Trust in the media has been plummeting in many countries across the world. In the United States, four in 10 people say they have “no confidence” in the media’s news reporting, while only 32% have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence, according to Gallup.

How do we increase trust in the media? 

Newsrooms have been trying to answer this question through a variety of tactics and initiatives — more transparency about the reporting process, trust verification through such organisations as the Trust Project, and a focus on solutions journalism.

Enter the public editor or ombudsman. This was a position that existed in many newsrooms in the past — an editor who held the newsroom accountable and answered to readers — but it isn’t a common role in newsrooms today.

The Dallas Morning News brought back the role of a public editor this spring in an effort to build more trust with the community it serves. It may be the only newspaper in the U.S. with a public editor/ombudsman/reader representative currently. Read on for more on what that editor does and how it’s working so far.

Would love to hear your thoughts: amalie.nash@inma.org. 

Amalie

P.S.: Have you downloaded my report Strategies for Continuously Transforming Your Newsroom? It focuses on how to position your newsroom for the future and how to instill the concept of transformation into the muscle memory of your organisation.

Dallas Morning News public editor connects with readers 

Stephen Buckley, a veteran journalist and journalism professor at Duke University, joined The Dallas Morning News as public editor in April. I got a chance to talk to him about his new role, what he’s learned, and his advice for other media companies that may want to have a public editor. 

Here’s an edited version of our conversation:

Q: What is a public editor and why should a news organisation want one?

A: I get this question a lot. And I’m sure different public editors define their roles differently. I’ll just tell you how we define mine at The Dallas Morning News.

I’m really a bridge between the audience and the newsroom. So my job is to help our newsroom understand how content is being consumed by our audience.

And I don’t mean that in the technical sense, although perhaps that’s part of it. It’s really how readers are taking in our content. Do they think it’s accurate? Do they think it’s thorough? Objective and fair? Do they think it’s well-written and engaging? What are we missing? What do they think we’re writing too much about?

One of our crises is a real disconnect between the audience and journalists. Communities just don’t feel like they have the kind of access to journalists as they should. Even if they have access, because everybody’s got an e-mail address these days, they don’t necessarily feel like there’s a kind of engagement they would like to see.

And then the other part, of course, of being a bridge is that I’m not only helping the newsroom to understand how its work is being consumed by our audiences, but I’m also trying to help our audiences understand the people and the processes and the various roles in a newsroom.

Q: What are the mandates and goals for the role?

A: When our publisher created this role, he said it is ultimately about three things. It’s about transparency, accountability, and humility. And so, in my role as a bridge, I’m always thinking about that. How can I advance transparency? How can I advance accountability? And how can I do that in a way that’s as engaging as possible?

I think the other piece I would add here is that I’m also a mirror. There are going to be times that I’m going to be critical. And there are times when I’m going to applaud the newsroom, but I’m ultimately going to be honest.

Q: How important do you think it is if an organisation is looking to have this type of role to find someone who feels like they’re kind of independent and from the outside?

A: I am independent of the newsroom. I report directly to the publisher. That allows me some freedom that I think is really, really important for a role like this. If the goal here is to build trust with our audiences, the audience has to feel that this is a person who has no other agenda other than helping audiences to better understand the news and helping the newsroom to do better work.

Q: Where do you think we’ve gone wrong in terms of losing trust with our audiences?

A: Part of it is that I think it’s become really hard for news audiences to feel connected to news outlets. The demise of local news means that you are not necessarily running into the people who report for your local news outlet. I think that that relationship has been really frayed and fractured.

Q: Having been in this job now for several months, what kind of feedback are you getting?

A: My first two columns were about objectivity, fairness, bias, and accuracy, and those issues are by far the ones that take up the most space in my inbox. And that’s not surprising. Those are bedrock issues for journalism and, particularly at this moment, in American journalistic history.

I also get a fair number of e-mails that are clearly trying to figure out, well, how does this all work? They’re not necessarily a complaint, although sometimes they are, but sometimes it’s clear to me that people don’t necessarily understand how a newsroom operates.

Q: Any surprises in the job?

A: One of the lessons I’m learning or one of the sort of delightful surprises is just how much people appreciate someone who listens. In fact, in other contexts, I describe myself as a professional listener because I think that is the case.

