Starting points for every journalist

Whatever your context, these six starting points apply. Values-aware journalism begins with individual practice – even small shifts matter.

  1. Understand your own values. Identify what matters most to you, and reconnect with why you chose to work in the media. Use the Schwartz values map to identify your five most and five least important values. Notice when your work feels aligned with your values, and when it feels in tension.
  2. Make values-aware framing choices. Where you have editorial freedom – and most journalists have some – notice which values you default to and consider alternatives. Choose language thoughtfully: "residents" rather than "taxpayers", "people affected" rather than "locals caught up in".
  3. Notice patterns. Track which pitches get accepted and rejected. Notice which frames your editors favour. This awareness helps you navigate your context more effectively.
  4. Have strategic conversations. When the moment is right, question defaults with editors. Frame suggestions around strengthening journalistic goals: "I'd like to try leading with what people affected are experiencing – I think that gives readers a fuller and more accurate picture."
  5. Be transparent in whatever ways are within your reach. In your social media bio, newsletter, your 'about' page – name the values that shape your approach. You do not need organisational permission to be honest about your own practice.
  6. Find others. Colleagues in your newsroom or professional network might be wrestling with the same questions – connecting with each other helps.

For independent, public-interest and reader-funded outlets

Where ownership, organisational purpose and staff values align, the full framework becomes available. In addition to the starting points above:

You can move through all three stages

This includes reader-supported media, public-interest journalism, outlets with mission-aligned ownership, community media and non-profit journalism. Your context makes the full framework accessible.

For journalists in commercially driven organisations

You face real structural constraints. You cannot change ownership interests or editorial culture on your own. But you have agency within your sphere of influence.

Work within your sphere

The starting points above apply in full. You may not be able to shift organisational values, but you still have agency in how you approach individual stories, source communities and frame your own practice.

For those working for structural change

If your work focuses on changing media ownership models, advocating for public funding reform, or building alternative media infrastructure, this toolkit is most relevant at an organisational level.

The case for structural reform

The core arguments embedded in this toolkit – that journalism shapes culture, that the current emphasis on extrinsic values causes measurable social harm, and that there is an audience for journalism that better reflects what most people care about – also support the case for structural reform.

Contact Common Cause Foundation if you would like to connect with others working on structural change in UK media. We can connect you with the broader values movement, and with researchers and advocates working on media reform.

For editors and newsroom leaders

You have genuine power to shift culture – often within constraints, but significantly nonetheless. You shape what gets covered, how it is framed and whose voices are centred.

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