With public trust in all information sources at record lows globally, the need for news organisations to enhance their credibility through greater transparency is more pressing than ever.
Public trust has proven to be a “business imperative” and an essential pre-requisite for the economic survival of the news media industry.
A massive influx of information sources available on digital devices has made the fight for clicks in the attention economy fiercer than ever.
Forced to look for new streams of revenue some news organisations have resorted to using sensationalized headlines, articles on scandals, and “clickbait” in order to generate online traffic.
Many believe that transparency in news gathering and publication is crucial to the longevity of traditional news.
When reporters are transparent about their journalistic processes, audiences can see how one piece of news can be more trustworthy than another. Transparency also allows the public to understand the motivation of the publisher, the expertise of the journalist, and the editorial and editing process the piece.
Essentially, news organisations should be “loud and proud” about the rigorous process that quality, credible journalism requires.
Transparency has been touted by academics as a method for news organisations to enhance accountability and increase legitimacy.
Transparency puts credible news organisations well above online blogs and rogue citizen journalists with alternative agendas.
When an audience has insight into the “backstage” of journalism, logically they will be more likely to trust the information it provides.
Research has shown that the public believes more transparency in the news would also be beneficial in building trust.
A study from the Queensland University of Technology that surveyed 1619 Australian news consumers ranked declarations of conflicts of interest and openness about biases in the top five ways to improve trust in news.
A survey from the Gallup Foundation of 1218 US adults also ranked commitment to transparency among the top determining factors in whether a news organisation was deemed trustworthy.
That said, there are some who question the efficacy of transparency in enhancing trust, as transparency could undermine some foundational components of ethical journalism.
However, prioritising transparency in conjunction with journalistic ethics can only be a benefit for both journalists and audiences alike.
So, what does the implementation of transparency practices in newsrooms look like?
Transparency in news makes information about the reporting process, editorial decision making and any conflicts of interest easily accessible to the public.
While the internet has provided journalism with more competition for audience attention, digital publishing has also made transparency practices much easier. An example of this is using hyperlinks in articles to allow audiences to check source online for themselves.
Essentially, transparency in news constitutes an explanation to the audience about the decision-making involved in a story.
Practically, these explanations can take multiple forms – an example is this article from Vice News on how they reported their multi-part story on the ethnic cleansing in the Democratic Republic of Congo, ‘A Slaughter in Silence’.
Source: VICE News
Explanations of conflicts of interest can be published in a sidebar alongside articles, as is standard practice for the publication The Conversation. These disclosures are beneficial for increasing public trust as it allows audiences to have all the details they need to interpret the information before them.
Evidently, there are a plethora of ways transparency can be incorporated into newsrooms. Generally, there are two sub-categories of transparency in journalism: participatory transparency and disclosure transparency.
Participatory transparency aims at audience interaction, collaboration and dialogue. This originally took the form of letters to the editor in traditional newspapers. With the digitisation of news, this form of transparency has grown significantly to take on many other practical forms. Online articles allow comments to be published on the organisation’s website and on shared articles on social media sites. Journalists and news organisations can use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to increase audience engagement and promote their stories.
Disclosure transparency focuses on explaining the process of producing the news and the rationale behind it. It is making this information easily accessible to the public and explained in plain English rather than journalistic jargon. If audiences understand editorial decisions and reporting processes with more clarity, it follows they may be less likely to question or distrust the information presented in a piece of news. Disclosure transparency also involves crediting and linking primary sources, correcting mistakes and explaining conflicts of interest.
In a time where public trust has fallen and journalism is in danger of becoming grossly undervalued in society, transparency is a key to proving the worth of credible, trustworthy news. Not only this, but trusted journalism is imperative to our democratic society. As media theorist Richard Gringas said: “a working democracy relies on fair, accurate and thorough information that is distributed widely, consumed widely and respected for its credibility”.
(Featured image: Audrey Kalman/Daily Emerald)
I’ve noticed a lot of news sources now have large text at the top of articles with the age of the story and a note saying the information may no longer be up to date or accurate. I think that’s a great way media can be more transparent.
I wasn’t able to find any transparency reports for Australian newspapers and I think it’d be interesting to know how often they had to update/correct stories after they were published, and the extent of those changes. If everyone did that then it would allow for a better understanding of who to trust specifically when it comes to breaking news.
Great article though. There was a lot to think about with this topic.
Liv, that quiz was hilarious. Nice one!
I was wondering throughout the presentations on transparency how reporters could balance the need to be transparent with their audience with, depending on the topic, the need to protect sources.
As an example, how would disclosure transparency work if providing conflict-of-interest information would make a source easier to identify? Giving that kind of information away would be poor security practice for source protection, but would withholding it be poor transparency practice/erode trust?
And how do the two kinds interact – should reporters disclose any history they have with audience members they interact with online? I know some reporters deal with chronic trolls, for example; is there value in adding some variant on “For context, this guy’s been on my case for months and I’ve already attempted reasonable conversation, guess how successful that wasn’t” to replies?
Not expecting you to have answers (I certainly don’t), just grateful that your work prompted interest in learning more.
Great article!
I like your points about the pressures of economic considerations in relation to transparency.
