Transparency
How newspapers are using Instagram to attract new readers
Instagram was launched in October 2010, but many newspapers were slower to move to it because of its focus on images rather than sharing links. For many newspapers using Instagram well, it isn’t as much about promoting content as it about promoting their company’s brand. Patrick Traylor, digital photo editor at The Denver Post, says: […]
Document the processes behind design or feature changes to boost transparency
The news environment today requires tweaking, iterations and major redesigns, but audiences may not understand. In this interview on INN’s name change, rebranding and web redesign, INN design director Kaeti Hinck describes how documentation and explanation can be difficult (“especially when you’re neck-deep in the middle of launching a project”), but benefits are clear. “Nobody […]
Trust is now like pageviews — you earn it every day
Markham Nolan writes that, as readers dip in and out of news items from social streams, “news organizations have to think of trust in the same way they think of pageviews.” He continues, “Editors now know that every story is sold separately — the bundle is dead. Each story earns the trust and time of […]
Bill Keller draws the line between advocacy and journalism
Former New York Times Editor Bill Keller was asked in a recent panel discussion about whether news organizations with “a specific mission or purpose,” like his criminal-justice-focused The Marshall Project, were doing journalism or advocacy. “Was Watergate advocacy? Woodward and Bernstein and The Washington Post understood there was something really rotten going on in the […]
Journalists need a point of view if they want to stay relevant
“If extreme polarization is now an enduring feature of American politics — not just a bug — how does that change the game for journalists?” writes Jay Rosen in a foundation essay for The Conversation. To stay relevant and avoid accusations of bias in today’s age, Rosen says the honest approach is to declare a […]
The best ways for publishers to build credibility through transparency
As so much in the world of news and information changes, the fundamental bond of trust between journalists and the communities they serve is one of the few things that doesn’t. In fact, its importance has grown. One of the most important ways journalists and news organizations earn the trust of the public trust is […]
Show the reporting and sources that support your work
One important way to build trust in reporting is to show the audience the sources it relies upon. There are several ways to do this. I. Share source material Digital platforms don’t suffer the same time and space constraints as print, television and radio. This freedom offers new opportunities to incorporate and disclose source material, […]
Engage in transparent collaboration with the audience
Journalist Dan Gillmor likes to say, “my readers know more than I do.” Implicit in Gillmor’s axiom is a reminder that journalists shouldn’t think of people only as consumers. The people we serve have collective knowledge and expertise that can vastly improve the work we do. Digital platforms make this easier. The key is to find […]
Practice ethical curation and attribution
One of the oldest and most hallowed forms of transparency in journalism is attribution. You link what was said to the person who said it. You cite your sources. You provide a roadmap that leads back to all the people you spoke to, the documents you read, the other articles and research that helped form […]
Offer disclosures and statements of values
When an earthquake struck Los Angeles in March 2014, the Los Angeles Times was able to quickly publish an article that contained basic data about the quake. At the bottom of that story was an interesting disclosure: This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written […]