It’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to tell what is true online. As journalists, we have a responsibility to help our audience.
Build trust and connection by thinking beyond facts
Want to get this Trust Tips newsletter in your inbox each Tuesday? Subscribe here.Editor’s note: You’ll notice today’s newsletter is different from our normal Tuesday Trust Tips newsletters. This newsletter features a guest post by Allen Arthur, who is the engagement director at Solutions Journalism Network. Allen is a champion of solutions journalism and the role it can play in helping journalists build trust with their audience.
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A liberal and a conservative converse, intending to understand each other. They’re both genuine in this desire, driven by the belief that understanding might free them from the dread and distrust they have for each other. During the conversation, one goes rogue, insisting on explaining their beliefs by expressing what is wrong with the other’s. It becomes a barrage of problems with “the other side,” laying out every awful thing the opposing party has done.
This isn’t a hypothetical. I’ve been working to become a facilitator for Braver Angels, a nonprofit lowering the temperature on political conflict by building understanding across divisions. And this is a situation we train for. It is also, sadly, how journalism has unintentionally eroded trust.
What we learned in Africa
Over the past five years, we trained hundreds of journalists and worked with 70+ newsrooms as part of our Solutions Journalism Africa Initiative, and we recently did an expansive analysis of the results. Our impact manager Miranda Pursley hosted in-depth conversations with journalists and everyday people who follow the news outlets we worked with.
While the research is not public (yet), we heard some incredible things.
- Radio stations who broadcast solutions stories received calls requesting more similar stories and even to ask how to get involved in the initiatives covered.
- Communities began replicating solutions, inspired by learning about “people like [them].”
- Journalists started getting invitations to visit communities and see the solution they’d been attempting. Audiences saw reporters less as critics exposing failures and more as allies in community development, with journalists and community members alike framing this a restoration of journalism’s core purposes.
Approaches varied, with some newsrooms consistently producing solutions journalism or even creating a vertical, while others had one or two journalists doing the bulk of the work. But there were commonalities. The most success came when journalist enthusiasm met institutional support. And while increased metrics and donations were important, there had to be something else there, namely a desire to reconnect with one’s purpose and repair relationships by telling a different story.
Importantly, most newsrooms focused on the local, telling stories of what was working in their own area or in small pockets of their country. Most stories were not national. Rather, they were about local answers to broader problems. This not only drove impact, but it helped people see themselves in the work. The distance between journalists and the public was reduced.
Trust is more than just facts
Journalists love to highlight the depth of our truth-seeking and the necessity of facts as we work to win back (or win for the first time) people’s trust. Yet this ignores the research: Concerns about accuracy aren’t at the top of the list of reasons people avoid the news.
Instead, if you dig in, you find people are citing reasons like negative mood, feeling overwhelmed and a sense there’s nothing they can do with the information. At Solutions Journalism Network, we see this all the time anecdotally: When journalism feeds people constant problems with little respite, it simply becomes less trustworthy.
Over and over, we hear that enthusiasm for doing solutions reporting is high, but that it can be difficult to build into an already packed workflow. But simple steps can help grow the muscles needed to the different (but not necessarily more time-consuming) solutions reporting.
Crucially, addressing a lack of trust means that what you cover and how matter as much as, if not more than, the accuracy of your coverage. It’s about care, listening and intentionality. Invite people as much as possible into your reporting process. And as you do, explain the work you’re doing and why to bring meaning and value to it. (Here’s a great example from The Narwhal.)
Finally, whether it’s working with violence interruptors as a journalist, Braver Angels as an aspiring facilitator or SJN, I see the same thing over and over: Listen first. People justifiably question whether journalists truly care about them. Listening is the basis of every challenge to that perception. In your newsletters or on social media, ask your audiences the problems for which they want to learn about solutions. Go out into the community with curiosity. Find not just their grievances but their values and aspirations. (Trusting News has a Trust Kit dedicated to how journalists can better invest in listening to their communities.)
And remember that every problem story offers the opportunity for a solutions story. Start by asking, “Who’s doing this better? Has anyone fixed this?” As one Nigerian journalist told us, “Stopping at just reporting the problem is a choice.” Increasingly, it’s one journalists can’t afford to make.
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, BlueSky and LinkedIn.
