Our Trust Tips newsletter provides one quick, actionable tip for earning trust each Tuesday.
Create an FAQ about your elections coverage
If your coverage is nonpartisan, explain and defend that
If you strive for fairness, tell your audience
Explain how you decide which stories to cover
Ask how you could better earn trust
Moderate comments on the conversations you host
Address “fake news” complaints
Equip journalists to respond to attacks on their credibility
Elections
Learn how people perceive your election reporting
Provide support (not anxiety) during elections
Demonstrate visual balance in political coverage
Explain how political advertising works
Help your audience consume polls responsibly
Learn how people perceive your election reporting
Solicit (and answer) live questions about voting
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
Show you’re part of your community during COVID-19
Don’t let political squabbles dominate COVID-19 coverage
Show you’re part of your community during COVID-19
Disclose stimulus funds and explain the ethics involved
Ethics, accuracy and fairness
Have a clear policy about unpublishing stories
When you’re right and other news outlets are wrong, tell your audience
Acknowledge what you don’t know
Demonstrate that your visuals aren’t manipulated
Share your ethics and corrections policy
If you get something wrong, explain yourself
If you publish a graphic image, explain why
Correct mistakes to build confidence in your journalism
Explain how you cover breaking news
Explain your use of anonymous sources
Explain how breaking news works
Be ready to discuss content you don’t produce
Telling your story
Reporters, explain your purpose
Share your history, mission and values
Make it clear you report on solutions, not just problems
Tell your audience what you think of “fake news”
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
Do these four things right now to show you are trustworthy
Talk about the cost of journalism
Explain your role as a watchdog
Don’t talk about the boring parts of your work
Show the breadth of your journalism
Get started with these three questions
How to be transparent
Use labels for investigations, fact-checks and feature stories
Use newsletter A/B testing to test trust strategies
Explain the ways you tried to reach a source
Build transparency into investigative pieces
Transparency sidebars can be quick and easy
Engagement
Make your contact information truly accessible
Focus on the audience members who *aren’t* yelling at you
Use social media profiles to communicate your trustworthiness
Use a survey to solicit questions and feedback
In negative feedback, look for opportunities
Remind your audience news is more than politics and crime
Invite people into the newsroom
Explain why a story is being done and encourage audience participation
Earn trust face to face, one on one
Share your humanity while reporting on protests
Invest in getting buy-in from your newsroom
Use research to persuade colleagues to invest in earning trust
Opinion coverage
Explain who writes an editorial (and who doesn’t)
Explain where opinion content comes from
Explain that some journalists are biased on purpose
News literacy
Help your audience navigate the news
Help your users be smarter news consumers
Take extra care when covering conspiracy theories (and tell your audience)
Tell your audience you won’t tolerate misinformation