During Paraguay's 2023 presidential election, El Surtidor, a local independent news outlet, documented how political and economic groups were able to easily manipulate public conversations during that period through disinformation. Even though it debunked some of the most viral false content, the outlet's efforts were dwarfed by the impact of this manipulation.
What most caught the attention of Jazmín Acuña, co-founder and editorial director of El Surtidor, was seeing the number of young people who believed the election had been stolen, which led to weeks of violent protests across the country. For her, that moment made it clear that simply bringing accurate information to the public wasn't enough: journalism needed to rethink how it connects and demonstrates its value.
“I started to worry less about how to reach young audiences with the right information and more about the real possibility that it will not make a difference to them, either because they do not trust journalistic work in general or because they do not see any value in what we offer,” Acuña told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
This experience, combined with the decline in referral traffic, the growing public distrust of journalism, and the repositioning of big tech companies in relation to the press, led the journalist to develop what she calls "Change-centric Journalism." This concept of journalism, conceived during Acuña's fellowship at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, is, according to her, an alternative to the current content paradigm, which has reached its peak with the changes in traffic brought about by AI.
“It brought into focus the troubled relationship journalism has built with the most powerful elite,” she said. “The situation not only raises ethical concerns, but leaves us with the question of whether we can continue relying at all on platforms to reach people. These things have reassured me of the urgency to re-engineer how we engage with our audiences and how we think about our purpose.”
Acuña proposes reclaiming change as the central purpose of journalism and argues that media outlets need to intentionally engage with their audiences and reposition their work not as simply producing content, but as being active facilitators of social transformation.
“Rigorous, balanced and in-depth reporting is more important than ever in the face of growing influence of disinformation networks, the AI slop and democratic backsliding,” she said. “But there are other equally important aspects of human communication that I hope we pay more attention to so we don’t lose touch with the very ones we are trying to serve. In the framework that I have developed I try to include some of those aspects.”
Acunã believes that news outlets and journalists can and should facilitate spaces where people can connect, talk, discuss and engage with information collectively.
“In doing so, we are contributing to the very hard but vital endeavor of rebuilding the foundation of a public life, which underpins democracies, and sustains journalism”, she said.
Change-centric Journalism breaks with the idea that publication is the end point of journalistic work. In this approach, publishing is just one part of a broader engagement process, in which reporters spend more time working on stories, actively seek opportunities to facilitate change, and may even consider postponing publication to coincide with strategic moments.
To put the principles of Change-centric Journalism into practice, El Surtidor developed what it calls "La Memetodología." It's the media outlet’s own impact-planning framework that integrates elements of meme theory, agile design and product thinking. These tools guide the newsroom's work toward realizing El Surtidor's slogan: "information for action" in the digital age.
“A news outlet can have resources but still be focused on producing more content to respond to the issue of relevance,” Acuña said. “Other outlets can fall short of fully embracing this approach if they believe it is only a matter of adopting new ways of measuring their impact beyond reach and clicks. Lindsay Green-Barber from Impact Architects put it very succinctly to me: ‘the organisations that are successful in this work don't just build an Impact Tracker, they foster a culture of impact.’”
The process begins as soon as a journalist reports the first findings from their investigation. Instead of rushing to publish, the team uses a set of initial questions that guide a conversation in the newsroom to inform the impactful design of that story and the changes it can bring about. The answers serve to align all decisions—from graphic design to distribution strategy—around a shared vision for change.
The first question focuses on the story's "best-case impact scenario," analyzing the findings through a proprietary impact tracker that considers both quantitative and qualitative indicators. The next three questions help identify potential stakeholders for the story. The idea is to encourage the team to consider who they know and what connections can be fostered, from traditional sources to academics, civil society organizations, public officials, and even loyal followers of the outlet.
Finally, the memetic checklist, inspired by An Xiao Mina's book "Memes to Movements," comes into play. This list reminds us of what makes memes so powerful and guides the team to consider these characteristics when choosing which findings to focus on for dissemination and present them in a more understandable, shareable and adaptable way.
The checklist asks bigger questions like “Is it relatable?”, “Is it easy to understand?”, “Is it shareable?” and “Is it remixable?”. It then offers actions to ensure content addresses them.
A practical example of “La Memetodología” in action was the investigation into a Canadian cryptocurrency farm in Paraguay that was making noise 24 hours a day, affecting the quality of life and mental health of local residents. Even before publication, some indicators of its impact materialized: only after the interviews were conducted did the city's mayor order a new investigation into the case, and the company responsible for the cryptocurrency farm itself began recording the risk of noise pollution in its annual reports. After publication, El Surtidor organized community meetings, and residents submitted the report's material to the Public Prosecutor's Office. This led to the opening of the country's first trial against a cryptocurrency farm for noise pollution.
In this case, the memetic checklist allowed the team to select and share the findings that would be easiest to understand and share.
“For instance, the noise that residents recorded was a pretty powerful piece of information. The team made sure to broadcast it on our platforms,” Acuña said. “In fact, the first publication included that noise so that people would empathize very quickly with the plight of residents. It worked pretty well.”
The framework is deeply rooted in the experience of doing journalism in the Global South. According to Acuña, in this part of the world, there's often no alternative but to occupy the space of change.
“Journalism in the Global South has evolved not despite inequality, but because of it,” she said. “In contexts where citizens cannot rely on the state for protection or welfare, access to credible, local information becomes a matter of survival.”
It is this awareness of journalism's civic function that Acuña believes has led many digital outlets in the Global South to explicitly declare their goal of facilitating change. She cites as examples, in addition to El Surtidor, Colombia's Mutante, which sees its participatory journalism "as a tool for social change," and Brazil's Agência Mural, which wants its stories about underprivileged neighborhoods in São Paulo to be "relevant and useful, so that everyone can feel part of the same reality and capable of transforming it."
Still, one potential concern with this mindset of journalism is that the focus on change could blur the line between reporting and activism. However, as Acuña wrote in the project’s website, Change-centric Journalism doesn't propose that reporters dictate results or advocate predetermined solutions. The idea is to explore how journalistic work can generate value, and for whom, without compromising the profession's fundamental standards.
Janine Warner, co-founder and executive director of SembraMedia, a nonprofit that supports digital media entrepreneurs, praises Acuña’s framework. Warner highlights how she demonstrates how journalists can act as facilitators to provide information in an accessible way, so people can understand what's happening and what they can do if they want change.
“With Change-centric journalism, Jazmin has captured a number of trends that other journalists in Latin America are also experimenting with, from making journalism relevant to truly listening to and engaging with audiences, to reaching people where they are, whether that’s Instagram or an in-person event,” Warner told LJR. “One of the things I like best about Change-centric journalism is that it acknowledges that readers are not passive audience members, they can organize on their own to bring change.”
For Acuña, adopting Change-centric Journalism involves starting gradually and allowing room for experimentation. A simple first step, she says, might be to choose a story before publication and ask yourself, "What is the potential impact of these findings?" The journalist said that the initial impact design questions for your project can help.
“I do believe there’s something any newsroom, small or big, traditional or digitally native, can borrow from the framework,” she said. “What smaller outlets have in favour is that they can be more agile. Bigger organizations will probably find more constraints to embrace new ways of approaching work, but I would encourage them to make space for change.”
