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Weekly actionable tips for journalists to earn and sustain trust

Today's trust tip: Quit asking for "story ideas" and "feedback"


Hi there. Joy here. 
 
A lot of newsrooms have a regular habit of inviting their audiences to help shape their coverage. That’s great! When I think back to how much less common that practice was when my career first pivoted to community engagement in 2011, it’s really thrilling. We should celebrate the evolution of our routines to include inviting more community input.

Yet, sometimes the way journalists invite input feels generic and self-serving. The goals of our efforts are to build relationships and connections, and to learn what our communities need from us, right? But too often, we wrap those goals in our own language (not our community’s language) and make it seem like a lot of work to participate. 

Here are two specific invitations I suggest you consider tweaking.
 

“Send us your story ideas!”

There are indeed people walking around your community who, if they see something interesting, would think “that’s a great story idea for a journalist.” But those people are not typical and that phrase is not what’s going to connect their curiosity to your need to put something on tomorrow’s story budget.

I know your goals are solid. You want to think outside of your own perspectives and curiosities. You want to be alerted to things that aren’t showing up naturally in your own life. You want to pitch stories you know folks are interested in. And you could use some fresh ideas!

But when you ask for story ideas, the question is framed around solving *your* problem, not your community’s. So how about getting more specific with your invitation? Invite them to connect your need to their lives — to see themselves in your work.

Rather than asking for story ideas, try one of these:

  • What are journalists missing in our community? We want to hear from you.
  • If you could be in charge of our reporting team for a day, what would you assign them to do?
  • What do you wish the community knew more about?
  • What people or programs are working hard for our community and deserve more attention?
  • What problems do you wish our community were addressing?

Try pairing one of those with some language about why you’re asking, too — your own values and mission.

How about:

  • Our newsroom of XX people can’t be everywhere, and we rely on you to help keep us in the loop about what’s happening.
  • Our journalists know what *we’re* curious about on this topic, but we want to make sure we answer *your* questions, too. What would you like to see us find out about this issue?
  • It’s important to us that our work be based on the community’s needs and curiosities. Are you willing to help shape our priorities?
Related: Explain how you decide what to cover
 

“Give us feedback!”

Feedback is one of those terms that is so general it can be paralyzing. The more complex a situation or relationship, the more difficult it is to come up with specific feedback. 

For example: If the person who performs a simple transaction — like installing my cable — asks for feedback, it’s relatively easy for me to remember and pass along that I wish scheduling a service call were more convenient. But if my kid’s school asked for feedback, I’m not sure I would know where to start. What are we even talking about? Do you want to know how I feel about the selection of classes offered? The bus schedule? The teachers’ communication? How much homework there is?

If they don’t ask a more specific question, it’s likely that what I offer won’t be what they’re looking for or I might not offer anything at all. Then everyone’s time will be wasted. 

Plus, giving a performance evaluation is a lot of work. And asking the public to perform that service solves a problem for you but not for them. 

Instead, how about asking what you really want to know, customized to the situation? Try something like this:

  • What else do you want to know about this topic? Let us know what questions you’d still like answered.
  • In this story, we worked hard to share diverse perspectives in a fair light. How did we do?
  • This is a complicated issue, and our goal is to reflect voices from a diverse set of stakeholders. Whose voice(s) have we missed? 
  • We took time today to explain how we make decisions. Did you find it interesting and worthwhile? What else would you like to see us explain?
  • We can’t cover everything, and our goal is to assign reporters to cover issues and events that matter to the community. How are we doing? What are we missing?

Questions like these can go anywhere you’re communicating with your audience — on air, in a social post, in a newsletter, in italics at the top or bottom of a story, in a box next to a story, etc. See this handout for suggestions on where to put transparency elements. And in case you missed Trust Tips two weeks ago, we shared transparency examples from newsrooms that can serve as inspiration.

New research highlights importance of building trust

The latest in a series of research reports from Gallup and Knight Foundation was released last week, and it holds important insights for people invested in the relevance and sustainability of journalism. It also overlaps significantly with our work at Trusting News

In our latest Medium post, we make four recommendations related to highlights from the research, they are:

  1. Rather than defend all news outlets, we each can tell a better story about our own mission and ethics.
  2. As you tell a story about why you need your community’s support, be honest about how the business model for news has changed.
  3. We’re losing trust with independents, not just Republicans. Newsrooms can address that by examining the dominant values of their staffs, by listening to people with low trust in news and by using an Anti-Polarization Checklist when reporting and editing.
  4. There’s a lot of potential for journalists to be a resource — especially for people with low emotional trust in national news — in navigating a crowded information landscape.
Read more about our recommendations in this Medium post and this Twitter thread
 

Have any examples to share? 

We'd love to see how your newsroom is working to build trust and demonstrate credibility! Feel free to share examples with us here, on Twitter or email at info@trustingnews.org.

Thanks for reading! 

Joy Mayer, Trusting News director
Feb. 21, 2023
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Trusting News aims to demystify trust in news and empower journalists to take responsibility for actively demonstrating credibility and earning trust. It is a project of the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the American Press Institute

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