In this role, you spend a lot of time listening to the audience, and you spend a lot of time listening to the newsroom. Particularly now when we’re all shouting at each other, we’re all angry at each other, the fact that there is someone who is willing to just absorb what a reader has to say and then give that reader an honest response really resonates.

Q: How do you move beyond just getting input from people who are already connected to The Dallas Morning News to building bridges with people who don’t intersect with the news or don’t feel represented in the news?

A: I think that’s one of our biggest challenges. When we’ve had meetings with various groups in Dallas, this was one of the themes. At the end of the two years in this role, I really hope that I’m getting a lot of e-mails from folks who say not just that they’re long-term subscribers, but hey, I just started subscribing over the last year or 18 months. That would be a real win for us.

Q: Any lessons for other publishers who are thinking they should add one of these roles?

A: I think that bringing on somebody as a public editor should be seen as an important step in newsroom transformation because we’re acknowledging that we work for the public and we serve the truth. I think we've come around to understand that it’s an absolute necessity that we engage audiences in meaningful ways now. I think over time that that will pay huge dividends.

Do you have a public editor? E-mail me: amalie.nash@inma.org. 

Lessons in newsroom transformation from the Africa News Media Summit

We talked newsroom transformation during the recent INMA Africa News Media Summit, where three editorial leaders from different companies shared their digital transformation journeys. 

Some lessons and takeaways:

Legit in Nigeria focuses on originality in content

Legit Editor-in-Chief Rahaman Abiola laid out a few of the keys to success for Legit. One that stood out: originality in content. 

What does that mean? Move beyond the basic facts to integrate expert analysis and other context, and focus on formats beyond the written word to hook in readers.

“We ensure our stories have experience, expertise and originality,” he said.

Daily Trust in Nigeria invests in visual-first products

Daily Trust Editor-in-Chief Naziru Mikailu said his media company has focused on delivering visual content to users. The content is distributed on YouTube and TikTok and has attracted audiences.

They’ve also added podcasts and are focused on audience interest by monitoring social media.

“We created a social news desk that is looking for the best trending stories and stories that will work,” he said.

Nation Media Group in Uganda reorganises as “one newsroom”

Susan Nsibirwa, managing director of Nation Media Group, said her newsroom’s transformation has included:

• A centralised news operation.

• Niche hubs to drive non-news content.

• Centralised production talent and processes.

• A planning function for a forward-looking editorial stance.

• Cross-platform skilling across the entire newsroom.

“We’re really pushing against the tide and not trying to just exist or survive,” she said. “We’re trying to see how we can thrive in the current environment we are operating in.”

Nsibirwa said changing culture, failing fast and trying new things are key.

What resonates with you in these lessons? E-mail me: amalie.nash@inma.org.

One last note: how to measure the floor

On my last Webinar, we talked about the audience teams at The New York Times and The Washington Post. Hannah Poferl, assistant managing editor, chief data officer, and head of audience at The Times, mentioned the audience team focuses on contextualising data. 

For her, that often means looking at the “floor” — the bottom percentile and how it's shifting over time — more than the top or “ceiling.”

I had a few INMA members reach out asking for more information on how to measure the floor. Poferl shared more:

• Use Excel for this or whatever method works best. 

• Determine what time frame you want to group into percentiles.

• Let the function do the work. 

The idea is captured on this slide (using fake data):

Mark your calendars 

Upcoming INMA events that shouldn’t be missed:

• August 28 (tomorrow!): My next Webinar, Newsroom Transformation Success Stories: Learn How Two Companies Made Lasting Change, features Liv Solli Okkenhaug, head of breaking news at Bergens Tidende, and Catherine Vieira, executive editor at Valor Econômico. They’ll talk about how they changed their cultures and improved results when they enacted audience growth initiatives. Register now.

• September 23-27: INMA’s next in-person event, Media Innovation Week, takes place in Helsinki, Finland. I’ll be there! And we’ll talk about future-proofing sustainable news brands in the sustainability capital of Europe. Learn more and register. 

About this newsletter

Today’s newsletter is written by Amalie Nash, based in Denver, Colorado, United States, and lead for the INMA Newsroom Transformation Initiative. Amalie will share research, case studies, and thought leadership on the topic of bringing newsrooms into the business of news.

This newsletter is a public face of the Newsroom Transformation Initiative by INMA, outlined here. E-mail Amalie at amalie.nash@inma.org or connect with her on INMA’s Slack channel with thoughts, suggestions, and questions.

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