Difficult topics deserve nuanced coverage

The advisory and investment industries have a rare chance to reframe how Americans debate polarizing issues.

We saw it coming, but we sidestepped it: You didn’t read much in InvestmentNews in June when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Is this really what our readers expect and deserve, we asked ourselves, when our mission is not to cover breaking legal news or big-picture politics, but rather to find the intersection of that news with the daily concerns of the financial advisory and investing sphere?

The very nature of our debate exercised our journalistic values; As seasoned journalists, the IN news staff believes it is important to represent both sides of any issue, as do our generational peers.

Meanwhile, others in the advisory and investing sphere found the way forward.

They crafted a new way to address the abortion debate, proving that all businesses do not have to choose between advocacy and avoidance. In the process, they showed how to use one of the most powerful advisory skills to reframe polarizing national conversations.

“We can’t tell people to change their beliefs, but we can tell them where they can make progress for equity,” Mary Beth Storjohann said in an interview with InvestmentNews. On Feb. 1, she and Neela Hummel became co-CEOs of Abacus Wealth Partners, a 70-employee advisory firm. They are two 30-something moms who designed a job share for the top position.

In the past, Abacus has advocated as a company for civil rights, justice and other news-driven causes. The overturning of Roe felt even more urgent, because Abacus, as an employer, could demonstrate its values in action. In the days immediately after the decision, with input from their staff, Storjohann and Hummel fine-tuned a statement intended to challenge the industry.

Storjohann stops short of labeling their widely shared post as common ground in the abortion debate, but she did say that the well-being and advancement of women is a point of agreement in the advisory industry. Most employers are on board with “providing better support for women employees, whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, more needs to be done for women,” she said.

That is why the Abacus statement pivots not on the co-CEOs’ shared revulsion about the decision, but on its credibility as an employer that puts its advocacy for women into action with extensive benefits and policies.

Abacus’ six months of paid family leave and related benefits “eliminates the motherhood penalty and works toward gender equity,” Storjohann said. The firm pledged to “provide financial support for any employee, spouse or dependent who needs to travel for health care that is covered by our insurance but not accessible in their state of residence” as an extension of its philosophy to “support employees to make empowered decisions for themselves and their families.”

The breakthrough represented by the Abacus approach is to merge external advocacy with internal action. Overall, American companies try to walk an unsteady line between public silence and private reassurance.

An analysis released in July by the Conference Board found that only 10% of the companies surveyed made external statements of any sort about a Supreme Court decision in late 2021 that foreshadowed the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade. But 51% of those same companies made or intended to make internal statements, mainly to reiterate the relevance of existing health care benefits and in some cases, to offer to cover the expenses of traveling to access legal abortion.

This is where the Abacus example shows a new way forward, illustrating one of the advisory profession’s strengths in the process. Advisers pride themselves on their abilities to help clients clarify their beliefs about money and then convert those beliefs to financial plans. This industry can apply its winning approach with clients to elevate the national conversation about difficult topics.

“There is a way to use your values in a thoughtful and mindful way, that still invites people into the conversation. You don’t have to rage. You want to invite the conversation, and how we can make progress within the industry,” Storjohann said.

Therein lies the way forward for journalists, too. We do not have to gravitate to opposing sides of any issue, including abortion rights and access. Instead, we can take a cue from Abacus and report on the experiences of those actually living the consequences of sweeping decisions. People dealing with direct results of court decisions are, in the end, the ultimate authorities on what such decisions mean. At InvestmentNews, we’ve already taken the first step in that direction, with Ryan W. Neal’s deft story about how firms are handling post-Roe communications via social media.

Most controversial topics invoke a range of opinions — as amply indicated by numerous surveys by Pew, Gallup and others. Instead of first trying to decide if the topic is relevant, we need to learn how it might be relevant. That’s the way we can bring you genuinely relevant coverage on difficult issues, and better fulfill our mission.