Constructive Mirror (Round 6)
Summary
The Constructive Mirror is a software to provide newsrooms and publishers with an innovative technical tool for evaluating the “constructiveness” of their news output. The software will be based on sentiment analysis that helps identify various (non-) constructive elements and biases in the news coverage. The main aim of developing this prototype is to give newsrooms around the world a tool that helps them quickly review the body of their reporting and see whether it is in any way biased or is otherwise missing elements typical to constructive journalism, such as balance, accuracy, future-orientation, solutions-focus, etc.
The solution
It is now well-established that journalism excessively focuses on problems, conflicts, and the extreme in order to draw attention from. The risk is that the public gets an overly negative picture of their community and the world. We hope that the Constructive Mirror will challenge the well-ingrained editorial habits. By allowing news organisations to become conscious of their biases, we hope to encourage them to engage in more constructive, balanced, accurate and future-oriented news reporting. Our goal is to encourage all news organisations to take a more responsible stance towards the journalism they produce.