and Raushan Zhandayeva in this piece about the rise of alternative media in the country. | Foreign Policy

💉 Vaccine misinformation. “After Charlottesville, white supremacists were scrambling to change the names of their groups to things like Muslims for Peace." Misinformation expert Joan Donovan explains why anti-vaccine groups changing their names to avoid being banned by Facebook is not a new phenomenon. | NBC News 

🇻🇳 How to cover Vietnam. Foreign journalists need to move beyond tropes of communism, authoritarianism, and 'a war-torn country,' when reporting on Vietnam, says Vietnamese journalist Sen Nguyen in this conversation with Nithin Coca, published by our friends at Splice. | Splice  

🇫🇮 Media literacy. Finland’s success in media literacy is helped largely by school students who are taught "to critically understand and assess information reported by all forms of media.” The nordic country ranks best in Europe for fighting disinformation, spurred on by attacks from their Russian neighbour, Harriet Barber writes. | Daily Telegraph

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Today's email was written by Eduardo Suárez and Matthew Leake.