Apply to collaborate with us at bit.ly/pluralismnetwork.

Journalism can be a force for good in a polarized world. Join our Pluralism Network.

For several months, we’ve been asking some big questions at Trusting News about how journalists can be part of the solution to fractured, polarized communities. Together with our Pluralism Network, we’re testing strategies and building knowledge.

You may have seen some of what we’ve learned and created so far on these topics:

• explaining and editing wire content
• opinion labeling and descriptions
• corrections policies and practices
• diversifying staff with an interview guide for hiring managers

We’re ready to test out more ideas, and as always, we can’t do it without the help of newsroom partners. Since 2016, we have relied on hundreds of journalists’ willingness to find time in their fast-paced, overbooked workdays to collaborate and learn with us. We’re so grateful they’ve found the experience valuable!

We’re launching our next phase of pluralism projects, based on what we’ve learned so far and on what we most want to know. We’ll collect what we’ve learned and share it this summer so that newsroom-tested strategies and best practices can be shared with the industry before the midterm elections.

(Note: This post has been updated! We are now launching three projects in May, all with stipends attached. Keep reading to learn more about each project and how to apply.)

NEW! Stipends for newsrooms

We have two funders from outside the journalism ecosystem who are committed to furthering the cause of pluralism and who (happily for us!) see potential in working with journalists.

Thank you to New Pluralists, a cross-disciplinary, cross-ideological collaborative, and to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Their support will allow us to attach stipends to these projects. We recognize that newsroom bandwidth is in short supply. Our hope is that financial support will make it more feasible for journalists to participate and to help us share with the industry what we learn together.

Note: These organizations together represent diverse political views, which feels appropriate to us for an initiative focused on pluralism. They invested in our efforts to learn about strategies for journalists to earn the trust of complex, diverse communities. At the end of the grant period, we will report to them about how we spent the money. They have no influence over what specifically we research, what newsrooms we award money to, or how we analyze and report the findings. (This note was added a few hours after publication and should have been included all along. Thanks to the newsroom partner who asked for clarification, and apologies for the delay.)

The questions we invite you to explore with us

We’re starting with these three questions. Click the link with each to go to an explanation of how we’ll explore it and what we’ll ask journalists to do.

Once you’ve decided how you’d like to contribute, apply for the Pluralism Network here. We’ll ask you to tell us about your work and why you want to participate, then you can apply for just the specific projects that feel relevant to you. The application deadline has been extended to May 2. More details are in this post.

The projects:

1. What strategies or tools could help editors assess whether individual stories are contributing to complexity and curiosity rather than overgeneralizations and polarization? Read more about our anti-polarization checklist, which comes with a $2,000 stipend for participating newsrooms.
2. How can newsrooms adopt practices around national wire content that help audiences differentiate it from local news? And what resources would be helpful for journalists writing headlines on those stories to avoid triggering polarized reactions and feedback? Read more about our wire news project, which comes with a $2,000 stipend for participating newsrooms.
3. How can newsrooms incorporate outreach efforts with maximum impact and efficiency to learn about the needs and perceptions of people with low trust in news? Read more about our outreach and listening project, which comes with a $500 stipend for individual participating journalists.

Research partners

We have a lot of happy collaborations at Trusting News (see above references to newsrooms and funders), and another one we want to point out here is our research partners.

As we explore strategies to build trust, at the core is always this question: Well, what actually WORKS? Answering that question is often tricky, and we’ve always been happy when academic researchers shared our curiosities. We are in a continual cycle of experimenting, learning and training.

For our Road to Pluralism initiative, we’re thrilled that two researchers are guiding and supporting our efforts. Pluralism Network newsrooms will be sharing insights and reflections with them.

Sue Robinson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is interested in understanding how journalists are thinking about building trust with audiences in their varying practices and routines, and how their norms, routines and protocols are changing. She will be learning from our collaborating journalists about how they incorporate these strategies into their routines and how the projects might influence their relationship with their communities, among other factors.

Joshua Darr at Louisiana State University studies political communication and polarization and is interested in effective strategies for local journalists. He will be taking learnings from the Pluralism Network into controlled experiments, where individual language decisions and other variables can be isolated and tested.

So, to wrap up:

1. Check out the three projects we’re focused on this spring and summer.
2. Apply for the Pluralism Network.
3. Watch this space for emerging best practices, in time to support your midterms coverage.
4. Subscribe to our Trust Tips newsletter for continued updates.

Coming later…

We’ve updated this project list and are bumping the following two projects to start at a later time in the future.

If you’re interested in either project or have questions, reach out to Director Joy Mayer (joy@trustingnews.org) or Project Manager Mollie Muchna (mollie@trustingnews.org).

1. How can hiring editors and HR teams update their interview practices to learn more about the dimensions of difference that job candidates could add to their staffs? Read more about our hiring project.
2. How can newsrooms talk to their audiences about their election coverage in a way that highlights shared goals and taps into a collective desire for understanding and curiosity? Read more about our election coverage messaging project.

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. We’re co-hosted by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the American Press Institute. Subscribe to our Trust Tips newsletter. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Read more about our work at TrustingNews.org.