This TED Talk features journalist Eve Perlman, recorded live at TED Salon, up for debate 2019.

So in the run-up to the 2016 election, I was like most of us watching the rise in discord and vitriol and nastiness in our public spaces.

It was this crazy uptick in polarization.

It was both disheartening and distressing.

And so I started thinking with a fellow journalist, Jeremy Hay,

about how we might practice our craft differently,

how we might go to the heart of divides to places of conflict

like journalists always have,

but then once there, do something really different.

We knew we wanted to take the core tools of our craft,

careful vetting of information, diligent research, curiosity,

a commitment to serving the public good,

to serving our democracy,

and do something new.

And so we mapped out this process,

what we call dialogue journalism,

for going to the heart of social and political divides,

and then once they are building journalism-supported conversations

between people on opposite sides of polarizing issues.

But how actually to do this in a world that's so divided, so deeply divided,

when we live in a world in which we cousins and aunts and uncles can't talk to one another,

when we often live in separate and distinct news ecosystems,

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