If newsrooms focus on improving transparency and building relationships, there’s hope of recovering from a “fake news” era.
During one week in January 2019, more than 1,000 journalists in the United States lost their jobs to mass layoffs. The reasons were mixed, but most of the cuts happened in digital-first newsrooms—the ones that were treated as the future of the press as print begins to fade. For someone who is about to graduate college and finally start the professional journalism career I’ve been dreaming of since high school, it was gut-wrenching to learn of the layoffs. And the nationwide response to what happened? That was enough to make me cry.
I first found out about the job cuts on Twitter, where I saw posts from some of the journalists who had been let go, along with replies from colleagues offering support (and links to new openings). Of course I felt unnerved, but it was at least encouraging to witness how much journalists look out for one another.
Then, I saw the tweets of celebration. In one Jan. 24 post, CNN reporter Oliver Darcy shared an article about the 1,000 layoffs. “A lot of the replies to this are deeply disturbing,” Darcy had commented on his tweet. So, against my better judgement, I started reading.
It’s a half-decent start. Like to see about 3k more by the end of next week.
Best news I’ve heard in months.
Nothing of value was lost.
This is what happens when you completely lose the trust of your audience.
America is better off.
It went on. Nearly every reply victorious, only a few defending the press.
I’ve known for a while that trust in the news media is fading. I’ve known the pay isn’t great, that the job market is bleak. I’ve even known (and accepted) that if I continue my career in journalism, some people might end up hating me for my profession.
But for my senior thesis, a requirement for honors college students at Ball State University, I wanted to understand more about why support for the media has plummeted and whether there is anything journalists can do—anything I can do—to make things better.
According to a 2018 survey by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, most American adults say they have recently lost trust in news media organizations. Trust dropped dramatically in 2016, when just 32 percent had at least a fair amount, the lowest level since Gallup started keeping track in 1972. Confidence has gradually risen since, but this is all part of an overall drop in the last decade.
In 2016, the presidential election created a turbulent few months for how Americans felt about the media. Overall, changes in trust have been a lot more gradual. Opinions have shifted alongside technology, as the internet lets anyone be a publisher and forces journalists to produce more content for more platforms. And while polarized politics have played an especially big part in recent years, divides among Americans have been growing for decades.
The recent rise in trust can be especially attributed to Democrats, whose trust has spiked to the highest level since Gallup first started keeping track by political party in the late 1990s. Among Republicans, trust is still at just 21 percent, which Gallup says is largely due to President Trump’s relentless attacks on the media.
It’s normal for politicians to criticize the press, but the constancy of Trump’s rhetoric has had real power to corrupt public opinion. Andrew Guess, an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, says people tend to internalize messages from the leaders of partisan groups they most support. He says all politicians have incentives to discredit the journalists who are holding them accountable, but Republican leaders tend to be more blatant in this criticism than Democrats. During Trump’s campaign and presidency, those specific attacks have been supercharged.
But rather than only blaming external factors for the decline in trust, journalists must consider what internal changes or practices have contributed to the fall. Spread so thin, newsroom staff members have become less visible to their audiences, says Damian Radcliffe, the Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism at the University of Oregon and a Fellow of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. They tell stories from behind screens, not always having time to go out, meet people, and talk about their profession in a meaningful way.
Radcliffe explains that newsrooms also tend to be disproportionately white, male, college-educated, liberal, and concentrated in big cities. “That doesn’t reflect the realities of the demographics of this country,” he says.
The less people trust journalists, the less people are willing to pay for their work, and the less likely journalists will be to chase important but costly stories.
Still, 69 percent of those who say they’ve lost trust also say that could be reversed, according to the Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey. While there’s hope of restoring trust, it will probably take more than careful reporting. That’s why, as the final part of my thesis, I created a guide for myself and other journalists on how to build more trust in our work.
Improve Transparency and Education
Guess says one of the first things journalists can do is work to change the perceptions people might hold about the media and its goals. Many Americans might see journalists as extremely liberal, or otherwise distant from their audience’s actual lives. Guess says this might change if journalists held more in-person events in their communities, interacting with readers on a deeper level.
