Disclosure: How we put the "trust" in NewsTrust
How do we minimize bias in a project like ours which seeks to help folks find good journalism online? "Ties That Blind?" is the title of a blog post written by Karen Tumulty, TIME's National Political Correspondent about relationships between politicians and firms which hire them as consultants. But loyalties can also blind us as news consumers. Might we prefer a stories that reflect our world views and distrust ones that challenge our beliefs? It's human nature say the psychologists and communications researchers who write about selective exposure.
But there are some ways that we can guard against bias or at least reveal its potential. We can fill out our member profiles. Letting others in our community get to know you helps build a network of trust.
And we can reveal any possible conflict of interest. You might be the author of the story. Or a friend of the author, or work for the story's publication. Or you might be featured in the story, or work for an organization that is related to this story. If so, please telling us, your readers, at the beginning of the comment section of the review form. And remember to rate these stories fairly. We need to avoid manipulating our ratings for personal, ideological or commercial purposes.
When you let us, your readers know about yourself, we can decide whether your affiliations, political viewpoint or a relationship with the publication have biased the review. And we should respond in a like spirit, rating reviews for helpfulness, using adherence to standards of journalistic quality--fairness, balance, information, good sourcing--as criteria, rather than whether a reviewer holds a similar world view.
In taking this path, we are following and rewarding the
journalistic ethic of "disclosure" and resisting the idea that having
an opinion or a relationship is the same as having a bias, or the
converse that hiding ones opinions (even from oneself) and
relationships eliminates bias. In fact, I'd argue that disclosure
makes one more careful in the effort to avoid bias. And the feedback
of ratings should make this goal that much more reachable, if not
perfectly attainable.
In doing so, we are joining the tack our partner Slate took in 2000 and 2004, when the magazine revealed whom their staff and contributors were voting for in the presidential election. As Slate's founding editor Michael Kinsley explained in 2000, some journalists hold that to avoid bias, they should not vote if they are covering an election. The most notable is Len Downie at the Washington Post. In an interesting post over at Politico in February of this year, two writers said that they would follow his course. The third, John F. Harris, dissented, however, writing,
"A journalist can cast votes and have opinions, even strong ones, and
still be fair. We do it by letting people have their say, by not
putting our thumb on the scale with loaded language, and by having the
modesty as reporters to admit that information is always fragmentary
and it is our role to tell stories but not to pretend that we are
society's High Court of Truth."
Besides political viewpoint, affiliations and publishing relationships with our sources, we invite you to share in your profile as much personal information as you are comfortable with--about your occupation, location, journalistic experience, and so on. Not only will it make our site, as a whole, more trustworthy. It will also increase your transparency rating, which will give your reviews more weight.
And it will help Kaizar, Tish and I give a higher validation score when we can verify items such as your web address if you have a site or blog, your occupation, expertise and political views. Or, you can opt to fill in the profile but hide it and we can still verify those items and raise your score.
And, if we know the topics in which you have expertise we can also offer opportunities to co-host a featured topic in the coming months.This entails working with one of the staff members on that topic over a period of 3 - 7 days. You would search out stories to submit and review and review stories submitted by others. It takes someone who is willing to stand back from any personal politics and serve as a model for writing reviews based on journalistic quality. This, of course, does not preclude pointing out bias on the part of the author, as long as the critique is constructive : )
So, consider updating your member profile and reviews and helping us to put the "trust" in NewsTrust. And for the latest information on disclosure and other topics, check out our latest in the FAQ's here.
Great articles and it's so helpful. I want to add your blog into my rrs reader but i can't find the rrs address. Would you please send your address to my email? Thanks a lot!
Posted by: New Jordans | March 27, 2010 at 11:43 PM