Trust Tip 79: In negative feedback, look for opportunities

Published on August 12, 2020August 12, 2020 by Mollie Muchna | Reading Time: < 1 minute

When we begin work with a newsroom or journalist, we often start by asking: What gets in the way of trust with your specific audience? The themes we see nationally (here’s a slide deck of national research) often show up locally, but there are usually misassumptions, complaints or frustrations specific to a local relationship and community. We take those themes and look for what we think of as information gaps, or opportunities to earn trust. What do people not understand about our ethics, our motivation for doing the work, our processes and our business? Where is an opportunity for us to earn trust by explaining those things? After all, if we’re losing credibility because people don’t understand what we do, whose responsibility is it to fill in those information gaps? Who’s going to solve that problem if not us? More from this edition can be found here and to receive the tips in your inbox each week click here.

Mollie Muchna

mollie@trustingnews.org | + posts

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.