Thanks to support from the Knight Election Hub, Trusting News is offering journalists real-time support to respond to public perceptions and misassumptions about your election coverage and voting processes.
Trusting News offering real-time support to help newsrooms respond to election misinformation
It’s likely your newsroom is already seeing questions, assumptions and accusations from the public about the credibility of your news and the election processes in general. It’s even more likely this confusion will only intensify on Election Day beyond as people’s skepticism, fear and concern increase.
If people are questioning the fairness and accuracy of your election coverage — and of election results and processes — we as journalists need to be ready to respond.
Our team at Trusting News can offer you real-time support to respond to public perceptions and misassumptions about your election coverage and voting processes.
Find our support as part of the Election Urgent Care Slack, from the Knight Election Hub and Votebeat. In that Slack workspace, you can get rapid support on topics like election law, election administration, online threats and data gathering. Find details and request access to that support here.
You can also request support directly through Trusting News by emailing info@TrustingNews.org.
We invite you to bring us whatever is showing up in your comments, inboxes and community conversations, and we’ll help you figure out how to respond. Our team can help draft sample responses you can copy and modify. We can also help you prioritize engagement efforts and help make suggestions about which comments and reactions are worthy of a response.
This includes responding to:
- Accusations of bias in coverage
- Questions and skepticism about election results and the voting process
- Addressing spreading mis-and disinformation
Our Trusting News team will be monitoring public perceptions and threats, and compiling resources and sample responses to common questions and accusations popping up on Election Day and the days following. That living resource will be available to newsrooms in the Election Urgent Care Slack, from the Knight Election Hub and Votebeat.
More last-minute election help
- We have pre-written explainers ready for you to share with your audience to help set expectations around how the vote counting and processes work. Election SOS also created a story template for newsrooms to adapt and use to help set expectations around when to expect election results.
- This Election Trust Kit dives into last-minute tips for journalists to help them demonstrate credibility with their Election Day coverage. It also has additional tips for how journalists can provide support and not anxiety in your election coverage.
- Watch replays of our election training webinar series, where we cover topics like how to avoid common pitfalls of polarizing reporting and how to explain your reporting process.
At Trusting News, we learn how people decide what news to trust and turn that knowledge into actionable strategies for journalists. We train and empower journalists to take responsibility for demonstrating credibility and actively earning trust through transparency and engagement. Learn more about our work, vision and team. Subscribe to our Trust Tips newsletter. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Project manager Mollie Muchna (she/her) has spent the last 10 years working in audience and engagement journalism in local newsrooms across the Southwest. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she is also an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism. She can be reached at mollie@trustingnews.org and on Twitter @molliemuchna.
