Constructive Institute

ork through providing access to an inspiring best practices portal, a world-class fellowship programme, relevant training curricula, and rigorous academic research. We are situated in Aarhus, Denmark and work closely with Aarhus University, a young and modern university that has grown to become a leading public research university with international reach. ABOUT CONSTRUCTIVE JOURNALISM

Constructive journalism is a response to increasing tabloidisation, sensationalism and negativity bias of the news media today. It is an approach that aims to provide audiences with a fair, accurate and contextualised picture of the world, without overemphasising the negative and what is going wrong. While a healthy dose of negativity in the press is undoubtedly necessary, the chronic overexposure of negative constitutes a hidden media bias that has an erosive effect on the societies we live in. The aim of constructive journalism is to combat the trivialisation and degradation of journalism by media that often is more interested in entertaining and creating controversies than informing the citizenship. Constructive journalism is calm in tone, being less focussed on scandals, conflicts and outrage. It reports on important societal issues, setting them in the bigger picture and in their relevant context. Constructive journalism takes journalism’s democratic function seriously, building on the idea that journalism is a feedback mechanism that helps society self-correct. It holds, however, that awareness about a problem alone is unlikely to bring about corrective action. Constructive journalism, therefore, seeks to facilitate public debate not only around important problems, but also around possible solutions to improve the quality and the tone of public discussions. Constructive journalism is not about the “nice and cute”, nor is it positive or soft news that ignores problems. It is “two-eyed journalism”, balanced reporting on both good and the bad in society. Constructive journalism is not activism or advocacy and will never attempt to define the best solution to a problem. In short, constructive journalism can be thought about in two layers. The first one is the editorial aspect of picking a calmer tone and not giving into the excess of negativity and sensationalism. The other layer focusses on reporting on responses to social ills.