Credibility, as Poynter’s Bob Steele points out, is what others think of us. And before Sept. 11, what others were thinking of the news media wasn’t going to win us any popularity prizes.
That has changed somewhat in the past several weeks as print and broadcast have built new and stronger relationships with readers and viewers, relationships built on the need to know and understand what is happening in the world. But how long that trust lasts is anybody’s guess.
Our credibility is fragile and, in many cases, the hesitation to trust us is well deserved, earned error after error, arrogant behavior after arrogant behavior. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something about it. The American Society of Newspaper Editors has been studying our credibility problems for several years and readers have told us what they want.
They want us to a better job on the fundamental things such as spelling, grammar, and quotes. They want us to run corrections. They want us to eliminate unnamed sources as much as possible. They want us to connect with them and with our communities. They want us to explain what we do and why we do it.
They believe we are manipulated by powerful people and by advertisers. They are growing weary with the overplay of sensational stories. Most think we are biased. And many tend to grow more negative about us when they are in the news.
Many newspapers have taken a number of actions to counteract these criticisms. Some of the best work has been in the area of corrections. Some newspapers are running corrections twice, once in the section where they occurred, a second time in the constant correction location. Former ASNE president Ed Seaton of The Manhattan (Kans.) Mercury has campaigned for a national corrections policy.
Others are doing different things.
One that is new and has a lot of promise is the accuracy and credibility checklist at the Detroit Free Press. John X. Miller, the public editor, says that corrections have been reduced substantially since the program has been in effect.
It works likes this: There are checklists for almost everyone, including reporters, assigning editors, photo editors, copy editors, photo assigning editors, photographers, artists and page designers.
Let’s look at the list for reporters: Have you double-checked all names, titles and places in your story? Have you tested from the screen and CQ’d all phone numbers or web addresses?
Are the quotes accurate and properly attributed? Have you fully captured what each person meant? Is the lead or nut graph sufficiently supported?
Is this story fair? Does the story include voices and viewpoints of people most directly affected by the news? Have they been called and given a chance to talk?
Have you run spell-check and checked the math?
Does my story answer for readers: “What does this mean to me?” Or “So why should I care?”
Have the possible visual elements been assigned? Have you fact-checked your information given to graphics and photography?
All nine checklists are aimed at making sure the journalists involved are asking many of the right questions to be fair and accurate. There are others you might add, but the Free Press collection gives you a jumpstart on starting one for your newspaper.
If we have any thoughts about over-delivering on what we promise our readers, we had better start with the basics. Get it right the first time. And maybe this lovefest we are experiencing now with news consumers won’t have to end sounding like a country music song.
