By Muskan Bansal
Trust in the media has fallen globally.
Today on average, according to Reuters Institute’s 2023 Digital News Report, just four in 10 people say they trust news most of the time. Amid this decline, people are also more likely to avoid consuming news coverage.
One way journalists and news organizations can strengthen audience trust is to focus on reaching people who may not actively read or watch the news, suggested Lynn Walsh, assistant director at Trusting News, during an ICFJ Empowering the Truth Global Summit session. To do so effectively, it’s important for journalists to “think like a news consumer,” she said.
Walsh shared tips for journalists to build trust in the communities they serve. Here’s what she had to say:
Explain your process
Increasing transparency by providing details about the reporting process can help journalists build trust with their audience, said Walsh: “When we talk about transparency, we’re trying to explain to people how we do our jobs [and] sometimes defending our work.”
One strategy journalists can employ is to include “explain your process” boxes in their articles. These can be used to describe why and how a story was covered. Audiences found news articles with this feature significantly more reliable, according to a study by the Center for Media Engagement.
These boxes can also be used to highlight whether elements of a story have been generated by AI, and how much the reporter has humanly contributed to the story. “If people thought something was a real photo taken by a photographer [and] turns out it wasn’t, that can make people angry, feel deceived, and not trust you or your content,” said Walsh.
This process can be adapted for broadcast and radio stories as well, by including “trust language” for the hosts to read out. These can include explanations and details about why a specific story was pursued, what reporting approach was taken for it, and more.
“We worked with a TV station in Ohio and took five stories that had already aired and broadcast, and added trust language,” said Walsh. Results from focus groups that her team ran indicated that, compared to reporting without these elements, people preferred stories that had trust language included, finding them more personal and reliable.
Newsrooms can also include transparency language in collapsible explainer or “pop-up” boxes. This is especially useful if an article has more technical or jargony language. In these cases, readers can click on the word or phrase in question to view an explanation of the term and the context in which it was used.
For example, in a story about real estate, readers may not necessarily understand what “zoning” means. In an article about voting, people may not understand how “mail-in ballots” work. Concepts like these can be explained directly in the piece through these pop-up boxes.
In employing these tactics, journalists and newsrooms can teach readers “how to navigate the news,” said Walsh.
Muskan Bansal is an intern with ICFJ’s Disarming Disinformation program and a recent graduate of Columbia Journalism School. She is interested in science writing with a current focus on the socio-cultural impacts of disinformation and emerging technology.
Courtesy: IJNet
Full article:
https://ijnet.org/en/story/guidance-building-trust-communities-you-serve
