Speaker 1: My name is Marina Walker-Guevara and I'm Natalie Applewhite. We are part of the editorial team at the Pulitzer Center, which means that we help journalists and news outlets tell stories that aren't getting enough attention in the media. We call these underreported stories. These are stories that don't only look at what

Speaker 2: is happening in the world, but also about why things are happening. They look at the roots of the big issues our world faces, to examine the root causes, the human impacts, and the possible solutions. Today we're going to explore a few ways that you can find underreported stories that interest you. It always starts with getting curious.

Speaker 1: One way to start finding underreported stories is to think critically about what we see in the media. When you look at the front page of a newspaper, or at the home page of a news site, or when you watch a news show on television, you can ask yourself, what is happening and why? Who is affected and why? Who might be affected and is not represented in the stories? And finally, what do these issues look like in my community? Let's look at how a few journalists use questions like this to find underreported stories about the coronavirus pandemic. Public health researchers had warned for decades of the dangers of a global pandemic. Now, as COVID-19 spreads across the globe, Pulitzer Center and its grantees are asking, why were these warnings ignored? They are also asking, who is getting access to necessary medical equipment and medical treatment, and who isn't? And what is the impact of the crisis on the most vulnerable, including communities of color, undocumented immigrants, and students? They ask why these communities are the most impacted, and what can be done to help.

Speaker 2: Another way that you can identify underreported stories is by talking to people about the issues that matter to them. Choose someone in your life, or in your community, and ask them questions like, what issues are important to you and why? Or, what issues are impacting the people you care about, and how? Let's look at an example. Daniela Zoffman traveled to Canada in 2014 to investigate why the rate of HIV infections was rising, specifically amongst Indigenous communities in Canada. After listening really closely to dozens of people speak about the issues that mattered to them, she learned that many Indigenous Canadians were continuing to navigate the lasting impact of Canada's Indian residential schools. That legacy helped explain the root causes of the HIV crisis, and many other crises in these particular communities. The work that

Speaker 3: I've done so far largely focuses on the school system in Canada, which ran from 1870 until 1996. And it was a network of boarding schools where young Native children would be forcibly taken from their homes and sent sometimes hundreds of miles away, where they would be told that they could not speak their own languages, they could not practice their culture, and they had to assimilate into

Speaker 2: Western Canadian culture. Daniela collaborated with survivors of this system to create double exposure portraits that document their experiences. By continuing to ask how this happened and why, she has gone on to investigate the lasting impacts of similar Indian residential school systems in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

Speaker 1: Often your immediate surroundings can also be inspiration for underreported stories. Where are you now? What do you see? Who do you see? Now you can ask yourself, what doesn't make sense to you? What do you see that seems unfair or confusing? And what do you want to know more about? When photojournalist Sim Chi Yin was living in Beijing, a city of more than 21 million people, she became curious about the city's migrant workers, an estimated 1 million people. These chefs, karaoke hostesses, security guards, domestic workers are the backbone of Beijing's service industry. Yet due to the high cost of living in Beijing, many of these migrants had to live in basements beneath the city's skyscrapers and streets. Because of this, they were unkindly dubbed the rat tribe by

Speaker 4: Chinese media. I've explained to them that because they've been dubbed the rat tribe, I want to make portraits of them to show people how normal they are, how they look like any other young, hip Chinese person who lives above ground. The only difference is that they can't afford to live above ground and so for the time

Speaker 2: being they live below ground. How can you find underreported stories that are important to you? Try exploring the news, talking to the people around you about the issues that matter to them and getting curious about the places and the

Speaker 1: people around you. Ask yourself what issues aren't getting attention? Who's affected by those issues? How? Why? And is there anybody trying to help? Dive into

Speaker 2: your curiosity. Notice what underreported stories interest you and as you do, you'll start becoming more aware of the deeper issues facing our society and the potential solutions.

Speaker 1: You will become a smarter, more empathetic citizen who is better able to make informed decisions and important contributions to society.