People don’t understand how journalism works. McClatchy is trying to fix that using “background” cards.
Journalists naturally assume our readers have an innate understanding of the news process: how we gather facts, why we gather the facts we do and how we choose which stories to publish and when.
We assume they know the difference between a straight news story and an opinion column. We think they already know what an anonymous source is and that the last story you wrote is not the only story you’ve ever written.
Before someone picks up a newspaper or clicks on a story link, they must understand what journalism is, right?
If you’ve spent any amount of time in the comments section of a story — or just opened your inbox lately — you probably know that plenty of casual news consumers don’t understand what it is we do. They’re not malicious or mean-spirited about it (although those are the ones you’ll remember the most). They’re genuinely confused about or misunderstand how journalism works.
So McClatchy, the company I work for, is trying something different: letting users behind the scenes. The Sacramento-based publisher has rolled out background cards, or explainer cards, as an embeddable feature on the websites of its 29 newspapers across the country.
These quick — or if you like, not so quick — cards are set apart from the story text to give the reader a little more information about the story. They can be crafted to explain how and why the reporter went about reporting a story, add context to the reporting, or maybe suggest what other questions still need to be answered.
Or, as we’ve done in my newsroom at The State in Columbia, S.C., you can tailor background cards for common types of stories, regular reader questions or explaining the paper’s policy on particular issues.
One embed we’ve had to use regularly, unfortunately, is one explaining our policy for reporting suicides.
This card explains our thought process behind a sensitive topic: why we don’t normally report on suicides, when we do feel compelled to write about them, and how we choose to handle our reporting to avoid triggering more suicidal behavior.
We also have plenty of opportunities to use our breaking news explainer.
When a fast-moving story needs to be posted quickly, we can add this card to let our readers know we don’t yet have all the information on an unfolding situation, and even acknowledge some of the information we initially post can later turn out to be incorrect. It’s a step toward helping readers not only understand the news of the day, but the fraught process of actually gathering information as events unfold and news coming out in real-time.
In the short time period McClatchy has been using these background cards, we’ve found they can boost reader engagement within a story. That’s what’s happened when we’ve covered business openings and closings around the Columbia area. We’ve gotten reader feedback thanking us for the information and the nifty card explaining our coverage of why their favorite restaurant went out of business.
Last month, the Center for Media Engagement released research related to these cards. Their key findings:
- When shown a Behind the Story card outside the context of an article, a majority of readers said the card would improve their trust in a news organization.
- Although the Behind the Story card appealed to most readers, a majority of readers did not notice it, and its presence within an article did not affect trust in the news organization.
- Non-subscribers noticed the Behind the Story card more often when it was placed in-line with the article text than when it was placed at the bottom of the article.
In an age where accusations of bias and fake news are considered a cost of doing business in the news industry, McClatchy’s background cards have the potential to build a better understanding of how the news that readers consume gets written, deepening the trust between an audience and a newsroom in the process. We look forward to expanding the use of these cards to explain the decisions behind our political coverage and more clearly differentiate opinion journalism from our news coverage.
For a long time, journalists have taken for granted their readers’ understanding of the aspects of the business we work in every day. But the casual reader isn’t as steeped in journalistic traditions and practices as reporters are — especially those who find their way to our stories from a crowded and confusing social media feed.
In a dark time for traditional news outlets, it’s actually easier than ever to get our stories in front of those readers. Journalists need a way to include them in the conversation and bring them up to speed with as minimal a barrier to entry as possible.
Bristow Marchant is a government reporter for The State newspaper and a graduate of last summer’s Trusting News 101 course. He can be reached at bmarchant@thestate.com or on Twitter @BristowatHome.
