VERSE JOURNALISM: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO NEWS REPORTING IN THE 21st CENTURY
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Abstract
In an era characterized by information overload and intense competition within the digital media environment, journalism faces two fundamental challenges: maintaining factual accuracy while restoring humanity to news storytelling. Conventional news reporting, driven by speed, brevity, and competition for audience attention, often risks reducing human experiences to statistical data or sensational headlines. As a result, news coverage may lose its emotional dimension, social significance, and capacity to foster meaningful public understanding of the lived experiences of those affected by events.
This article aims to synthesize existing scholarship on Verse Journalism through a comprehensive literature review and conceptual analysis. It examines the historical development, theoretical foundations, defining characteristics, distinctions from other forms of journalism, and the potential of verse journalism to cultivate public understanding and empathy. The findings suggest that verse journalism represents a hybrid mode of communication that integrates fact-checked reporting with poetic language and experiential storytelling to convey both factual truth and human truth. Rather than abandoning the journalistic principles of accuracy, public accountability, and professional ethics, verse journalism expands the role of journalism beyond reporting what happened toward enabling audiences to understand how events affect people's lives. In doing so, it restores the emotional dimension of news, amplifies the voices of marginalized communities, and promotes civic consciousness and democratic engagement.
Furthermore, this article proposes The Verse Journalism Framework as a conceptual model for understanding the essential dimensions of verse journalism. The framework consists of five interconnected components: Verified Facts, Human Experience, Poetic Expression, Ethical Journalism, and Public Empathy. It argues that what distinguishes verse journalism as a form of journalism is not its poetic style, but its commitment to fact verification, public responsibility, and the ethical communication of human experience through narrative. Accordingly, The Verse Journalism Framework provides a theoretical foundation for future research, journalism education, and newsroom practice by demonstrating how factual accuracy and human-centered storytelling can be integrated to strengthen journalism's public mission in contemporary society.
Furthermore, the proposed framework contributes to journalism theory by integrating fact-verified reporting with human-centered storytelling within a unified conceptual model. This integrated framework advances an approach to journalism that combines factual accuracy, ethical responsibility, and a deeper understanding of human experiences, thereby reinforcing journalism's public mission in contemporary society.
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