We hope you agree with us when we say that deleting and correcting misinformation is important — especially when that misinformation is being shared in a Facebook group you manage or underneath a link your news organization posted on social media. It’s so important to moderate your conversation spaces. Do not be afraid to delete links to stories that include false information. Do not hesitate to delete images that are altered. Do not feel bad about preventing someone from posting in a group if they continually share misinformation. (As a comment moderator, try thinking of yourself as the host of a party. You wouldn’t let someone come into your party and yell inflammatory lies, right?)

We know people don’t give journalists the benefit of the doubt. That means people won’t automatically assume you’re credible, so it’s up to you to be transparent about your reporting process and explain how it works. Think about the ways you can pull back the curtain on how you produce your work, especially places like social media where audiences interact with content very briefly and might only glance at a headline before scrolling on. Start by including what your reporting process looks like in the post chatter. Share what makes your sources credible or how you found documents. Explain how you verified information. And take the time to respond to comments accusing you of misinformation or “fake news.” 

Your audience notices what you cover and wonders about what you don’t cover. If you don’t let them in on your process, people will make all kinds of assumptions about your motivations and decision-making. They may assume a reporter is friends with the business owner featured in a story, or the boss’ kid goes to the school highlighted in a story, or a politician paid you to cover a topic or event.

Instead of letting misassumptions damage people’s trust of your coverage, let your users know what criteria you DO use when deciding what to cover. For more on this, check out our Trust Kit on explaining coverage decisions. 

Breaking news is ripe for misinformation. News is actively unfolding and it’s not uncommon for news outlets to initially report something that will later change or be updated. It’s easy to see how these situations can be confusing for people and may cause them to question the credibility of the news they are seeing.

So start by explaining how you cover breaking news. Work with your newsroom to develop language you can add to breaking news stories (online, in print and on-air) to explain how quickly information changes in these situations and what your approach is. Let your users know you report the most accurate and best information you have at that moment, but that information from officials can quickly change. Talk about how you will update the information and where the latest updates can be found. (Will it be online, or on social? Will you remove incorrect information?) Consider adding language that makes it clear that the facts in these situations can change and that information is moving quickly. 

You can also share this News Literacy Project infographic that breaks down things people should watch for and understand when breaking news is unfolding.   

How many times has someone accused you or your organization of bias, and what they felt was biased was an editorial or column? Not being able to tell opinion content from news content can be frustrating for users. And usually for good reason: News organizations often don’t make it easy to tell the difference between these two types of content.

So make sure to clearly label what’s opinion content and what’s not — especially on social media. Stop using journalism jargon like “op-ed” or “editorial” and instead use more commonly used terms, like “opinion.” And to take it a step further, explain how your newsroom staff keeps the two content types from influencing each other. Check out this Opinion Trust Kit for more guidance on how to do this. 

“Fake news” comes up so often in conversations about news, likely because research shows it’s a major concern for many people. But oftentimes, people conflate “fake news” with news they disagree with, or perhaps an error a news organization made one time. So if someone brings up “fake news,” commiserate with them. Talk about how it’s a big problem for journalists, too. Share your experience of how most journalists try hard to get things right, but are human and sometimes make mistakes. 

You can also help them level up as news consumers by giving them tools to decipher what’s credible information for themselves. Here are some tools we’d recommend sharing: 

• A News Literacy Project checklist and infographic of how to vet information and sources to help your audience verify if something they see online is legit or not. 
• News Literacy Project’s RumorGuard, a tool that helps people determine when viral news may be false or contain misinformation. 
• Interactive News Literacy Project quiz that will help them practice and understand what credibility in news looks like. 

• ProPublica has a list of helpful questions for people to ask when evaluating misinformation.

It’s easy to get defensive when people question your credibility. But shouldn’t we encourage our audience to be skeptical of what they consume? Aren’t we as journalists also skeptical by nature? Instead of getting frustrated and throwing up your hands, encourage your audience to question what they see and proactively give them tools to help decipher good information from bad information. (Check out the section directly above, “Help people spot bad information” to see some News Literacy Project tools you can share directly with your audience.)

