More Our Trust Tips newsletter provides one quick, actionable tip for earning trust each Tuesday. Here are some highlights from our archive, sorted by topic area.
Explain how you decide which stories to cover
Ask how you could better earn trust
Use comments to explain and defend your work
Address “fake news” complaints
Defend yourself without sounding defensive
If you strive for fairness, tell your audience
Equip journalists to respond to attacks on their credibility
Let’s talk about the 90 percent of Republicans who don’t trust us
Use research to persuade colleagues to invest in earning trust
Pluralism
Create journalism that fuels pluralism
Assess the role of wire news in your local journalism
Look for ways to be less polarizing and avoid generalizations
Consider what “fairness” actually looks like in stories
Ask if you have any veterans in your newsroom. Here’s why.
Explain your coverage goals with hot-button issues
Routinely seek (and listen to) community feedback
Ethics, accuracy and fairness
Have a clear policy about unpublishing stories
Acknowledge what you don’t know
Share your ethics and corrections policy
If you get something wrong, explain yourself
If you publish a graphic image, explain why
Explain how and why you protect people’s privacy
Explain how you cover breaking news
Explain your use of anonymous sources
Explain how breaking news works
When you stop covering something, tell your audience
Telling your story
Reporters, explain your purpose
Share your history, mission and values
Make it clear you report on solutions, not just problems
Use staff bios as a tool for building trust
Work with customer service teams to build audience trust
Be ready to discuss content you don’t produce
Show how your staff covers big news
Create a handout about your newsroom
Use plain English in your disclosure statements
Let’s create an effective “About Us” page
Talk about the cost of journalism
Explain your role as a watchdog
Show the breadth of your journalism
COVID-19
Tell your audience that COVID-19 information might change
Do not neglect basic but vital pandemic information
With coronavirus coverage, make your purpose clear
Engage on social media during COVID-19
Explain how coronavirus coverage affects your bottom line
Don’t let political squabbles dominate COVID-19 coverage
Disclose stimulus funds and explain the ethics involved
Transparency strategies
Use labels for investigations, fact-checks and feature stories
Using major events to build trust
Explain the ways you tried to reach a source
Build transparency into investigative pieces
Here’s how to start writing trust language into stories
Transparency sidebars can be quick and easy
Build trust with sources through clear expectations
Elections and politics
Learn how people perceive your election reporting
Explain any changes to national political coverage
Earn trust in your political coverage year round
Here’s how WITF is inserting accountability reminders into daily stories
Leave unnecessary politics out of stories
If your coverage is nonpartisan, explain and defend that
Create an FAQ about your elections coverage
Do you endorse candidates? Either way, explain why
Explain how you call who won an election
Provide support (not anxiety) during elections
Explain how political advertising works
Help your audience consume polls responsibly
Engagement
Why engagement is key to earning trust
Make your contact information truly accessible
Scale engagement efforts by being efficient
Focus on the audience members who *aren’t* yelling at you
Ask these questions of BIPOC communities to gauge trust
Use social media profiles to communicate your trustworthiness
Turn negative feedback into trust-building opportunities
Explain why a story is being done and encourage audience participation
Invest in getting buy-in from your newsroom
Opinion coverage
Explain who writes an editorial (and who doesn’t)
Explain where opinion content comes from
Explain that some journalists share opinions on purpose
News literacy
Help your audience navigate the news
Help your users be smarter news consumers
Build news literacy into your journalism
Take extra care when covering conspiracy theories (and tell your audience)
Tell your audience you won’t tolerate misinformation