Joy Mayer founder of Trusting News.
“The media” doesn’t always have the best reputation. But that’s no secret. In 2016, a Gallup poll reported that just 32 percent of all Americans trust that the media would report news accurately and fairly.
In response, Joy Mayer, a longtime journalist and media professor, founded Trusting News. The organization teams up with newsrooms to test out “trust-building strategies” and then shares their findings with journalists and educators. Trusting News encourages journalists to be transparent about their process and intentional about proving the value of their work to readers. This could look like an editor taking the time to explain why they chose to cover a certain story. Or a publisher being transparent with readers about how their publication is funded.
This summer, Metro Publisher talked with Mayer to learn more about what local magazines might be able to take away from her team’s research. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
From your research, you’ve created several guides, a database of newsroom best practices, among other resources, that anyone can access on your website. If a publisher has one spare hour this week, where would you suggest they start?
Whether we’re working with a large metro television station or a small magazine, we start by asking publishers the same questions. What does your audience think of you? What do you wish they understood about you? How would that help build trust with your audience? How would that make your job easier? And how would their ability to access your work be improved? That’s where you find the pain points.
Then, we encourage publishers to develop a counter narrative. Look at your feedback, your market studies. Look at the role you play in the information landscape and what your strengths and weaknesses are. Think about what story you want to tell about yourself. And what you wish people knew. And then base your efforts to be more transparent about your work on what would solve the problem. This short Medium article might be useful as a place to start, too.
On your website, you document a lot of specific examples of how publishers are building trust with their audiences. Are there any magazine-specific examples that stand out to you?
National Parks magazine
National Parks magazine editor Rona Marech is transparent about the process behind the publication’s decision to publish (and not publish) photos of ancient art.
We recently highlighted an editor’s note published in National Parks magazine. The issue featured photos of ancient art, and the editor’s note took the time to explain what’s involved in the decision to publish sensitive and/or sacred work. In the note, editor Rona Marech describes how the photographer accessed these photos in the first place. But she also details what her team does to honor Indigenous concerns and prevent vandalism and increased foot traffic at these sites.
Caption: National Parks magazine editor Rona Marech is transparent about the process behind the publication’s decision to publish (and not publish) photos of ancient art.
Another example comes from Food & Wine magazine. In a recent print issue, the staff published a recipe for a traditional mole dish. When the dish was photographed, the editors added hot sauce and limes as garnish, which would not typically be done in an authentic mole dish. The editors eventually corrected the mistake. And the way they did it showed a lot of humanity. They explained the process and described how they were planning to be more careful in the future. They gave the chefs the opportunity to voice their concerns.
So, increasing trust between your audience and your organization is not just relevant to hard news reporting. It’s what you wish people knew about your process and what would make them feel more connected to you. What would be a sign of your integrity, credibility, values, and mission?
Food and Wine
After altering how a traditional mole recipe was presented in one of their print issues, the editors at Food & Wine posted an apology.
Maybe it’s the glossy pages. Maybe it’s the greater focus on lifestyle topics. But sometimes editorial content in magazines is confused with sponsored content. What can magazine publishers do better to counter that perception?
People have a ton of presumptions about how money influences content. (And sometimes they are accurate.) Journalists use a lot of coded language—sponsored content, supported content, paid content. Internally, newsrooms think this makes perfect sense, but there are no industry standards for what these labels mean. Does the label mean that the content is provided by an advertiser? Does it mean that someone within the organization writes it? Does the sponsor have editorial control? Basically, is it journalism? Or is it a kind of ad?
I think publishers should have some writing on their website and within their print issue that defines what all these labels mean. (Here are some examples of what other news organizations have done.) And the labels should be really clear and visible so your audience can’t consume any information without also knowing what the purpose of the information is.
Sponsored content can cause real tension. I think that publications need all the revenue streams they can get. I totally understand that. I can see the benefits to advertisers and readers to get that content. The problem is that the success of sponsored content seems to be based on tricking readers. The more it looks like actual journalism, the more valuable it is to advertisers. There’s a reason it’s not formatted like an ad. It’s easy to confuse it with journalism, because that’s where the credibility lies. But that’s not real. That’s trickery. If it’s possible to consume this information and not realize that it’s sponsored, then that’s tricking. And there’s nothing wrong with a nicely written sponsored feature about how great a restaurant's new menu is, as long as it’s clear that the purpose of that article is to make the restaurant look good.
If you are a sports reporter, for example, you could cover a Cubs game for the Chicago Tribune, a Chicago television station, or MLB.com. And the story you write for each of the three different outlets might end up looking similar. Journalists write plenty of nice features that don’t uncover anything or include contrary opinions. But if someone disappears mysteriously in the middle of a baseball game, do you report it? If you work for MLB.com, you gloss over it unless they are ready to make an announcement. If you work for the Tribune, you ask the hard questions.
What’s next for the Trusting News team?
We are doing a lot of work right now on polarization and pluralism and how people’s perspectives and worldviews influence what they think about the news. Half the country thinks journalism doesn’t protect democracy, and is actually bad for democracy. We’re trying to figure out ways for journalists to be more relevant to people across the political spectrum. We are planning more outreach to educators and more workshops for student media. And we’re working on adapting what we do to more specialized audiences such as communities of color and product teams within news organizations.
Find out more about Trusting News and their research on the organization’s website, Medium blog, or weekly newsletter.
