(As it appeared on http://www.poynter.org)
I just wrote an article for Poynter Online about the public’s distrust in the media. I got the idea for the story after reading Sacred Heart University’s recent media reliability study, which finds that 86 percent of the public agreed (strongly or somewhat) that the news media tries to influence public policies. This is up from 76.7% in 2003, according to the survey.
Instead of playing the blame game and arguing about who is right and who is wrong, who is biased and who isn’t, I wanted to look at what journalists can do to help rebuild trust. After talking with a few folks, I found out about some news organizations that are actively seeking feedback from the public and working to foster a sense of trust and transparency between the public and the press. I’ve copied and pasted the article below.
Why do you think the public is so distrusting of the media?
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When Spokesman-Review staffers meet Wednesday to discuss the paper’s new ethics policy, they won’t be gathering in the newsroom. They’ll be in the public library in downtown Spokane, Wash., fielding feedback from members of the community.
Wednesday’s gathering will mark the last of three meetings The Spokesman-Review has scheduled to hear what the public has to say — good and bad — about the paper’s new ethics policy. The meetings are just one example of what news organizations across the country are doing to help rebuild credibility and trust.
Surveys have told us for years that a growing number of people don’t trust the media. But when you think of this in terms of democratic values, it may not be such bad news after all.
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“We have some critical citizens who are not naively accepting as truth the news they consume,” said Dr. James Castonguay, associate professor and chair of Sacred Heart University’s Department of Media Studies and Digital Culture, who helped oversee the university’s recent media reliability study. “Maybe people see themselves as taking a more responsible and active role in the democratic process to check sources and be more active consumers of news.”
The Spokesman-Review has an online feature, “The Transparent Newsroom,” dedicated in part to hearing the needs of critical, active news consumers. The feature includes 10 blogs and a live Webcast of daily newsroom meetings to help the public better understand the work journalists do.
Here are some highlights from The Transparent Newsroom:
1.) Spokesman-Review editor Steven A. Smith’s blog, “News Is a Conversation.” Created in May 2005, the blog was originally run by five to six community members who wrote about their thoughts on the paper’s coverage. After the blog got to be too much of a commitment for the community members, Smith decided to take over.
 Steve Smith
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He posts to the blog just about every day, covering a variety of news and sharing comments he receives about the ethics policy. He recently posted a list of suggestions that The Spokesman-Review‘s editorial page editor Doug Floyd compiled after the paper’s last community meeting:
- When the facts change materially as a story evolves, we should report the ultimate facts as conspicuously as the original.
- Reporters should not be allowed to bully a source into revealing information, especially when the source is not sophisticated.
- When there is very little new to report in an ongoing story, the paper should not publish extended stories that are mostly rehashing background details. One participant felt some of the Larry Craig coverage was an example.
Other comments are less practical, such as one older reader’s suggestion that the paper decorate its pages with flourishes and filigree and that it replace its photographs with line drawings and lithographs.
2.) Daily Briefings: A blog that lists updates from The Spokesman-Review‘s daily news meetings and provides readers with links to published stories, videos and blogs that were discussed during the previous day’s news meeting.
3.) Ask the Editors: Spokesman editors Steve Smith, Carla Savalli, Gary Graham and Doug Floyd answer readers’ questions about the paper’s operations and editorial decisions. Some recent questions and comments the editors have responded to include, “Where’s your Afghanistan coverage?”, “Can comments with mature content be moved to another page?” and “The Spokesman-Review needs more relevant local coverage.”
4.) News Diary — Managing Editor Gary Graham writes regularly on this blog about issues in the news and the inner-workings of a newsroom.
5.) Live Webcasts of The Spokesman-Review‘s 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. meetings. Smith said the morning Webcast news meetings attract about 40 to 50 viewers. The afternoon meetings attract about 10 or more. The meetings are also open to anyone who wants to attend them in person, Smith said.
Smith has been a long-time advocate of the civic journalism of the early ’90s. When managing editor of The Wichita (Kansas) Eagle, Smith and other editors in the newsroom went to churches, malls and recreation centers to talk to readers about public issues. When he was editor of The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., Smith led an effort to invite community groups to the newsroom to critique and audit the paper’s journalism. Similarly, when Smith was editor at The Statesman-Journal in Salem, Ore., the paper held open news meetings that attracted community visitors almost daily.
Smith compares readers’ standards for the paper to the standards the paper holds for governments and other institutions it reports on. At the root of it all is transparency. The goal is not, Smith said, for the public to start controlling the press or the content it produces, but rather to strengthen the relationship between the press and communities it serves.
