Connection-based reporting: Journalistic perspectives on the impact of embodied identities and experiences on newswork

This article theorizes the term “connection-based reporting” to describe a journalistic practice that leverages reporters’ shared identities and lived experiences with the subjects they cover to produce fairer and more equitable news. Through the theoretical frameworks of journalistic identity, news trust, and feminist standpoint epistemology (FSE), a textual analysis of 186 metajournalistic articles and 93 X posts reveals journalists’ perceptions of the affordances of connection-based reporting. Specifically, journalists said connection-based reporting enables them to produce more authentic stories, identify newsworthy stories where others might not, foster deeper trust with sources, and incorporate more nuance and complexity in stories. This article argues that journalists are articulating a form of journalistic identity that embraces the standpoints that reporters bring to their work and considers connection-based reporting a legitimate form of news production, underscoring the potential of an FSE-informed journalistic practice. It also argues that the advantages afforded by connection-based reporting offer promising avenues through which to strengthen relationships of trust between journalists and news organizations and disenfranchised audiences.