Thanks for working alongside us in 2024. Here’s a snapshot of what we accomplished together.

Published on December 19, 2024December 20, 2024 by Trusting News | Reading Time: 7 minutes

At Trusting News, we often wish we would work ourselves out of a job. We’d love it if trust were no longer a problem for journalists, and if communities had easy access to relevant, ethical information. But with trust in news declining, polarization increasing, and more than 40% of people reporting they tune out news, investing in trust isn’t just a nice idea. It’s critical for both journalists and the communities we serve.

As Trusting News started a new chapter this year by becoming an independent organization and securing 501(c)(3) status, our team regularly assessed how well we were fulfilling our mission of helping journalists be trusted informers, fill information gaps in their communities and empathize with the experience of consuming the news.

We’re feeling invigorated by all the ways we worked alongside journalists this year to do this crucial work of building trust (work that’s only made possible thanks to the many amazing newsroom partners, journalism support organizations and researchers we often collaborate with).

And, as this year’s Nieman Lab predictions roll out (including one from Lynn), we’re thrilled to see our approach is resonating across the industry as well. (Thanks to Anita Li, Jody Brannon, Jonathan Stray and Jacob Nelson for giving us a shout-out in your predictions!)

We’re entering another pivotal moment for our country and for the information landscape in general. As we look forward, we’re feeling hopeful — and eager to continue this work of building trust alongside you.

And as we take a moment to look back, we’re feeling immense gratitude for the newsrooms and journalists who’ve committed to demonstrating credibility and earning trust alongside us. Thank you!

How we helped newsrooms build trust in 2024

By the numbers

• We trained more than 3,000 journalists through in-person conferences, webinars, one-on-one coaching, training programs and fellowships.
• Specifically, we directly trained and coached more than 450 journalists on election coverage.
• More than 1,000 journalists signed up for this MOOC through the Knight Center, created in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Network, Trusting News and Hearken. It covered best practices for trustworthy, useful election coverage.
• We grew our weekly Trust Tips newsletter to more than 3,100 subscribers with an open rate that sits around 50%.
• More than 4,800 people accessed our Trust Kits, which are our self-guided training tools for journalists. We also published four new kits:
  • Navigating and Understanding the News, in partnership with the News Literacy Project.
  • Earning Trust On Air for broadcast journalists
  • AI Trust Kit with sample language and guidance to help you disclosure how you use AI tools
  • Election Trust Kit that includes foundational strategies for trusted election coverage.

Preparing newsrooms for 2024 election

In a major election year fraught with misinformation and hyperpolarization, we focused on offering tangible support to journalists and newsrooms.

Part of this work included leading more than 70 journalists through another year of the Advancing Democracy Fellowship alongside Hearken and the Solutions Journalism Network. Specifically, we trained these journalists to create a mission statement to get on the record about their goals with election coverage and use our Anti-Polarization Checklist to ensure their coverage was hearable across the political spectrum.

Here’s how Michelle Zenarosa at Reckon described the importance and impact of using that checklist on their election coverage:

“Our approach underwent a fundamental transformation through the implementation of [Trusting News’] Anti-Polarization Checklist. Rather than amplifying conflict, we sought to understand underlying issues and bridge divides … The anti-polarization approach taught us that we can tackle tough political issues while building bridges rather than burning them. By centering marginalized voices and working with partners who share our values, we’re creating a new model for political coverage that serves all communities while maintaining high journalistic standards. The enthusiastic response from our readers confirms we’re on the right track.”

And here’s how Dalila-Johari Paul at Capital B described our help in creating a mission statement.

“Although the election news cycle picked up over the summer our mission statement continued to be the anchor that kept myself and reporters on track to fulfill what we set out to do.”

Alongside the fellowship, we were also part of the Knight Election Hub and their Urgent Care team, providing on-demand and emergency support to journalists covering the election. With this investment, we created a living resource of copy-paste language accessed by hundreds of journalists during election week that helped journalists address misinformation by preparing their audiences for what to expect on election night and beyond. (Check out how The Coloradoan and Times Union used this language to prepare their audience for Election Day.)

We also invested in helping newsrooms get on the record and be publicly held accountable for their goals around elections by creating Election FAQs. Two standout ones are from newsroom partners Capital B and WITF. We wrote more about these FAQs here. In the spring we hosted a free program that walked a handful of newsrooms through creating an Election FAQ. We especially love this one from Arizona Luminaria, which was a newsroom in that program.

Other election work included:

• Reaching more than 350 journalists through a webinar training series on how journalists could create useful, trusted election coverage and provided one-on-one election support to dozens of newsrooms and journalists.
• Partnering with the Solutions Journalism Network and Hearken to host a MOOC through the Knight Center which covered best practices for trustworthy election coverage.
• We partnered with Stylebot to create election-related guidance tailored to newsrooms’ needs.

