How can we respond to the neverending news cycle without alienating our communities and burning ourselves out?
Trust Tips: Show care in helping your community navigate post-election life
If you’re like me, you’re ready to take a break from talking about the election. I’m feeling tapped from spending the last two weeks deep-diving into thought pieces and processing results with friends and family on both sides of the aisle.
There are likely people in your community feeling this way, too, whether your audience is celebrating or feeling fearful about Trump’s victory. It’s also likely that a lot of people just aren’t all that tuned in to the news and are looking to resume normal life, seeking basic information to help them do that.
How can we as journalists lean into what different audiences need from us and help them navigate through? How can we extend empathy for the different mindsets people are in?
And how can we respond intentionally to the demands of the neverending news cycle without both alienating our communities and burning ourselves out?
These are challenging questions we’ll likely have to ask ourselves repeatedly over the next four years and beyond. Showing you’re on the side of your community isn’t always easy, especially when so many people see news as part of the problem of polarization and information overwhelm. But if we want to be seen as trusted messengers, we’ll need to lean into this reality.
Here are some initial ways to be thinking about that this next week. We’d also love to hear from you. How are you considering serving your audience post-election? Send me a message at mollie@trustingnews.org.
Give people permission to step away
Matt Kiser, the journalist behind the WTF Just Happened Today? newsletter, recently shared screenshots of the notes people left when unsubscribing from the newsletter. The main theme was clear: People weren’t unsubscribing because they didn’t find the news product valuable but because the news itself was too overwhelming, exhausting and depressing.
Pair that with the growing number of people who say they avoid the news, and it’s clear people need a break. So can we give people permission to step away for a bit?
LOOKOUT, a nonprofit news site in Arizona focused on covering the LGBTQ+ community, did this by sending a quick newsletter out after the election that encouraged people to step away from doomscrolling and spend time with their community.
Think about how you can extend the same empathy to your audience. Acknowledge that the news is overwhelming and often anxiety-inducing. Tell them it’s OK to take news breaks, and then offer them some easy ways to plug back in — a podcast, newsletter, social feed — when they are ready to re-engage.
Help them navigate information
The №1 question I’ve gotten from my circles after this election has been: Where do I find fair, balanced news?
With so much information out there, people are turning in all different directions for information. While some of what they find will be credible, some of it won’t be. And it can be challenging to tell the two apart — even for educated, well-intentioned news consumers.
It’s rational for journalists to be frustrated or feel hopeless by the state of people’s information diets. But the fundamental way people are consuming news is changing, and it’s up to us to adapt and help our audience through it.
Start by helping people identify signals of credibility in information. (A good way to do this is to point to these signals in your own reporting!) Encourage skepticism. Quickly debunk misinformation that arises in your community.
Then take it a step further and help your audience create a news diet that works for them. Make sure you’re not sending the message that more is always better. Instead, help them create a manageable relationship with the news. Sometimes offering a finite experience, like a daily or weekly newsletter, can be a huge relief.
Remind them what we all have in common
During the lead-up to the election, our team at Trusting News often pointed to this research from More in Common. Their study found that people “imagine almost twice as many of their political opponents as reality hold views they consider ‘extreme’ ” showing that there’s a real perception gap in how people view those on the other side of the political aisle.
The report goes on to conclude: “Even on the most controversial issues in our national debates, Americans are less divided than most of us think … The majority of Americans hold views that may not be so different from your own.”
I’m not trying to paint an overly rosy picture here: There are deep divides and radical viewpoints that pose a danger to groups of people. This is not easy work.
But as a community voice, we as journalists have some power in what we direct people’s attention to. Could some of that attention be drawn to reminding people of what we have in common?
For starters, consider including data from the Similarity Hub in some of your stories, which shows widespread agreement on some elements of controversial issues. The data can be surprising, and journalists have a lot of responsibility for shared narratives around commonalities. (We’re in touch with folks doing some research on how audiences respond when this data is included. Stay tuned.)
Other ways you could do this is by producing solutions stories, sharing what positive impacts are happening in your community. It could look like hosting local gatherings or a community pizza party like Arizona Luminaria did last week. Or it could be working to use your reporting to breach divides, like reporter John Diedrich did, where in his report about gun deaths was able to find commonalities across the aisle. (More on how he did that here.)
Care for yourself, too
All this advice applies to you, too. We should all take a beat to step away, spend time with loved ones and tune out. The Election SOS team wrote more about that in their newsletter last week.
How can we support you?
We’d love to be useful to you and your newsroom. If you could use help demonstrating what makes your news credible, or acting on any of the suggestions in today’s newsletter, please reach out to our team on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter) or email at info@trustingnews.org.If our team can help support you and your newsroom, please reach out on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter) or email at info@trustingnews.org.
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.
