Helping journalists earn news consumers’ trust
How do people decide what news is trustworthy? And how can journalists influence what users consume and share? This site shares findings from the Trusting News project. Follow our current experiments in real time on our Medium publication.
Journalists are working with our project on ways to stand out in a minefield of misinformation. We want journalists and newsrooms to feel empowered, not hopeless. Our current experiments are based on 8,728 user questionnaires and 81 in-depth interviews, conducted in 2017 by journalists in these newsrooms. We've turned the insights gathered into concrete strategies for newsrooms, and we're testing them now.
Is your newsroom interested in earning trust? We're not adding new newsrooms now, but we are keeping track of newsrooms who would like to be notified next time we have openings. Indicate your interest here to be considered for the next phase of our project. With questions, contact project director Joy Mayer at joy@TrustingNews.org.
This website showcases social media work already conducted as part of the Trusting News project. With the help of 14 news outlets in 2016, we studied users' reactions to social media strategies designed to build trust. What we've learned can help journalists influence what the public chooses to believe, and to pass along. (In a rush? Jump straight to these ideas worth stealing or these DIY worksheets.)
We analyzed about 500 Facebook posts to identify strategies that gained reader trust — and those that didn't.
We tagged the posts by strategy, success rate, and newsroom to make them easy to search and learn from.
Want to get started? These worksheets can help your newsroom discuss which approaches might work for you.