Book Review: Feature Writing and Reporting: Journalism in the Digital Age, by Jennifer Brannock Cox

Leadership is examined in sections such as governance and public opinion, leadership as symbolic capital, and the moral politics of leadership. While Dodd’s discussions of Bourdieu’s field theory and the role of metaphor in shaping behavior may be challenging material for some undergraduates, the chapter combines with Chapter 1 to adequately prepare readers for the case study and analysis in Part 2. As Dodd sees it, news reports throughout the Tasmania election season amounted to a natural experiment in solutions journalism. Adopting the tag “New Tasmania” was an effort by governmental authorities to foster consensus and instill hope by focusing conversation on shared goals for a better future – attributes that align with the aims of solution journalism as practiced elsewhere in the world. The case study applies the framework outlined in Part 1 to consider how or if solutions journalism may foster hope while it also broadens our understanding of leadership and who may qualify as a leader. Specialized knowledge of the geopolitics of Tasmania is helpful but not necessary to benefit from the case study and its conclusions. Spoiler alert: Problems that existed prior to the New Tasmania campaign persist. The viewpoints of potential thought leaders were marginalized and certain topics, such as a proposed ban on poker machines, took on outsized importance. Dodd turned to Tasmania because its relative isolation offered a clean slate to sample solutions reporting but found even here that “global winds of change and adversity, raised expectations and hopes dashed” were intractable (p. 150). Without agreeing among themselves to adapt strategies of solutions journalism, the Tasmanian reporters had tried nonetheless to address their audiences’ diminished optimism and public engagement. “[Even] though their responses to these challenges were imperfect,” Dodd concludes, “studying them enriches global understanding of solutions reporting, a practice as pervasive as hope itself” (p. 150.) While a capsule history of reporting on “good news” would have been useful context to assess Dodd’s conclusions that solutions journalism will increase peoples’ willingness to fix problems without passively waiting for officials to act first, Solutions journalism is a worthwhile addition to our understanding of ways that responsible, responsive reporting may be enhanced by adapting knowledge and practice drawn from fields beyond our own. (END)