David Bornstein — On Our Lives with the News

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May 1, 2025

David Bornstein, co-founder and CEO of the Solutions Journalism Network, discusses the urgent need for a shift in journalistic narratives. He critiques traditional reporting's focus on fear and dysfunction, which fosters distrust in institutions. Instead, he advocates for compassionate journalism that uplifts stories of resilience and connection. Bornstein highlights the hidden value of government achievements and emphasizes the importance of curiosity-driven narratives to bridge societal divides and promote hope amidst media disengagement.

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INSIGHT

Journalism's Theory of Change

The 20th-century theory of journalism is that exposing what is wrong will mobilize change.
But constant focus on extremes has fueled fear and distrust, overwhelming human capacity.

ANECDOTE

Positive News Holds Vital Knowledge

David posed two stories: one school declined in graduation, the other improved significantly.
Most journalists prefer the negative story, yet the positive story holds vital knowledge for improvement.

INSIGHT

Outdated 'If It Bleeds' Journalism

"If it bleeds, it leads" is an outdated notion from the telegraph era.
Modern media's 24/7 cycle overwhelms human attention and damages the spirit.

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A calming and helpful conversation for making sense of the very story of our time, and how that is coming to us and being powerfully shaped through media and journalism. The theory of change of journalism as it came out of the 20th century, David Bornstein says, is that shining a light on what is going wrong — what is dangerous and dysfunctional, catastrophic or corrupt — will mobilize and lead us to correct it. But this emphasis on the terrible and the extreme, from whichever side of our cultural trenches you inhabit, has helped fuel a paralyzing, dehumanizing fear and the collapse of trust in institutions and in each other. Many of us are turning away from the news altogether. Is that the answer? How to live in this world with this media and retain meaningful, reasonable hope and agency? And what are we not seeing and hearing that we can orient towards? There is no one wiser on these questions than David Bornstein.

Krista spoke with David Bornstein before a small group of citizens of Minneapolis in November, 2024.

Find an excellent transcript of this show, edited by humans, on our show page.

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BIO

David Bornstein is co-founder and CEO of the globally esteemed Solutions Journalism Network. Learn more about their work with news organizations around the world, and their solutions story tracker at solutionsjournalism.org. He has been a journalist focusing primarily on social innovation for three decades. From 2010 to 2021, he co-authored the “Fixes” column in The New York Times. He is the author of The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank and How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, which has been published in 25 languages.

Special thanks to Dana Mortenson, who created the event that brought Krista and David together. She is founder of World Savvy, an organization that seeks to reimagine education to build the global competence necessary to navigate a complex and ever-changing world.

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