Want your audience to find you credible? Show users how you strive for accurate, ethical reporting.

This is part of a series about earning trust during unusual times. It covers journalistic purpose, credibility, funding and engagement.

Journalists care deeply about being accurate and checking facts when producing news content. We work to be ethical. But many news consumers don’t know that — and we don’t often communicate it clearly.

Just like journalists do not necessarily know the ins and outs of what it means to be an accountant, a plumber or a nurse, non-journalists do not automatically know the ins and outs of what a journalist does. At Trusting News, we know that if we do not explain to our community that we check facts, vet sources and work to be fair, our audiences are not going to automatically give us credit for doing so.

So, while fact-checking and being accurate are part of every aspect of what we do, if we do not share that information with the public, they may assume it is not happening.

In times of crisis, like now, explaining how we work to be accurate and share factual information is even more important. Talking about our ethical principles is necessary. People want to know they can trust the information they are consuming, so tell them why they should trust what you provide. If we don’t explain these elements of reporting, people make assumptions about how you did your job and most of the time do not give you credit for being fair, accurate or ethical.

In a hurry? Jump straight to a tip sheet with suggested language on how you can address misinformation and defend your accurate reporting.

Talk about how you gather information

Producing a story involves so many elements. One of the first steps is gathering the information to put the story together.

While you are gathering information, you are going to many different sources and calling lots of different people. Sometimes you find out one piece of information but end up crossing it out later because you learn something new. Sometimes talking to one person, leads you to another person and maybe another person, possibly changing the focus of your story.

Talk about that process. Explaining this process becomes particularly important when dealing with data, controversial, politicized or debated topics, breaking news and investigations.

You might consider answering some of these questions:

1. Who do you turn to for the latest information?
2. Where is your data coming from?
3. How often are you receiving new information and sharing it?
4. Is there somewhere specific users should go to get the latest information?
5. How many people are checking facts in stories?

These questions should be answered within the stories themselves, so people receive the information while reading the story and do not have to click elsewhere. Maybe include a note that explains who has been working on the story, like KPCC did when covering a breaking news story or adding “background cards” answering some of these questions like McClatchy does.

Explain how you choose which sources and experts to talk to

People have a lot of questions about why some people show up on TV and in articles as experts and others do not. People also wonder why you may be talking to someone from one community in town instead of someone from their neighborhood.

Explaining how you choose who to talk to and trust to provide you information for your story will help users trust you and your reporting. Talk about how you avoid conflicts of interest with sources and if there is a connection between a source or story, disclose it.

Some questions you can answer related to sources include:

1. How do you vet a source?
2. Do you check their background?
3. How do you choose between one scientist over another? One doctor over another? One nurse over another?

These explanations could be included in an FAQ and linked to within stories as Science News did.

Share how you handle corrections

While we do not like to make mistakes, it sometimes happens. Especially in breaking news situations, when information is moving and changing so quickly.

If they do happen, make sure you fix the mistake on all platforms and inform your community about the mistake in the story. Correcting a mistake in a story should not be new for any of you (it’s something that exists in ethical guidelines and codes in every newsroom I have worked in) but what about making your corrections policy public and easy to find on your website?

First and foremost, making these policies public sends a message to your community that you have one, (some people do not think journalists have corrections policies). WITF included their corrections policy in an ethics guide on their website.

When sharing information about your corrections policy, consider explaining the following:

1. How can someone tell when a story is corrected?
2. How can they reach out to you about a possible correction?

Explain how breaking news coverage works

Breaking news stories are always moving at a fast pace, and with a story like COVID-19, there are a lot of elements and moving pieces. It’s really important to point out that information will change as the story develops. It’s also important to make sure content is labeled with time stamps and not shared or promoted when it is outdated.

A lot of the decisions journalists make during breaking news situations but also during other news coverage relate back to ethical guidelines. When you are explaining these decisions (what video to use, whether or not to identify those waiting in line at a food bank or the names of the most recent people to die from the virus) make sure you tie them back to your ethics. Just mentioning that you have a code of ethics or guidelines you follow is a sign to your users that are working to be ethical and fair.

NPR and WITF have added notes to breaking news stories explaining that they are bringing users the best information they have at the time when producing the story.

Address misinformation

While those explanations will cover how you handle the news and your coverage, what about all the other information out there? There is a lot of it and unfortunately, not all of it is valid and some of it is designed to trick and misinform people.

As a news organization and a business that says you care about your community, what role are you going to take in helping people find the information they can trust? How will you help them navigate the information that is available across TV, radio, the internet and social media?

To help, you could consider doing some of the following:

1. Be a resource for navigating the news.

While you may not think news literacy is part of your job if you help people learn how to navigate the information that is out there they can become better news consumers.

As an individual journalist, you can provide guidance to friends and family when you hear them talking about news or sharing information from a questionable source. Since they know you, they may be more willing to listen to you and take the advice to heart. This works well on social media when people are sharing links and sometimes do not know anything about the source of the information they are sharing.

Trusting News’ Joy Mayer wrote some tips for consumers that you could use as a starting point.

2. Talk about your commitment to fact-checking

It’s so important these days to moderate your conversation spaces. This can help you fact check information that is being shared by users and stop misinformation from spreading. 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?)

3. Explain how you will not tolerate misinformation

We hope you agree with us when we say that deleting and correcting misinformation is important — especially now, when facts could literally save lives and misinformation could help COVID-19 spread throughout communities. One thing we can all do is tell our audience that we will not tolerate or help spread misinformation.

That is what the Coloradoan did in a Facebook group they manage. They told their group members they will be removing information that is speculative regarding COVID-19, explained why and invited input. “We want folks to have confirmed, reliable information. If you have a news tip or are hearing something you’d like to share, send us a private message.”

Screenshot of a post to a Facebook group managed by the Coloradoan.

At Trusting News we talk about the importance of answering questions from our users and responding to their comments, whether positive or negative. It’s important to respond to claims when they are thrown your way and explain how your newsroom works to check facts, vet sources and be fair in your reporting. Doing so is standing up for your reporting and setting the record straight. It sends the message to your community that you are worth being trusted because you strive to produce accurate and ethical conduct.

More support

• Want to copy and paste? Here’s our complete set of downloadable tip sheets with suggested language to use as you describe your work to your audience.
• What’s most getting in the way of trust in your work during these strange times? Please tell us in this quick form, so our work can be grounded in what you need.
• We send one quick strategy in our weekly Trust Tips newsletter. Subscribe here.
• We have a collection of 11 (and counting) curated Trust Tips for coronavirus coverage. Find those here.
• Our trust coaches are available to talk through your challenges or help brainstorm ideas one on one. Request a session here.
• Want data? We collect research (our own and others’) around trust in journalism. See the slick deck here.
• Want more newsroom examples? Our website has a database of newsroom examples, and we’re drilling down on examples from COVID-19 coverage.

Trusting News, staffed by Joy Mayer and Lynn Walsh, is designed to demystify the issue of trust in journalism. We research how people decide what news is credible, then turn that knowledge into actionable strategies for journalists. We’re funded by the Reynolds Journalism Institute, the American Press Institute, Democracy Fund and the Knight Foundation.