Critique-in-the-loop of news production

Abstract

This article reflects on the genesis, value, and limits of an experimental project aiming to challenge the production of stereotypes in news production. Specifically, I discuss the development of a tool - the Africa Stereotype Scanner – designed for journalists to analyze the linguistic content of their articles, identify stereotypes and frames, and reflect on their writing practices. I explain how this project was born from an iterative dialogue between critical scholarship and journalistic practice. Beyond a too familiar scholar-journalist rift, I outline how this project sought to break down epistemological boundaries between journalism and academia. This collaborative project, I argue, provides an example of how critical research can seek to enhance journalistic reporting and, dialectically, how an engagement with the field leads to new questions and invites another type of knowledge production. This critique-in-the-loop model paves the way for critical journalism scholarship that wrestles further with its normative foundations, elucidates its practical implications, and plays a role in generative interventions.