Introduction to AI (in an hour)
AI for Journalists
Peggy Holman
unpublished case story
Bellevue, WA United States
Date 10/11/2001
Annotation: This is a process that works for introducing appreciative inquiry when there's about an hour available and less than about 50 people.
I did this at a national journalism conference as a breakout session. Here's the description people had of the session in their programs:
JOURNALISM AT ITS BEST: WHAT WENT RIGHT IN COVERING TERRORISM?
Many journalists say coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon hit high water marks in American journalism. What can we learn from this coverage that can strengthen our practices day in and day out? This interactive session will introduce appreciative inquiry, a dynamic way to frame questions that can transform communities and organizations (including the ones you cover and the one you work for) into healthy,
productive places to live and work. Tired of "problem-solving"? Investigate this.
Since people had already been "talked at" for 2 days, I opened briefly with, "To explore what went right in covering terrorism, I am introducing a process that has been very successful in organizations based on research that demonstrates that if you focus on what's working and build on strengths and aspirations, you'll achieve more, do it faster and sustain it longer than if you focus on problems." I then handed out 2 questions (below) and had them split into pairs for 30 minutes to interview each other. Since these folks are trained to interview, my only instruction was to follow the energy of the story.
When they returned, we put the chairs in a circle and I asked them to discuss their experience, inviting comments about content, process or other
observations. Most shared their partner's story first. Then the comments moved into the experience.
About 5 minutes before our closing time, I asked each person to speak a phrase of what they were taking from the session. They went around the
circle, each saying something. Most spoke about how human the powerful stories were; that they engaged not just the humanity of the people in the
story but of the storyteller as well. One editor spoke about needing a whole new paradigm for their industry. A journalism student commented that what he was hearing created powerful stories was just the opposite what they were learning in school.
When the session finished, I handed out Kendy Rossi's fact sheet (attached), with the new AI site at http://appreciativeinquiry.cwru.edu on it and an article by a BBC journalism, Martyn Lewis, called "Is Good News Bad News?" from the
Images and Voices of Hope web site. That was it.
The Questions:
1. The dark events of Sept. 11 have unleashed a remarkable flood of
life-energy. Even disturbing images and stories have had the capacity to
inspire productive responses. Describe a story you've been a part of that
made a difference for others and for yourself. What made it powerful?
2. Take yourself forward in time. It is 2003 and journalists made an
extraordinary contribution to creating a healthy, vital, and safe world.
What is going on? How are we different? What was it you and others did
back in 2001 to achieve this remarkable transformation?
Online Resources:
Lewis talk from Images & Voices of Hope site
Resource Files:
AI Fact Sheet (doc )
|
|
