Trusting News: A project of RJI and API
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. In a continual cycle of research, learning and sharing with the industry, we explore how to incorporate trust-building into journalism’s standards and practices.
We believe:
- Listening and humility should be central to how journalists operate.
- Communities deserve access to news that reflects their diverse lives and values and is responsive to their priorities and feedback.
- It’s up to journalists to invest in telling the story of what makes their own work (not the entire news ecosystem) valuable and trustworthy.
Contact us: Our team is here to support journalists. Reach out anytime at info@TrustingNews.org, on Twitter, LinkedIn or on Facebook.
Read more below about:
Ways to follow our work:
- Our Trust Tips newsletter provides one quick, actionable tip for earning trust each Tuesday. See highlights and sign up here.
- Our Medium Publication serves as our blog. We share advice on specific coverage areas, write about research and share highlights from our newsroom partners.
- Add us to your social feeds on Twitter and LinkedIn.
How we support journalists:
We train and coach newsrooms through doing the work of earning trust day to day. We do that through writing, small group teaching, one-on-one coaching, webinar trainings and more. To see how we might be able to help you, see our Start Earning Trust page.
Research:
We look for opportunities to work with academic researchers to better understand the perceptions, preferences, attitudes and behavior of news consumers. That work sometimes involves isolating and testing transparency strategies. Two examples of that have come through a partnership with the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas. We tested whether adding explanations for how journalists do their jobs is a useful tool to help build trust. One experiment found that adding an “explain your process” box can improve a user’s perceptions of a news organization. A second study using focus groups suggested that TV viewers appreciate when journalists explain why a story is being done.
Also in partnership with the Center for Media Engagement, we set out to better understand a group of people known for distrusting the news. A group of 27 local newsrooms across the country used our interview guide to survey their right-leaning audiences. The research team analyzed 91 interviewees to gather insight on how they view the news. The discussions revealed specific approaches journalists can take to better connect with their conservative and right-leaning audiences. View the full report and findings: “How Local Newsrooms Can Better Connect with Conservative and Right-leaning Audiences.”
We have also worked with journalists to collect information about how users decide what news to trust. In one organized effort, partner journalists published a questionnaire that resulted in 8,728 user responses. They then selected people (across a diversity of demographics, political leanings and likelihood to trust the news) and sat down for in-depth interviews. (When was the last time you sat down with a community member to talk about their perceptions of your work?) Some highlights of what they learned: People trust journalism they find to be balanced, in-depth, honest and reputable. Here is an analysis of those interviews. What we learned formed the basis of the seven strategies we tested next.
If you are a researcher interested in trust and perceptions of news, we’d love to talk about potential collaborations. Please email info@TrustingNews.org.
Our staff:
Director: Joy Mayer (she/her) founded Trusting News in 2016 after a 20-year career in newsrooms and teaching. She spent 12 years at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she created an audience engagement curriculum and a community outreach team in the newsroom of the Columbia Missourian and also taught web design and print design. She lives in Sarasota, Florida, and can be reached at joy@TrustingNews.org or on Twitter @mayerjoy.
Assistant director: Lynn Walsh (she/her) is an Emmy award-winning journalist who has worked in investigative journalism at the national level and locally in California, Ohio, Texas and Florida. She is the former Ethics Chair for the Society of Professional Journalists and a past national president for the organization. Based in San Diego, Lynn is also an adjunct professor and freelance journalist. She can be reached at lynn@TrustingNews.org and on Twitter @lwalsh.
Project manager: Mollie Muchna (she/her) has worked in audience and engagement journalism in local newsrooms in Colorado and Arizona. She is also the online editor at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, Arizona, where she oversees the newsroom’s community engagement and digital strategies. She can be reached at mollie@trustingnews.org and on Twitter @molliemuchna.
Engagement producer: Suzie Samin (she/her) is a first-generation Syrian and Cuban-American journalist, author, and corporate goth. She’s helped companies like The New York Times, Netflix, Gannett, and Bustle grow their audiences with a data-centric, experimental approach. She is a native New Yorker but relocated to Vermont in 2022 with her partner and a steadily increasing number of pets. She graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2013 with a major in journalism and a minor in moody Tumblr aesthetics. A metalhead and a softie at heart, you can find her headbanging while baking pies and knitting scarves for her friends.
Additional collaborators and consultants:
Letrell Deshan Crittenden is the director of inclusion and audience growth at the American Press Institute. Before that, he was an assistant professor of communication and program director at Thomas Jefferson University and a scholar specializing in issues related diversity and inclusion in news and community journalism. He is also a former police and government reporter.
Our partner organizations:
Trusting News is co-hosted by:
The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) works with the news industry, professors, students and others to make sure journalism has a long and bright future. As a “think-and-do” tank that opened its doors in 2008, RJI uses its guaranteed funding to work exclusively to strengthen journalism in the service of democracy. It’s part of the Missouri School of Journalism.
The American Press Institute (API) advances an innovative and sustainable news industry by helping publishers understand and engage audiences, grow revenue, improve public-service journalism, and succeed at organizational change. It is a national 501(c)3 nonprofit educational organization affiliated with the News Media Alliance.
