By Deborah Potter.
So that didn’t go well. A six-month project by the Society of Professional Journalists to address media distrust in Casper, Wyoming, failed to move the needle.
At regular Tuesday meetings, SPJ heard well-worn complaints from political conservatives about “liberal media bias.” Liberals complained about the dominance of white men in shaping news coverage. Journalists took heat from both sides of the political divide for using unnamed sources. News organizations were criticized for prioritizing breaking news over getting the facts right.
Sounds familiar.
What difference did it make? “Participants made no significant change in their news consumptions habits or their level of trust in the news media,” SPJ reported at its annual convention. But the organization still felt there was value in listening to people express their thoughts.
SPJ’s “journalist on call,” Rod Hicks, shared five recommendations for news organizations:
- Engage. Meet with the community regularly to see what stories they’re interested in and to get feedback on coverage.
- Educate. Explain how the newsroom works and how journalists do their jobs, including how they verify information.
- Avoid bias. Make opinion more distinct from news. Tell reporters who appear on TV not to share their opinions.
- Be transparent. Tell your audience why you make decisions they may find controversial.
None of this strikes me as particularly innovative or eye-opening. The Trusting News project has spent the past three years working with newsrooms on implementing similar efforts to regain trust. Programs like Hearken and Gather help newsrooms better engage with their communities. Engaged Journalism, based in Europe, has a ton of useful resources.
That said, maybe Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post has it right: “You have to give the Casper Project and its participants credit for trying, against the odds, to make progress,” she wrote. “Or at least to show the intractability of the problem.”
