AHA! John Krasinski’s “Some Good News” Gets it Right about How to Serve the Young

John Krasinski’s Some Good News weekly YouTube newscast doesn’t target teenagers, but clearly shows how to resonate with an authenticity of voice, some humor and a call to action in a strategy he surely doesn’t know about called “AHA.”

My former media intern, Emma Knight, now founder of Greenhouse Juice in Canada, came up with that “AHA” approach for creating journalism that would resonate with young people: Authenticity — Humor — Action.

The AHA perspective demands a difficult mix to get it right: sounding real and relevant, adding enough but not too much fun and then giving people direction about what they might do next.

This newest online news show, Some Good News, gets it all right, thanks to Krasinski, it’s creator and anchor.

Krasinski is an American actor and director known for his role in the television series The Office and more recently as Jack Ryan on Netflix and for his terrifying movie, A Quiet Place.

He released his first 15-minute, low-tech newscast on YouTube from his Brooklyn home office on March 29. Within just a few hours it attracted 7 million views. A couple of days later, the total was pushing 12 million with Krasinski preparing a second show, and it’s still rising for that first episode, almost 17 million at last count.

Some Good News (SGN) doesn’t specifically target any demographic, but regularly puts a spotlight on happy solutions that often feature a teenager or an even younger person. It also goes beyond reporting to make good things happen.

Krasinski finished his first episode by interviewing 15-year-old cancer survivor Courtney “Coco” Johnson, whose friends and family had lined up along her street to welcome her home from her last chemotherapy session. “This is such an honor for me,” he said. “You are my newest and biggest hero.”

The second episode a week later featured Hamilton cast members singing a virtual rendition of the musical’s opening number via Zoom™ for 9-year-old Aubrey Bauman who could not go see the show live as had been planned for her birthday.

However, it was in the fourth episode of Some Good News when the “AHA” perspective became most clear with Krasinski reporting on an action he had taken to support the teenagers in his audience.

In that episode, Krasinski recapped the unique event he had staged a few days earlier: a live, virtual prom for the many U.S. teenagers who would have to miss their own version of that quintessential end-of-school-year formal dance.

He had encouraged this young audience to take action by joining the roughly 20-minute prom and then sharing videos of their participation.

During the event itself, he featured live performances from authentic teen favorites: The Jonas Brothers, Chance the Rapper and Billie Eilish.

The humor was throughout, mostly focused on his own panic at hosting a live YouTube event.

More than 200 000 viewers showed up.

“Each and every one of you is missing something and this is the least I could do,” he said at the end of the show, “and I couldn’t be more proud to do it.”

He stood up, showing the prom dress under his tux jacket, and exited.

Then came graduation. He asked 2020 graduates to send him videos of what they would say in a speech to their classmates at a graduation ceremony and what they would ask a commencement speaker.

The show ran a compilation of student wisdom then rewarded four graduates with the chance to pose their questions to superstar Oprah Winfrey, director Steven Spielberg, Daily Show comic icon Jon Stewart and activist Malala Yousafzai. All interspersed with Krasinski observations. A definite AHA moment.

There are many other laudable attempts at focusing on positive news. Too many come across as earnestly predictable. If it retains its authentic, funny voice and calls to action, Some Good News could rise to the top of that heap.

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Speaking of teenagers, news media run by adults or students are most welcome to join the World Teenage Reporting Project > COVID 19 in which teenage journalists cover the untold stories of how their peers are helping during the epidemic.