A REPUTATION FOR TRUSTWORTHINESS IS A BULWARK OF PRINCIPLED JOURNALISM , FOUNDAMENTAL TO BUILDING AND RETAINING A LOYAL AUDIENCE.
By: Khalif Barkhadle
Senior Blogger
Published On: 5th November, 2022.
A reputation for trustworthiness is a bulwark of principled journalism, fundamental to building and retaining a loyal audience.
It is increasingly important for digital journalists to be aware of their audience – and to build trust with that audience – in an era when the way people consume news has changed.
Journalists are, by definition, super-users of their own and rival news outlets. We must guard against assuming that everyone is as keen on “hard” news as we are.
In a world in which news platforms, priorities and patterns of consumption are shifting at unprecedented speed, there are some constants.
A reputation for trustworthiness is a bulwark of principled journalism, fundamental to building and retaining a loyal audience.
These are some of the ways you can build a reputation for trustworthiness and reliability:
PILLARS OF TRUST.
●ACCURACY
It is your job to get the news first, but it is more important to get it right. As you report a story, be clear about what you know, how you know it and what you don’t know.
It makes for better journalism if everyone in the news gathering process challenges their own reporting, asking “Is there anything we haven’t thought of?” or “What do I still need to find out?”
When reporting a story, you should check and double-check all your facts and clearly state where they came from. For instance, if you report that your country’s inflation was 6.7% last month, double-check the number and tell your audience where you got it from, e.g., “according to the national statistics agency”.
●INDEPENDENCE
Independence is fundamental to the trust that allows you to report impartially from all sides of a story, from conflicts to financial markets.
Anything that is, or looks like, a conflict of interest should be avoided. It might lead people to suspect that your coverage has ulterior motives.
Examples of this would be:
publicly supporting a particular cause that you then report on
reporting on a candidate for political office who is a close friend of yours
accepting money from a sponsor that you then report uncritically on.
●INTEGRITY
You should maintain the highest ethical standards to provide unbiased and reliable news.
Never fake, fabricate or plagiarize a story or any elements of it. Don’t make up quotes or steal quotes from another publication. If you want to use a quote from elsewhere, make it clear where you got it from, e.g., “said in an interview with the Mauritanian Times last month”
Don’t accept payments or gifts from people or institutions you may have to report on. It will look like a bribe and would weaken the power and impact of any future reporting.
Journalists should pay their own way and not accept free trips. If, for safety, journalists go to otherwise inaccessible areas on a military embed or with a humanitarian aid agency they should make that clear in their story, caption or script: e.g., "on a trip organized by the Israeli military, journalists were taken to...."
If there is no way to pay your own way, for instance a company has block-booked a hotel, one way of dealing with it is to donate to charity to clear the debt and any perception of bribery.
There should be a clear distinction between fact-based news stories and opinion pieces, which should be labeled as such. Other people’s opinions are often essential to a story, but the sources must be authoritative and named.
●FAIRNESS
Take no side and tell all sides. Have no agenda other than accurate, fair reporting. After you have written or filmed something, clear your mind and try to view it as an outside observer to check for any bias.
Bring stories that feel judgmental back toward a more balanced, factual tone. Avoid language or images that make it look like you are taking sides. For instance, if you say somebody “claimed” something, it sounds like you don’t believe them. “Said” is better. In images, are you showing all the sides of the story or are you just showing one? Have you cropped a picture that leaves out critical context?
Quotes are sacrosanct. They must never be altered other than to delete a redundant word or clause, and then only if the deletion does not alter the sense. Make sure that the quotes you use genuinely represent what the speaker is saying.
Inappropriate references to gender, ethnicity, religion, culture, appearance, age, and sexual orientation should be avoided. You should ask yourself: “Are they really relevant to the story?”, “Do they merit being placed high up, or lower down?”
●BALANCE
Journalists should strive to be scrupulously fair and balanced. Allegations should not be portrayed as fact; charges should not be conveyed as a sign of guilt.
Always give the object of your reporting a right of reply. In a breaking news situation, it might not be possible to get hold of all sides immediately. If you can’t get a direct response from them, make that clear in your story and report any previous comments they or their representatives have made.
●TRANSPARENCY
Be open about your sources, and correct mistakes quickly and transparently. Be clear if photos or video came from someone else. For example, "Video provided by the environmental group Greenpeace shows ...".
Nobody likes to admit to having made a mistake, but it is vital to be clear with your audience when you have got something wrong. Every publisher, whether an individual blogger or a big institution, should have a clear corrections policy to let your audience know what you got wrong and what the right fact or story is. Don’t hide corrections.
●DIVERSITY
Diversity serves to broaden and enrich the reporting in a newsroom, helping to overcome conscious and unconscious biases in discussions about coverage. Having people from different backgrounds helps open our eyes to angles on stories, realities and communities that we might have missed.
In a newsroom filled with people from many different backgrounds, journalists should remain first and foremost journalists seeking facts and truths, parking nationality and personal politics at the door.
Thank you for taking your time reading my article.
What do you think? .
Let me know in the comments. Would love to know your take on the subject.
With gratitude
🙏
By: Khalif Barkhadle
SENIOR BLOGGER