Developing ethics and disclosures around AI use

Thanks to funding from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, we invested in industry-leading research around AI best practices and disclosures.

In collaboration with ONA, we led a cohort of 10 newsrooms to help them understand their audience’s perceptions of AI use in their journalism. This work helped us understand audience concerns and expectations regarding AI (they want transparency!) as well as the importance of transparency in fostering trust. The findings informed the creation of an AI Trust Kit, which includes recommendations for newsrooms on how to be transparent about the use of AI, a sample user survey and a sample community interview guide.

We also have presented our findings at more than 10 industry conferences and events, reaching more than 600 journalists worldwide, and are continuing this work in 2025 by testing more specific disclosures with newsrooms. (Apply to join that paid cohort here by Jan. 10.)

Ecosystem-level work in Oklahoma

We embedded in a state-wide project with the Oklahoma Media Center that was designed to support selected newsrooms across Oklahoma as they acted on research about what the people of Oklahoma think of local news.

Here were just highlighting two of the outstanding projects that came from this work

• The Oklahoma Press Association worked with two weekly newspapers — one in eastern Oklahoma and one in western Oklahoma — to better align coverage with what readers say they want. They started by coding a year’s worth of content, then surveyed local readers to understand their coverage preferences. The team’s findings showed a misalignment between what readers said they wanted and what content they were producing, and the newsrooms started to make changes right away to better meet what their communities said they wanted coverage of.
• The Verified News Network (VNN), a Native-owned and Native-serving news service, serves and empowers underrepresented and misrepresented groups, especially BIPOC communities, women and justice-involved people. Their platform includes an invitation to submit stories, but it was underused with users saying they lacked confidence to contribute. In response, VNN created a news literacy program for underserved populations to educate them about journalism, writing and the news business. The curriculum was a success, with participants saying it helped increase their understanding of how the news works and confidence in contributing stories.

You can read more about the work we did alongside Oklahoma newsrooms here.

Other work worth noting

• We developed a survey alongside journalist Liz Kelly Nelson asking about ethical standards for news content creators. You can read about our findings here and learn more about how we plan to help train and create ethical standards for creators.
• We invested in deepening our knowledge and honing best practices around the growing problem of news avoidance, hosting a webinar with researcher Dr. Benjamin Toff and writing about best practices for newsrooms as well as presenting our strategies at multiple industry conferences. We also hosted a program where a cohort of newsrooms worked to confront news avoidance by getting on the record about their unique value and extending empathy to their audience.
• We also helped two cohorts of journalists work through some of our Trust Kits — specifically our Corrections and Transparency kits. Thanks to funding from Marquette University, we were able to have Professor Patrick Johnson attach some research alongside those cohorts. You can read more about the findings here.
• We performed a trust audit of the Christian Science Monitor newsroom and created a public-facing version of that audit, available for newsrooms to use.
• We worked to pivot to where journalists are mobilizing, shifting to posting more on our LinkedIn profile and on BlueSky. (We always love to hear where journalists are hanging out. Feel free to shoot us a message and let us know!)

We’re looking forward to 2025

In 2025, we’re excited to continue building on these efforts, specifically around building trust through AI disclosures; developing ethical standards for content creators; helping newsrooms meet the political moment with both confidence and humility, investing in community listening and so much more.

We’ll have more specifics to share about our priorities early next year. Stay tuned!

Join us in our mission to build trust

Whatever your newsroom’s priorities are (growing your subscribers and revenue, reaching younger and more diverse communities, adapting to ) we can almost guarantee increasing trust with your audience will be a key component in reaching those goals.

You can always check out our website to see the latest ways you can engage with us and our team. And as more specific training opportunities come up this year, we’ll be sure to post them on our website and share them in our Trust Tips newsletter (you can subscribe here!).

But, like we often say, the best part of our jobs is working directly with newsrooms. We’d love to hear from you — whether about the challenges your newsroom is facing or to see examples of the cool work you’ve been doing. Don’t hesitate to get in touch. Reply to this email, or find us on LinkedIn, BlueSky and X/Twitter.

Help support our work

Like many journalism support organizations, most of our annual budget comes through philanthropy. If you have ideas about who is investing in the ability of newsrooms to take ownership over the crisis of trust — in service of healthy communities and democracy — please let us know. And we welcome donations of any size on our website.

Also, if your newsroom is applying for grant funding to deepen or expand your work, think about whether our customized support could help you better understand and build trust with your community and reach your goals. We love to embed in newsrooms’ work and can help you figure out how to add our team’s support to your grant application.

Thank you for reading, and for your interest in our work.

— Joy Mayer, Lynn Walsh and Mollie Muchna