Can narrative journalism offer a solution to news avoidance? Cristian Lupsa, Chair of the European Press Prize Preparatory Committee, speaks with iMEdD at the 2024 International Journalism Forum about the value and distinctive features of long-form journalism.
It all started with a university assignment he was given 20 years ago—analysing the story of a world diving champion and his attempt to break the world record in honour of his partner, who died trying. This love story, published in Sports Illustrated, inspired Cristian Lupsa, now Chairman of the European Press Prize (EPP) Preparatory Committee, to pursue narrative journalism.
Narrative journalism, often called “long form,” combines the rigors of traditional journalism with the craft of storytelling. It recounts actual events in a way that captivates readers, making complex subjects more engaging and accessible to a broad audience.
News Avoidance: Ideas for reconnecting the public with journalism
Can public trust in the media be restored? What kinds of content make investigative journalism more accessible? Can broader representation of social groups help reverse news avoidance? Elli Petraki, a second-year journalism student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, noted the innovative solutions that four journalists – with different perspectives from each other – proposed to combat news avoidance.
Why tell a story?
For journalists, everything begins with a story. However, we live in an era where the importance of facts cannot be overlooked. Researchers Van Krieken and Sanders, who study the role of storytelling in communication, emphasise in their research that narrative journalism strikes a balance between ethics and aesthetics, fact and fiction. This interplay generates tension within the journalistic landscape.
According to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report (2024), “While providing
news that keeps people up to date with what is going on is a defining part of what the public wants and expects, many people want the news media to satisfy a range of needs, and few want‘just the facts’”. In a time when social media and journalism vie for the public’s attention, storytelling emerges as the critical element that distinguishes journalism from blogs, news aggregators, and brief online news articles.
Cristian Lupsa believes this is not a conflict between fact and narrative but rather a collaboration. “We need to realize that we’re not as rational as we think we are,” Lupsa explains. “The way our brains work is if you tell me five points of data, I might remember one, and I might remember the one that I find is relevant for me and that I want to tell other people.” He argues that the quantity of data alone is insufficient to make a topic more convincing. “People believe in stories. They believe in what resonates with them emotionally. They trust those who are closest to them.”
The importance of character
According to the Reuters report, many who selectively avoid the news find the media repetitive and dull. Contrary to journalists’ shared belief that audiences only require the news highlights, the report indicates that audiences seek media experiences that provide entertainment and escape their daily lives.
For Cristian Lupsa, every story—fiction or nonfiction—requires a central character, a complex situation, and a quest for resolution. The audience engages with the character’s struggle to overcome various trials and tribulations. “Even though journalism is changing, and there’s a lot of short-form journalism, […] I still believe that it’s only going to work if we follow a character on this journey of making sense of the world or trying to fix a particular problem that they’ve encountered.” In a related piece, he argues that stories can become addictive when they draw us into a world where we lose ourselves, allowing us to identify our own challenges with those faced by the protagonists.
The Personal Narrative and Gen Z
In narrative journalism, personal experience can be woven into the storytelling. Younger audiences, particularly members of Gen Z, have their relationship with information primarily shaped by social media. According to the World Association of News Publishers, Gen Z desires informative media while retaining a human touch. As the Reuters report confirms, “young people and news avoiders are slightly more likely to want news that inspires or diverts them.” “I think we live in a world where people respond better to information transmitted by people they can see and understand,” Lupsa adds. “Social media has taught us to sort of consume things that way.”
Lupsa began writing in the first person when he realised that revealing the personality behind the text significantly impacts the audience’s trust in the journalist. “If you speak to me on social media about issues you care about, I’m going to pay attention to those issues because I like you, I like your style, and I like how you look at the world. And there’s an absolutely subjective element to this. And I think journalists need to embrace the fact that most news consumers, especially younger ones, are used to consuming all information that way.”
Journalists must find their place within the story to balance objectivity and personal experience. For Lupsa, this means explaining the world personally to connect with individuals who resonate with his narrative. “That also means that some people who might use that information will say, ‘I’m not going to get it from this guy because I don’t like him. I don’t trust them […] The plus side is the sense of connection that the public has with a name and a face.”
From one to many
According to the Reuters Report, audiences expect the media to inform them about current events and educate them to understand those events better. Understanding the news ranks as the second most essential need the media fulfills. Notably, 63% of respondents desire the media to offer perspective.
Cristian Lupsa believes journalists must balance narratives to serve the audience effectively. “By serving the public, I mean: how can I tell you that something is more complicated than it seems?”
He encountered the challenge of perspective while covering a Roma community in Romania. In his effort to tell the community’s story, he discovered underlying rivalries between different groups within it. “Sometimes, simply presenting a narrative isn’t enough,” he notes. A journalist is responsible for engaging and showcasing all sides, but not necessarily with equal emphasis. “I don’t believe in giving all sides the same weight, but show how they interact and where they clash and where they overlap in a way that for the reader is sort of revealing, saying, I feel like I understand the complexity of the world a little better”.
Honesty with the audience fosters the trust they seek. “We need to be more present in any community we cover so that people see you and look at you as a human being with a job to do and a mandate here to tell a particular story. But they understand it’s you. It’s not just the institution. And maybe more trust can be developed that way. So, at least for me, that’s where it comes from trying to get it across in a more personal way. Hopefully, it works.”
Translated by: Anatoli Stavroulopoulou
