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See how Florida journalists handled sensitive coverage
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Many people don’t think journalists are working on behalf of the community. Only 47% of people believe local news has their audiences’ best interest in mind, according to Knight/Gallup research.
At Trusting News we often talk about how people don’t give journalists automatic credit for being thoughtful and ethical. They don’t see our internal deliberations and how we’re trying to minimize harm with our reporting — unless we actively tell them.
This example from Oviedo Community News highlights exactly how newsrooms can show their audience how they’re working with their community’s best interest in mind.
When covering a sensitive story about vandalism that included Nazi graffiti and a racial slur, the Oveido Community News team got on the record about how they worked to be fair and why they ultimately decided not to blur out a photo that included hateful and disturbing language.
Here are three things journalists should take from how the Oviedo Community News team handled this situation.
1. Write something explaining how you made your decision
Megan Stokes, the editor-in-chief at Oviedo Community News, wrote a column detailing why the team decided to show the sensitive content. That included letting the reader in on the newsroom’s thought process, goals and mission, and how they consulted with sources and those “directly impacted by the incident” on how to best report the situation.
Instead of letting readers fill in the blanks as to why they showed the racial slurs — leaving the door open for people to make assumptions about the journalists’ motives or lack of care — they got on the record about how much thought they put into their reporting. Then, they backed that up further by talking through some of the steps they took to handle the situation with sensitivity and not cause further harm to the communities impacted by the crime.
2. Add an editor’s note to the story
The editor’s note their team added to the top of the original story isn’t just a generic warning that the story contains graphic material — it actually says something about the newsroom by including how their team took time deliberating how to best cover the incident. The editor note also links to the more in-depth column that details their decision-making process, as well as links to the newsroom’s ethics policy.
While not everyone will care enough to click through to in-depth explainers or your newsroom policies, making them easily accessible for people demonstrates credibility.
3. Update your ethics policy to reflect new protocols
The newsroom used their internal deliberations and decision process from this incident to update and refine the newsroom’s ethics policy, laying out how they’ll handle similar situations in the future.
Not only does having guidelines in a public-facing ethics policy demonstrate credibility and invite accountability from the public, but it also makes it easier for reporters to reference if they ever have to cover a similar situation.
Dive deeper into transparency
When should journalists take extra care to be transparent like this with their reporting and processes? Sometimes it feels clear. But often, it’s not until after we publish a story and are facing negative feedback from the public that we realize it would’ve been helpful to have explained more about our decision processes.
Our Transparency Trust Kit has more guidance on how to determine which stories might benefit most from added transparency elements. It also includes newsroom examples of what this daily transparency can look like.
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.
Project manager Mollie Muchna (she/her) has spent the last 10 years working in audience and engagement journalism in local newsrooms across the Southwest. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she is also an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism. She can be reached at mollie@trustingnews.org and on Twitter @molliemuchna.
