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“Just the facts” is an old, but not tired, saying in the news business.
Readers want to be able to trust that we are delivering the news in a factual and objective manner. You want to know that there isn’t a big boss telling reporters what political angle to take with their stories.
You want columns, editorials, and other types of opinions, as long as they’re clearly labeled and not presented as fact.
You don’t want to be stereotyped based on your identity, be it race, gender, or political affiliation. You trust your local news outlets more than the big media companies, but you question our use of reporting from these outlets and want us to provide unbiased reporting on national issues.
We hear you.
At The Day, we formed a Trusted Committee earlier this year to review our work, listen to our audiences, and make our content more transparent. The committee is new but we have always worked on trust. No one talks to a journalist they don’t trust, and we’re counting on you to talk to us.
We encourage you to give us a call, email, leave comments at the bottom of our stories, and speak to us when you see us in person. Since it is the digital age, we are also encouraging interaction on social media. Read on for an upcoming opportunity.
Media across the country are making similar efforts to build trust, having heard from segments of their audiences, especially people of color and right-wing conservatives, that they didn’t think we were portraying their communities and points correctly. of view.
The Day is one of 27 local newsrooms across the country working with Center for Media Engagement and Trust the news on a project they call #RoadToPlurality. With mistrust of the media becoming particularly problematic after the 2020 elections, the goal is “to help journalists build confidence from all political backgrounds to bridge gaps, foster productive conversations and fuel openness. spirit “.
Participants interviewed 3,467 people from across the country who identified themselves as right-wing or conservative and interviewed 91 of them.
The Day’s multimedia director, Peter Huoppi, chairman of our internal trust committee, conducted five-hour interviews with volunteers in our region who identified themselves as curators. He spoke with four men and a woman. Among them were a Hispanic, a black / native and three whites. Two said they were Republicans, a libertarian, a conservative Democrat and an independent.
What Huoppi found was largely consistent with the findings of the larger group.
Readers told him, in part, that they wanted to focus less on national news, more depth and nuance in stories, more transparency in corrections, more “different” voices in stories and more. ‘positive stories.
Issues that aroused mistrust included the use of anonymous sources, the inability to differentiate between news and opinion, treating Republican officials differently from Democrats, supporting candidates, feeling like ” lumped ‘into a group and too much focus on political extremes.
Participants told Huoppi they were wondering how we choose stories, how we decide what to write about, and who makes the decisions on The Day.
These are all good issues, and we tackle them one by one, starting with how the stories are labeled.
We’ve been working on labeling our content so it’s clear when something is opinion or analysis. Many of your complaints relate to news articles, which we use to supplement our local reporting and keep you informed about the nation and the world.
The Associated Press is one of our primary providers of news articles. We had scheduled a meeting last Wednesday with senior information officials at AP, but they asked us to postpone the coming week because they were rushing to evacuate personnel from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Please be patient with us as we work through our trust issues while trying to keep up with the news. And keep the conversation going.
Next Wednesday, August 25, from 9 a.m. to noon, you will be able to discuss with us on Facebook the research project in which we are participating and general questions of trust. At noon we’ll go live on Facebook to say hello and continue the conversation. Hope to see you there.
Karen Florin is the engagement writer for The Day. She can be reached at [email protected] or (860) 701-4217.
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