As a news consumer I appreciate disclosure efforts such as the corrections section in some newspapers, and mentioning things such as ‘owner of this masthead’ within articles. I find the gestures at least try to build trust with an audience and create value.
I’ve also often thought about whether it would be wise to go a step further with hyperlinks and link original lengthy source documents, but maybe the attention economy is what is impeding that.
An informative and robust article!
I’m interested in these two forms of transparency.
Regarding participatory transparency, I wonder about journalists and news organisations time and efficiency in ‘managing’ online discussions, and also keeping the integrity of the original article. Journalists have a role in lifting the ‘level’ of public discourse, and I believe these kind of participatory exercises fall under that umbrella – I just feel the need for social media/trained customer relations – type people working alongside journalists to help deliver those kind of discussions in real time.
As a reader I always appreciate disclosure transparency. I think it’s important to remember that humans can make errors, and so can journalists. Acknowledging mistakes makes journalists more human and perhaps helps public’s perceptions. Also, ‘imbedded fact checking’ is a really interesting area that I have not seen much evidence of in Australia.
Thanks for your presentation and piece on transparency in journalism Liv. I’ve always known that public trust is an issue for news organisations, and I was intrigued to learn more about how I can increase public trust as an aspiring journalist.
I read The Conversation regularly and have noticed their disclosure statements alongside the articles. I always read these statements as I am interested to know more about the authors and sources. I agree that these are beneficial for increasing public trust and more publications should be doing this.
As a millennial, I use social media every day to consume news and have noticed that a lot more journalists are implementing participatory transparency. In my opinion we can do more to implement disclosure transparency in our writing. It’s great to know that something as simple as crediting and linking a primary source can make a difference.
I highly agree that trust can be gained if news organisations are more transparent. Especially with the younger generations who are more interested in accountability, apology and social media. News organisations should first review the public’s interest and then learn how to serve these groups. In other words they should break down the ‘public’ into different groups (e.g older/younger generation) and find solutions that will benefit their audience. I believe learning your audience will help news organisation rebuild public trust.
Great read, thank you Olivia!
Before becoming invested in the news through the course, I admit that I was probably quite blasé about who I trusted, and this article has highlighted important issues about reliability and transparency in an area that so much shapes our society. I guess that this could be the same for a decent chunk of our population.
What I noticed throughout reading this article is the number of links to sources behind your statements, which, as we continue to move to a more and more online news society, is a great way to show that transparency, and hopefully by extension, public trust (the same happens in academic writing, so why shouldn’t it in news?). Plenty to mull over and hopefully put into practice in the future.
Also, terrific questions!
Hey, Olivia! Completely agree with you that transparency is one of the keys to credible, trustworthy news. I, too, believe trusted journalism is imperative to a democratic society. This stood out to me particularly as I feel like I’ve lost all hope in trusting established news outlets in Singapore, where transparency seems to be a wildly foreign concept.
Recently, Singapore’s largest media corporation Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) announced its remodel into a not-for-profit entity. When reasonably questioned by a reporter if it meant the business will pivot to prioritising editorial integrity ahead of advertisers’ interests, the CEO took “umbrage”.
He claimed to have “never ever conceded to the needs of the advertisers” and even went on to reprimand the reporter for her question.
This incident was especially disheartening; having had worked at SPH for two years, I know full well that his words were a complete lie. We’ve always been instructed to refrain from covering topics that would displease advertisers, and even throw in complimentary print snippets as part of advertising packages (without disclosing them as ads).
Now I’m not sure what other Singaporeans’ thoughts are on this, but I sure as hell wouldn’t call that “prioritising editorial integrity”.
It’s ironic that we claim to be a democratic society yet the issues with trust in our news are blatantly disregarded.
Thanks for this article, Liv!
Reading this article made me stop and wonder how the public view news programs back in the Philippines. Growing up watching such programs, I have heard people say one network is more transparent than others and that has influenced me in what news I ingest. Even some academics would say that sometimes and I admit that at one point I did follow that blindly.
To be honest, I would rather trust private news organisations in the Philippines than state-owned ones because I have been in one and I definitely question their credibility. It’s not that they release fake news or anything, it’s just the amount of what they not tell the public that has me questioning their transparency in their news reports.
It’s alarming how some news organisations (whether it’s in the Philippines or not) does this and it really doesn’t help in the building of the public’s trust on a journalist/news organisation’s credibility.
It definitely is a great thing to see articles now that hyperlinks sources because that is a step forward to giving the public the transparency they need to build their trust again on journalists and news organisations.
Very interesting read. I also appreciate the disclosure of conflicts of interest, it shows authenticity and accountability and would absolutely lend my trust as a reader, even if it is contested surely transparency is better?
Linking primary sources not only builds reader confidence but it also encourages readers to fact check and discern information for themselves, so in an age where information is so wide-spread and we have an endemic of misinformation transparency and restoring confidence in skilled journalism is a must!
Thanks for this article Liv. I think the implementation of transparency practices in newsrooms is interesting to consider in the wake of the declining trust in the media. As you mentioned, transparency and lack of bias are how news organisations entrench themselves as credible in the public’s eyes. Despite objectively being touted as one of the critical tenets of journalism, the extent to which someone can ever be one hundred per cent objective on an issue is questionable. News organisations need to figure out how to circumvent this, and increased disclosure regarding transparency could be the way.