Talk directly to your audience about ways they can be smart about their news consumption — of your product and others. Let them know that you take breaks from the news (you do, right?) and they should too. Suggest newsletters, podcasts and other products that are thorough but not overwhelming. Consider offering this advice in a newsletter, an online story, an Instagram story or even on-air. Ask for their suggestions and questions. Acknowledge their experience and build trust by being a resource they can turn to. 

People don’t assume journalists care about people like them. On the contrary, we’ve heard from partner newsrooms that many people think journalists are just trying to get more clicks, however possible (which, in some cases, is true, right?). So start by first acknowledging to your audience that the news is often overwhelming, depressing and hard to read. If it’s been a heavy news week, acknowledge that and encourage them to take breaks if needed. You can also use it as an opportunity to point your audience to more solutions-based stories. (Research from the Center for Media Engagement indicates solutions journalism can help people feel more optimistic). By extending this level of empathy, you can signal to your audience that you DO care about them and their well-being and mental health. (Because, you do, right?)

Let’s stop expecting people to get all the alerts on all the platforms. Instead, let’s help people create news diets that work for them. Give your audience permission to step away from the news, and then help folks feel caught up when they do tune in.

As we’ve written before, it’s important to make sure you’re not sending the message that more is always better. Give them good resources that will help them have a manageable relationship with the news. Point them to options where they can get updates that aren’t overwhelming (like daily newsletters or podcast roundups). Offer up your own advice for how you stay caught up without getting overwhelmed. 

Explain why certain content is important and how it might impact them. As people make decisions and prioritize which news to consume and which news to tune out, consider adding additional context that explains why each piece of content may be important to people in your audience. Get specific about how certain topics you’re covering might impact them so people have an opportunity to prioritize. The Christian Science Monitor does something similar where they put value indicators besides the headlines of some of their stories, so readers can pick stories that align with the values most important to them. Your newsroom could do something similar by adding a line to newsletters, on air, or on social media that gets specific about each story’s impact. 

When people make sweeping statements about “the media,” it’s hard not to get defensive or to take it personally. But there’s a lot of journalism out there, and not all of it is good, right? So if someone is talking about how bad or biased the media is, remember that you don’t have to defend the whole media industry. It can go a long way to show that you have empathy for their perspective by agreeing that there is unethical journalism you don’t stand behind. But then perhaps follow up by sharing some resources and media outlets you find especially credible and helpful.

Oftentimes when interacting with a journalist, people bring up a story or example of journalism they take issue with. So use that as an opportunity to be curious and inquire about where they saw this content and how they feel (or likely, don’t feel) represented by the news. Asking some general questions like this can help lead the conversation forward and ground it in a place of empathy and curiosity.

We have a community interview guide we often encourage journalists to use with people in their community who have low trust in news. While we’re not necessarily advising for you to sit down and do official interviews with everyone at the next big family reunion, you can use some of these questions to help productively direct the conversation.

People tend to have a narrow view of what journalism is (thinking it’s only crime, political coverage or investigations.) Remind them that journalism is that, but also that it’s so much more! Journalism is also the review of the new restaurant in town; a list of events happening this weekend; a map of where to see holiday lights around town. You can help people broaden their scope by sharing different elements of what your work looks like.  

And, when it feels appropriate, share why it is you chose to work in journalism — whether that’s to tell people’s stories, to represent diverse voices, to act as a watchdog, etc. People don’t automatically think of journalism as a public service, so sharing the personal importance behind your work can help shift how people think of journalists and their motives. 

If they start making assumptions or using broad strokes to paint journalists’ motives, gently remind them that most journalists are like you — people who are part of their local communities who are affected by what happens there. They care, and most are trying their best to provide thoughtful, fair coverage. This Trust Kit walks journalists through how they can better talk about who they are.