Today's trust tip: Turn negative feedback into trust-building opportunities (part four)

Hi there. Joy here. Today's newsletter is an update on a previous edition. It's the fourth of five installments in a series on how to use engagement to build trust. Catch up with earlier editions on why engagement is key to earning trust, how to use online comments to build trust and how to scale engagement efforts by being more efficient.

When we begin work with a newsroom or journalist, we often start by asking: What gets in the way of trust with your specific audience? We of course find some common themes (here’s a slide deck of national research), but there are also misassumptions, complaints or frustrations specific to local relationships between news outlets and their communities.

As we make a list of themes, we look for information gaps in users' understanding of your work. And we think of those information gaps as opportunities to earn trust. One example: If you commonly hear accusations that you shouldn't need a paywall because you get money from advertising, think of that as an information gap. Your audience doesn't know what sources of revenue are or why you need community support. And why would they, if you're not telling them?

We recommend reframing those complaints in neutral language. Work to identify what the complaint implies about what the user doesn't understand.

Then articulate your counternarrative. What do you wish people knew?

Think about all the ways journalists can lose credibility because of what people do not understand about our ethics, our motivation for doing the work, our processes and our business model? Where and how can we explain those things? (Who’s going to do it if we don't?)

And remember: If one user doesn't understand, there are likely others with the same misperceptions. That's why responding publicly when possible is important. It gets your answer to everyone else who's reading, not just the person doing the complaining. It also prevents your detractors from going unchecked on the topic of your credibility.

Here are some examples of what might appear in a negative comment, what the information gap is and how a journalist might respond:

COMPLAINT: You’re only writing a story about this business because you’re out to get them!
INFORMATION GAP: Why do journalists find it important to write stories that are critical of local businesses?
RESPONSE: The health department has found repeated violations at this restaurant that are a matter of public safety. As journalists, one of our jobs is to alert the community to how their government is functioning and also to share information that helps people stay safe. We will be sure to also share when these violations are cleared up. Thanks for commenting.

Remember, your goal isn’t necessarily to convince this specific commenter to agree with you. It’s to set the record straight in a public conversation, to everyone who’s listening.

Here's another one:

COMPLAINT: You do so many stories about this high school, and I bet it’s because the sports editor went to school there. You’re so biased! Where’s the love for the other schools in town?
INFORMATION GAP: How does the sports department decide what to cover?
RESPONSE: Thanks for commenting. Our staff of three spreads out around the county and tries to get at least one game a season from each of the area teams. We do usually give more coverage to teams that are doing especially well, as this one has for the last couple of seasons. If you looked at our coverage five years ago, you’d see more stories about the cross-town rival.

As you notice trends in these information gaps, identify opportunities to share your answers in a more permanent and prominent way. As I wrote last week, turn them into content. Do a Facebook Live Q&A about the topic. Write something for your website explaining how you make decisions, and add it on your “About Us” page or section landing page. Link to it the next time you get the same question. When possible, share your explanations broadly and in a way you can find and share again.

Let's get started

What do you and your colleagues most wish people understood about your work?

Ask reporters what they're hearing from sources. Ask editors about the phone calls they get.
Also do a quick analysis of some active comment threads looking for misassumptions.
Identify some themes. What are the topics and assertions that show up most frequently, or are most vexing?
Reframe the complaints as information gaps. Strip away the accusatory tone (and the all caps!) and rephrase them using neutral wording.
Establish your counternarrative — what you wish people knew — and find ways to start correcting the record.

Coming next week: In our final installment of this engagement series, we'll look at how to craft responses that use an effective tone and style.

ICYMI: We have a new Poynter course

Last week we launched a new Poynter training series called "How any journalist can earn trust." It is a self-paced course, and our most all-encompassing flexible training offering yet. It covers engagement best practices, day-to-day transparency tips, explanations on how to define your mission and values, and best practices for talking about your ethics and funding. It's also free and open to everyone, thanks to a partnership with Poynter and funding from the Knight Foundation.

Register for free here: How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust

Thank you for reading!

Joy Mayer, Trusting News director

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.

Copyright © 2021 Trusting News, All rights reserved.

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