Controversy to Conversation

Adults have lots of opinions about sex education. This online magazine grounded its reporting in the real questions its young readers were asking.

Devi Asmarani and Hera Diani, co-founders of Magdalene. Illustration © Magdalene.

Think sex ed is a touchy topic in the Bible Belt? Try Indonesia.

In the world’s largest Muslim country, Islamic values are intertwined with public policy, making sex a taboo subject for teens. Young people, meanwhile, say they need to learn about sex, even if they have no plans to engage in it before marriage.

When the feminist online magazine Magdalene waded into the debate, the editors applied data journalism with a constructive approach. Here’s how they did it.

Reader-led reporting

For an outlet that is up-front about its mission to advance women’s interests, it would have been easy for the editorial team to stake out a bold angle from the beginning. But as co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Devi Asmarani expressed, its goal is “to engage and not to alienate.”

The team took a step back and started by polling their audience on social media: What questions did their teenage followers actually have about sex?

The results were surprising: The questions that teens asked were far more basic than the editors had expected. It enabled them to focus their reporting and meet their audience where they were — including for young women who had experienced relational violence but thought it was normal.

The outlet created and shared bite-sized myth-busting videos geared directly around such points of confusion.

"It was surprising, because some of the questions were quite basic. It made us realize even more that there is a knowledge gap, so we used that to inform our project and to create content out of it as well."

— Devi Asmarani, editor-in-chief

Facilitate engagement, then document it

The outlet’s online quiz generated more than 400 responses from readers ages 15-19. It used that data set as an objective starting point for an in-person roundtable discussion, which the outlet itself convened, facilitated and covered.

The people it invited represented all perspectives on the topic: A teenager, a parent, a teacher, a youth activist, a sexual and reproductive health advocate, the state family planning agency, the national child protection service, and an Islamic scholar.

“We thought involving the student was important, because any discussion around sexual education has been prescriptive — not involving the actual student,” Asmarani said.

The outlet recorded the conversation and used it as a two-part video and podcast content. It has since replicated this model for other topics, such as how technology affects women’s perception of beauty.

Hear Devi Asmarani, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Magdalene, describe the reporting process at the Constructive Institute’s 2022 Listen Louder Conference.
Watch video (21 min.)