Q&A: Molly de Aguiar, Managing Director of the News Integrity Initiative
The Idea spoke with News Integrity Initiative’s Molly de Aguiar to discuss how newsroom’s can build trust by engaging with audiences, trust around the world, and revolutionizing data journalism.
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The Idea: What is the News Integrity Initiative, and what does your role as Managing Director entail?
MdA: The News Integrity Initiative is a philanthropic fund and a global coalition of newsrooms, nonprofits, technologists, and academics to foster mutually trusting relationships between journalists and the communities they serve, while also tackling the spread of disinformation, and nurturing respectful and inclusive civic dialogue. We believe that journalism can and should serve as a force for building trust, empathy and solutions in our communities. We are housed at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
We are a small team of two. Jenny Choi, who is the Associate Director, and I work side-by-side managing all aspects of the initiative, including: creating the strategies and guidelines for funding; collaborating with other funders; building cross-sector partnerships and peer-to-peer learning opportunities around the world; hosting interesting and provocative events; and shining a spotlight on case studies and resources for community-focused journalism, promising civic dialogue projects and solutions for combating media manipulation.
A core strategy of NII’s mission to build trust involves helping newsrooms engage with and respond to the public better. Ten months in, what tactics have you found fruitful?
Much of the trust-building work we support focuses on relationship building between local newsrooms and the communities they serve, ideally involving a lot of different partners (e.g. libraries, elected officials, local nonprofits, et. al.). A good example of this work is our grant to Free Press’ News Voices project which hosts community forums in New Jersey and North Carolina to create opportunities for journalists and communities to come together, get to know one another, collaborate on projects, and build a more participatory model for local news. At the same time, we also support tools, like The Coral Project’s “Ask” and “Talk” tools, Hearken, GroundSource, and the Listening Post Collective’s toolkit for listening and engaging with the public. These projects and tools all preceded NII; what we are trying to do is help connect the dots and build a movement for journalism that is radically inclusive, responsive to people’s needs, and helps people feel powerful and engaged in their communities.
NII has supported efforts in both the U.S. and internationally. How does the problem of distrust in the media differ — or remain the same — around the globe?
What we’ve learned is that there are clear patterns about the disruption to local journalism everywhere which have led to more distrust in the media, as well as the rapid spread of mis- and disinformation, but the extent of the disruption, distrust and the media manipulation very much depends on the local context. Who owns the media matters (is it owned by oligarchs or is it public media?) as well as what access people have to information and what apps and platforms they use. The frustration with the spread of mis- and disinformation through WhatsApp, for example, is something we hear everywhere we go, except the U.S. where WhatsApp isn’t nearly as popular.
From your perspective, how can national or international publishers help mitigate distrust in the media as an institution?
At the top of that list has to be a commitment to dramatically improve diversity in newsroom staff and sources. So much of the anger we hear directly from the public is rooted in the harmful narratives that the media perpetuates about race, class, gender, and religion — the impact of which is most acutely felt in marginalized communities.
If you could imagine a journalism landscape in which newsrooms and their sources reflected and celebrated the rich diversity of the communities they serve, the world would truly be a different place.
What is the most interesting thing that you’ve seen from a media outlet or program other than your own?
For funders, this question is like asking a parent to pick a favorite child! So, let me preface this with saying that there is so much good work happening that energizes us every day, which is why we created our Year of Listening website to celebrate all the inspiring work we’re seeing. But I will give you an example — Outlier Media — because Sarah Alvarez’s creativity and resourcefulness is just incredible.
Outlier Media is a small news outlet in Detroit that uses text messaging (powered by the aforementioned GroundSource) to provide housing and utility data to low-income tenants throughout the city. Sarah wants to level the playing field for renters in her city. Residents can text their address to Outlier and instantly learn whether there are blight tickets, unpaid utilities, unpaid taxes or other issues with that property. If a person wants further information or wants to share a story or ask a question, he or she can reach out to an Outlier journalist at any time.
It’s a totally new way to think about data journalism, and it expands our imagination about what information is valuable to people and how to deliver it to them. And because the first part of the process is automated (texting the address to a number, receiving information instantly), Outlier can deliver valuable information to a large audience while also offering a real human being to talk to as well. Sarah has created an elegant and effective model that’s savvy about technology and data, but is rooted in relationships and community building. We would love to see it fully funded in Detroit for years to come and also tested in many other places, with all sorts of information that could be useful to communities.
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