Today's trust tip: Explain your coverage goals with hot-button issues

Hi there. Lynn here.

Every community has topics that elicit a lot of emotion. Right now, journalists can expect strong reactions to almost any story related to masks, vaccines and other pandemic-related mitigation factors or mandates. 

Covering these stories can be tricky. You have to balance being accurate and factual with being fair. Selecting who to talk to and what quotes to use can be even trickier. Headline writing is full of potential landmines. It's almost guaranteed that someone or a group of people will disagree with your coverage or see the headline, make a judgment that the story is biased and skip it altogether. 

As journalists we want as many people as possible to consume our content, right? We also want to make sure credible, accurate and ethical reporting reaches as many people in our community as possible, right?
 

One simple idea

Could adding a note at the top of a story or changing the story format help with this?

WITF added a note to the top of a story about Critical Race Theory. It’s a topic people in their community (and lots of communities) have very strong feelings about. The note strikes that perfect balance of talking about their values as a news organization while being conversational and showing humility. It’s not very long and links to a page where people can learn more about their news values and ethics.

I also like how WITF wrote the article in an FAQ format. Information can sometimes get lost in the more traditional, narrative story format. I think a narrative-driven story can also allow for more perceptions of bias depending on who is interviewed, how information and quotes are framed, etc. With this type of story, I think an FAQ format makes it less likely to be interpreted as being biased or possibly having an agenda. This format allows for it to be focused on facts and answers.

At Trusting News, we suggested the addition of a note at the top of the story to our partners at WITF. Why? The journalists were concerned a story about Critical Race Theory would be instantly dismissed by people who are against it or who have heard negative stories or information (in some cases misinformation and disinformation) about it. 

We wondered: Would adding a note explaining their goals stop people from thinking it is biased? Would it stop people from skipping over it or dismissing it? We don’t know the answers to those questions, but the reporter who wrote the story said it didn’t get the negative reaction she was anticipating.
 

We see that as a win

And we want to try this strategy more often — something we are addressing with our A Road to Pluralism initiative.

What if five or six newsrooms added similar notes to stories about controversial or high-emotion stories in their communities, and tracked how their audiences responded? What if we thought more carefully about the story format and were willing to do more FAQs?
 

Here's another example

The Detroit Free Press recently published a good Q&A story focused on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. They also added an editor’s note explaining how it came together, what their goal with the story was and how to get in touch with them.

Remember this:

Your audience members do not know about your decision making. They don't intuit that some stories are meant to boil down difficult topics and others are meant to add nuance and complexity. They don't know that you're aware of misinformation and are willing to explain why you trust your sources of information. They also don't know that you want to hear from them.

They don't know unless you tell them. 

If you're ready to get to work on solutions related to this topic or any of the others we've been talking about lately, apply to join our Pluralism Network. 

Trusting News aims to demystify trust in news and empower journalists to take responsibility for actively demonstrating credibility and earning trust. It is a project of the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the American Press Institute.