Shining light on explanatory journalism’s impact on media, democracy, and society

[Commentary] Explanatory Journalism is a craft that members of the media have used for quite some time. Its newfound popularity and seemingly industry-wide en vogue status belies a long history and tradition by which journalists offer deep, engaging, detail-oriented accounts of important issues and events.

What is often lost in the discussion of explanatory journalism is that we all learn from it in two ways. Such work informs us about the given topic or issue a news item is engaging. That is, explanatory journalism makes us better, more knowledgeable consumers of news. But we also learn to be better producers of news and information when we emulate the style and format of explanatory journalism. For some time, think tanks like Brookings have delivered ideas and recommendations to readers using a form similar to explanatory journalism. We share with them a common goal of communicating ideas of great consequence in a thoughtful and impactful manner. For that reason, we’ve turned our academic attention to better understanding the functionality and the impact of explanatory journalism. In this new project, we highlight insights from esteemed journalists and scholars alike.