Skills delivering balanced messages are vital

WITH BACK TO SCHOOL around the corner, some students (and their parents) will be wondering if their course selection is going to help them get where they’re going. Well, if a job is your next stop, consider this: Workopolis says among the most common skills requested by employers are communication, customer relations, and writing.

Certainly not everything centres around these skills. For example, if you’re a crisp, logical thinker who can reason through a situation – something education at all levels aims to help you be – you’ll do well in the interviews that get you a job, let alone situations you encounter in everyday life.

But you still need to be able to communicate whatever enlightenment you have to offer. So, in the end, communication skills are indeed a vital part of the whole package. As @ craigcrest said as part of a Twitter conversation about this Workopolis report, “we have different natural talents. Skills can be acquired

with practice and determination. Communications is KEY to success.”

As a writer, I’m encouraged to see writing skills weighing in so heavily. I’m particularly pleased now that social media has taken hold and so many more people are communicating messages.

Here’s why. Professional journalists spend a couple of years in college or four years in university learning their trade, earning a diploma or degree. Maybe it goes without saying that in doing so, they learn a variety of communications skills. But I’ll say it anyway, because it follows that someone without such training, who develops a blog or website and calls themselves a citizen journalist, may be lacking in some of those communications skills.

Also pertinent to this discussion is the fact that one reason citizen journalism caught on was because readers, listeners and viewers wanted to hear more from decision makers and opinion leaders. Through citizen journalism, people who found it tough to have a voice in conventional media have their own media, for better or worse. Polarization can happen, and does, when those who think a certain way draw news only from sources with a limited scope.

This is tough on conventional agriculture, and science. It’s discouraging to reach out to those who see things differently, to try to reach some level of understanding and balance, when the forums they frequent aren’t open to hearing both sides.

A new research paper in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences suggests journalists have an even bigger role in what’s called knowledge-based journalism.

It’s kind of an odd-sounding discipline – after all, isn’t all journalism supposed to be knowledge based?

This paper’s authors argue that journalists and their news organizations have an important role to play in contextualizing and critically evaluating expert knowledge. They are well placed to facilitate discussion that bridges entrenched ideological positions. And finally, they can promote consideration of a broader menu of policy options and technologies.

Some conventional journalists think adding perspective to a discussion is already their role. I agree.

But adding perspective doesn’t mean just presenting one side. That may please those who are not interested in a broad vi- sion. But to deepen the understanding of any issue, it’s important to hear all sides.

My colleague Jim Evans from the University of Illinois and I have created a blogging approach we hope promotes knowledge-based journalism, while simultaneously making it possible for citizen journalists to make their points.

It’s a straight-forward, three-paragraph structure. The writer starts with the issue, then brings in the new development in the second paragraph, and finally, gives their opinion in the third paragraph.

By then, readers hopefully have enough background to agree, disagree or converse intelligently.

Sharing information and transferring knowledge requires as many tools as we can muster. And the easier it is to use them, the better.