“Once you have a personal connection,” he says, “it’s more difficult to maintain the stereotypes and generalizations people have about each other.”
Research by the 2018 Media Insight Project has provided a better sense of what information audiences want reporters to give them. For example, two-thirds of Americans believe it’s very important for journalists to more clearly explain where they found their information, strengthening the credibility of the evidence. Nearly half of the public wanted to know more about the reporting process of certain stories, and about a third wanted to know more about the background of the reporters.
Radcliffe says staffs might also consider hosting public forums or holding editorial meetings outside the newsroom, letting community members collaborate on the storytelling process.
Diversify People and Stories
Newsrooms should consider the diversity of their communities, making sure coverage, sourcing, and staff all reflect that variety. Accurate representation of people requires strong connections with them. Otherwise, people might see themselves misrepresented and start to wonder how the news outlet would be credible for anything else.
In a late 2018 Poynter article, Radcliffe focuses especially on diversity within the newsroom, stressing that the demographics of a staff should closely resemble that of its audience.
“We need more women, people of color, and a wider spectrum of political beliefs and educational backgrounds in newsrooms,” he writes. “And we must address the class problem that continues to blight our trade.”
Journalism’s low salaries and lack of job security means some aspiring journalists just can’t afford to stay. Even if young people are passionate enough to get started in the profession, they might switch to something more lucrative when it’s time to buy a house or have kids. Radcliffe believes employers should move away from the idea that they can only hire people who’ve completed a certain number of internships or earned a college degree.
Diverse staffs will lead to more diverse stories, which Radcliffe says is also crucial. He recommends spending a little less time on the depressing coverage that sometimes drives people away from the news, focusing more on what’s working in society. Journalists should write about the good things people are working on and the ways they are trying to fix problems, he says. That’s not advocacy—it’s a more accurate representation of reality.
Be Human
In April 2018, New York University associate professor Jay Rosen wrote about “optimizing journalism for trust.” He discusses how a journalist’s credibility was once earned by getting the facts right. Today, he says, media organizations must go beyond the basics of solid reporting and try to create actual relationships with readers. He provides a few examples of how to do this, such as posting staff bios online, responding to criticism, and teaching people about how journalism works. Above all, though, journalists need to listen.
“The users of journalism — the readers, the listeners, the viewers, the subscribers, the members — have more power now,” Rosen writes. “In part because they have more choice, in part because they are paying more of the costs, as the advertising subsidy declines. Because the users of the product have more power, the makers of the product have to listen to them more.”
Likewise, an article from the American Press Institute (API) discusses how adopting a “culture of listening” throughout the newsroom can improve every part of the journalistic process. To API, listening is not a passive action. Journalists must be intentional in learning about the needs and perspectives of the communities they serve. This is especially useful for strengthening relationships with people who have previously felt alienated or misunderstood by the media. But don’t stop at listening, API advises—make sure to apply what you learn to your reporting, letting people know you made changes based on their feedback.
Real change also requires starting conversations with those people who have lost trust. The API article recommends finding the outlet’s loudest critics and creating relationships that go beyond the drive for content. Don’t just do it for the story: Focus on the connection.
As newsroom staffs thin, adding on tasks beyond gathering stories could seem daunting. However, API argues that strong community relationships, both in-person and online, form an investment that helps save time later.
Radcliffe also emphasizes the importance of developing these long-term connections, saying journalists should try to get rid of the (“often-true”) perception that they only parachute into communities when something bad has happened. They write the story, then they disappear. He says communities want to be treated with more respect, and journalists can demonstrate that respect by spending time with people, even when they don’t need something or aren’t working on a specific story. They should keep going to meetings. They should interact in ways that demonstrate commitment to the community. When getting the facts right isn’t enough, journalists should show how much they care.
* This article contains sections that were originally published in my senior thesis, titled “Why Journalists Lost America’s Trust, and How They Can Start to Get it Back.” That project was submitted to the Ball State University Honors College in April 2019.
