At the heart of Change-Centric Journalism is the choice to own change as intent
At the heart of Change-Centric Journalism is the choice to own change as intent
If journalism is to prevail and overcome its existential challenges, the industry needs to broaden its current focus on content. Drawing on the experience of Global South newsrooms, this project proposes embracing change for a sharper vision of purpose.
The audacity of planning for impact
Change-Centric Journalism reorients publishing as only one part of a larger process. Measuring impact is key, but it is just as crucial to explore how to get there.
Engaging audiences for change
Change-Centric Journalism approaches audience growth through the lens of purposeful engagement. Instead of chasing visibility, it plans for meaningful interactions
The power of community-building
Change-Centric Journalism puts effort into building a layer of common understanding that sustains public life and underpins democracy
Reporting grounded in care
Change-Centric Journalism requires practicing genuine, active concern for others. An ethics of care, just as much as rigour and fairness, is what will restore trust with people.
Building upon a decade of journalistic work by El Surti, this project was refined by Jazmín Acuña during her Reuters Institute Journalist Fellowship at Oxford University.
The framework for Change-Centric Journalism
The framework for Change-Centric Journalism
Explore this tool with principles and practices that can help reframe journalism’s value. It offers a roadmap to support experimentation and recalibration.
Let’s meet up
Let’s meet up
Join the conversation about Change-Centric Journalism. Stay tuned for more details on dates and times
- Meetup with Sembramedia
August, 2025 - Meetup with Ajor
August, 2025 - Meetup with Impact Network
September, 2025
What others think
What others think
“I celebrate the free press that sheds light over darkness. I celebrate these journalists that embed themselves in the communities.”
María Sol Arrúa Ayala, El Surtidor’s audience member
“Unless journalism provides a route to action or change (...) then for many people it will continue to be an empty product with little value”
News for All: Participatory Research Report
“Journalism doesn’t change anything on its own – but it is often a key part of a much bigger array of people, organisations and action that does”
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s impact statement
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Change-Centric Journalism?
Far too often, the response to the question, “Why should journalism be saved?” is some variation of “Because it is inherently valuable”. It’s a vague and frequently immeasurable assertion that fuels an ever-increasing stream of content to compete in a market that rewards volume over value.
This focus distracts newsrooms from the widely known but often disregarded reason they stay afloat in the face of unspeakable difficulties: change.
It is time to reset our purpose and redirect our efforts to measuring how we equip individuals, communities, and societies to thrive.
Change-Centric Journalism adds a layer of intentionality to our work that is deeply aware – and committed to – the context in which it plays out. It is rooted in the pursuit of impact that improves the lives of people through care-based reporting and purposeful engagement with them. At its core, it aims to revitalise the kind of public life that sustains democracies.
Who is it for?
Anyone looking to broaden their view about how journalism could restore relevance and trust, Change-Centric Journalism offers a plausible answer. The Framework of Change-Centric Journalism can be particularly useful to:
- Editors and media leaders, especially in small to mid-sized digital outlets, who are seeking clarity of mission, better use of limited resources, and tools to inspire teams facing burnout or stagnation.
- Subscription, membership, or public-service models, where the case for continued support must go beyond reach and towards demonstrable social value.
- Donors, funders, and media development practitioners looking to assess, support, or invest in journalism with a clear changemaking orientation.
What does it take?
Change-Centric Journalism may require that newsrooms adopt new skills, new workflows and new roles. It needs leadership buy-in and resources – time, money, methods. Most importantly, these efforts will only be successful if they sit atop a strong foundation of principles and practices, which are described in here.
But is it advocacy?
Change-Centric Journalism does not propose that journalists dictate outcomes. To paraphrase Propublica’s seminal white paper on journalism’s impact, advocacy begins with certainties, “with the facts already assumed to be established”, while journalism always begins with questions.
Change-Centric Journalism insists that our practice must become deeply aware of the context in which it operates, and effectively incorporate the needs of the communities it serves.
The word change can evoke ideas of activism, but in this project it serves as a more grounded organising concept than impact, which has become overused – across metrics, fundraising, strategy and marketing – to the point of confusion.
Change reframes the work as relational, dynamic, and ongoing. It shifts our attention from proving that journalism has value to exploring how it generates value – and for whom.
In a rapidly evolving information landscape, viewing journalism through a change-centric lens allows for more productive discussions about how to evolve our practice for relevance in the 21st century.
Who is behind this?
Change-Centric Journalism the result of practical experience and research. During her six months as Reuters Institute Journalist Fellow at Oxford University, Jazmín Acuña built a framework for Change-Centric Journalism based on a decade’s work of El Surtidor from Paraguay.
With her co-founders, Alejandro Valdez Sanabria and Juan Heilborn, and a superb team of reporters, designers and illustrators, El Surti broke through barriers with award-winning visual journalism – a mix of reporting with images that drive attention, such as memes. Their work has been praised locally and internationally as a prime example of how newsrooms can make information more accessible and shareable to new audiences.
El Surti has been showcased in panels, podcasts and articles for their innovative approaches to audience engagement. From 2020 to 2022, it launched and led Latinográficas, a regional effort to train reporters, designers and illustrators from Latin America in visual journalism. The program hosted 22 fellows from cities such as Buenos Aires, Cali, Ciudad de México, La Habana, Cochabamba and more; it delivered talks with leading industry experts such as AX Mina, Joe Sacco, Maria Teresa Ronderos, Eliezer Budasoff, Natalia Viana, Alicia DeSantis and Eleri Harris; and it convened more than 500 participants during the open seminars.
Change-Centric Journalism also draws insights in the industry about the impact of journalism, media research, engagement and solutions journalism.
The project has a strong perspective from the Global South, where outlets have had to navigate the changemaking space because, in many cases, there is no alternative.
In contexts where citizens cannot rely on the state for protection or welfare, access to credible, local information becomes a matter of survival. In these settings, the value of journalism can only be understood in relation to the urgent needs of audiences.
How can I get in touch?
If you want to get more information about Change-Centric Journalism, have a chat or want to apply some of what you see here in your reporting or your newsroom, we’ll be happy to hear from you. Send an email ↗
