A Foray into “Hope Journalism”   

Many reporters model themselves after the '70s heroes of "All the President's Men"--tough-minded journalists faithful to the sacred vow of objectivity as they search for the story that will nail a public offical to the wall while making their bylines known the world over.

The American News Service, a new news service based in Brattleboro, Vermont, wants to dispel that image and replace it with a new one--journalists as sensitive souls who connect with the communities they cover and support the little guy who's cleaning up the environment or improving his kid's school.

Sound a bit too warm and fuzzy for a big-city newsroom? Some journalism educators believe the new approach is key to the very survival of news reporting.

Taking a stab at what they call "hope journalism," the founders of the American News Service, the husband-and-wife team of Frances Moore Lappé and Paul Martin Du Bois, are gearing up to provide newspapers, TV and radio stations with reports of "constructive, solution-oriented activities..that will inform, intrigue and inspire."

It's this kind of journalism that Lappé and Du Bois, who codirect the service, believe gets short shrift compared with titillating tales of scandal-plagued politicians and the latest on the British royal family.

"There aren't stories about people who are problem-solvers in their communities, in workplaces, in government," says Lappé, a longtime citizen activist who gained attention in the '70s after publication of her book on the vegetarian lifestyle, "Diet for a Small Planet." Public problem-solving "is an underreported development that doesn't fit into categories like left-fights-right, right-fights-left," she says.

Lappé and Du Bois decided to create an alternative news service after the 1994 completion of their book "The Quickening of America," which details the rise of grassroots solutions to public ills such as racism, unemployment and the decline of communities. On a shoestring budget, with the help of four public policy foundations, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Surdna Foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation and the Rapoport Foundation, the couple formed a team of freelance writers around the country to begin writing on just these subjects.

Stories completed so far have included reports on a Baltimore citizens group that got the city to agree to use only those contractors that pay a "living wage"; on cities setting up "mobile mediation teams" of young people who intervene in local disputes before they turn violent; and on students who are becoming increasingly involved in decision- making at their own public schools.

ANS' first four stories were shipped last fall to 130 trial subscribers in 38 states who responded to an introductory mailing about the service. Editors and producers will continue to receive twice-monthly batches of stories, which, for the moment, are free. So far ANS stories have appeared in papers such as Utah's Deseret News and the National Catholic Reporter.

Lappé and Du Bois are now in the process of tallying up clips and will use the numbers to gauge whether or not they will continue the project. But even if the number of clips is not significant, says ANS Media Relations Director Tanya Tabachnokoff, ANS may end up becoming a research service that would dig up raw materials on hope stories for subscribers who would then write a local version of the story.

Art Jahnke, editor of new media for Boston magazine, has written one story so far for ANS, on conflict- resolution in communities. While he says he likes the concept of ANS, he admits that it was hard for him to adjust to focusing on good news. "As a journalist I had some reservations about writing a 'good news' story. But I happen to agree that the media report only bad news, and that there are positive things that don't get reported because they're not sexy," he says. "There's still a bit of the bad news journalist in me. After reporting on one conflict that was [successfully resolved], I went out of my way to find one that wasn't."