By Matthew Gomez*
News organizations working to rebuild public confidence amid growing attacks on the press must cultivate their relationship with their audiences by being transparent about their newsmaking process and funding, according to a panel at the 26th International Symposium on Online Journalism on Thursday.
The relationship between community and media was a recurring theme during the panel that included four journalists working to rebuild trust in journalism after years of declines in credibility.
“We don’t get to decide if we’re credible and useful,” said Joy Mayer, founder of Trusting News, an independent organization that helps journalists earn community trust. “People actually get to decide that, and it’s a core ingredient in trust.”
Stephen Buckley, public editor at the Dallas Morning News, opened the panel by explaining what he called his two-pronged approach to understanding trustworthiness in media. Audiences look for facts and context, but also for motives behind the reporting, he said.
Buckley said he spends “a lot of time” explaining to readers what goes on in his newsroom to build connections and better understand the community he covers. As public editor, Buckley has learned a large number of people do not fully understand the job of an editor, he said.
“We work very hard to hold ourselves accountable to the public,” Buckley said. “Journalists spend a lot of time holding other people accountable, and so it makes perfect sense that we would be held accountable ourselves.”
The voices amplified by journalists also matter, said Sally Lehrman, founder of The Trust Project, an international collaboration to strengthen public confidence in news. Media consumers do not want to hear solely from people in business and government, but also from voices relatable to them in their everyday lives.
The public “wants to hear voices like their own, and voices that are very different from their own,” Lehrman said. “They saw the value of news as a place to bring people together, they worried about news blending with opinion.”
Mayer said regular news consumers may not understand the language of journalists. She referenced NPR President Katherine Maher’s testimony on Wednesday before members of congress, where she used the word “editorial” to describe editing techniques to better combat bias. Kentucky Rep. James Comer asked why Maher would publish opinion editorial pieces in the federally funded media company.
On Thursday’s panel, Mayer said Comer’s confusion is common. The use of words such as “editorial” to describe different tasks in a newsroom can bring mistrust because of a lack of understanding of journalistic jargon, she said.
“It’s about understanding who feels seen and understood by our journalism, and who feels left out or misrepresented by our journalism, and what internal changes and coverage changes do we need to close that path,” Mayer said.
Community within the newsroom has been a conversation that has been carried for many years. For a lot of journalists, attempting to balance personal feelings and ties to communities to remain unbiased may be a hindrance in some aspects of community reporting.
Mayer and Buckley both said they’ve seen journalists find unique ways to show sources they’re not an abstract piece in a story and validate them as individuals. Both said it is okay for reporters to mourn, grieve or celebrate with a community when appropriate.
“I’ve worked in newsrooms where long, intense conversations are held about what it means to show care, to guide sources, especially in vulnerable situations,” Mayer said. “All of those conversations are invisible to the public, unless we talk about them publicly, so the intent that we bring, the thoughtfulness that we bring, is invisible and it’s reasonable for people to doubt our motives.”
Lehrman said research has shown that if media consumers are aware of funding and the reporting process, they are more likely to trust the outlet. That means news organizations may need to evolve.
“Don’t be afraid to change,” Lehrman said. “Don’t resist change.”
* Matthew Gomez is a government senior at the University of Texas at Austin. He serves as a news desk editor and a general sports reporter for The Daily Texan. His previous reporting focused on city and state politics.