“Journalists always retain the right to say no. Transparency is not the same as passivity,” Smith said. “When you’re as open as we are, it’s possible to engage in a debate with readers in ways that we couldn’t in the past. When people pitch us an idea it still has to be vetted in all the ways that stories do: Is it important enough? Does it match up with our values?”
The downside to being so transparent is that the paper opens itself up to criticism from the industry, and it becomes easier for newsroom competitors to see what the paper is up to.
But the positives far outweigh the negatives, says Ryan Pitts, online director at The Spokesman-Review, who helped create the Transparent Newsroom blogs. “We realized that any time you hear from one reader with a question, they probably represent a much larger group that has that exact same question,” Pitts said. “We are really looking at blogs as a way to show that there are actually human faces behind this newsroom.”
People will criticize the paper whether editors know about it or not, so it’s better that editors be aware of the criticism, Pitts said. If it’s good, thoughtful criticism, then the paper will consider making changes. If it’s inaccurate, the paper works to counteract it with the truth.
Similar to The Spokesman-Review, WFTX-TV, a Fox-affiliated station in Cape Coral, Fla., addresses the public’s concerns in its “Viewers’ Bill of Rights” and its “Viewers’ Voice” feature, which gives viewers a chance to discuss their thoughts on the station’s recent coverage of events. In the “Viewers’ Voice” section, WFTX news director Forrest Carr publishes viewers’ concerns — such as one viewer’s belief that Fox 4 has a liberal bias — and responds to them.
In a recent interview with Poynter Online, WFTX’s news director, Forrest Carr, said the station aims to uphold democracy, “giving voice to everyday people, in all their diversity, and helping them to hold the powerful accountable. We state what we stand for. And we hold ourselves accountable to the public.”
At The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., members of the community are invited to attend the paper’s page one meetings. The number of people who attend the meetings fluctuates, and sometimes no one attends, but the invitation is always there, says Linda Williams, senior editor for news at The News & Observer.
The paper also hosts a readers’ panel, which the paper’s public editor, Ted Vaden, oversees. The rotating group of readers who make up the panel meet with various editors on a monthly basis to talk about what they do and don’t like about the paper.
“We ask them to give us feedback … and invariably they say ‘I had a completely different idea about what this was about, and I see you don’t have an agenda, and I see you put thought into this,'” Williams said. “People come away with less of a feeling that’s there’s a group of people making random decisions without a philosophy of reader interest behind it.”
Efforts like these help move us toward a better understanding of the story behind the public’s distrust of the media. Journalists and the public still have a lot of work to do, and the polls will continue to tell us this, but we also have a valuable opportunity to reshape the story together in a way that fosters healthy dialogue, transparency and trust.
[How might news organizations help build the trust of the public?]
Word on the Street 
This is a really interesting topic that you bring to light, Mal. When I was in Costa Rica on my short-term study abroad trip in January, I called The Tico Times, Central America’s largest English newspaper. I went to the office and interviewed a reporter about journalism practices in the country and the region, and what I found was almost the exact opposite of what you are staying here: People really seem to trust the press in Costa Rica, according to the reporter I spoke to. Yet ironically, the newspapers offer extremely biased coverage. In a recent vote on a referendum to approve the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) this past fall, all the major newspapers in the country not only told their readers what they though–that they should vote yes to approve the agreement–but also exclusively covered stories that reinforced their viewpoints, completely ignoring the other side. The Tico Times didn’t do that, but the Times is also based out of Utah, making it more American in its coverage. And being more American in its coverage directly means that it is less biased, more objective, and presents multiple sides to every issue, at least in Costa Rica.
With so many talented journalists out there, and such good news sources for us to follow–especially in traditional print form–it’s discouraging to hear that 86 percent of people agreed that the news media tries to influence public policies.
The only bone of contention I would have with the media is when it accepts stories from outside source–advertisers, private companies–and prints/uses it as if it were a real story. For example, on NBC10 in Providence this week, a local reporter provided the voice over for a story that was completely filmed, written, and packaged by Consumer Reports–it said so in clear lettering on the top of the screen throughout the broadcast. Consumer Reports presumably sent the same story to media outlets across the country, and local reporters provided the voice over for the same story–which prominently featured the company, though it did have some interesting facts. To me, this is advertising in disguise, and unfortunately, it happens more than we’d like to realize in the media. Yet without advertisers, newspapers, television stations, and news Web sites would have a really difficult time existing, if that were possible at all.
Thanks, Kristina! You bring up a lot of good points. Your comment about people trusting the press in Costa Rica is especially interesting. It’s something I’d like to explore further, maybe for an article. We can really learn a lot from what other news organizations are doing outside of the U.S.
Great! You should check out the Tico Times’ Web site. They have post-undergrad internships available for bilingual journalists. You’d be great for that, even if it’s just for the summer!