The Digital Age and Journalism's Need for Transparency

Jaida Sterling
js528714@ohio.edu

The Guiding Principles for Journalists

In the early 90s, the Guiding Principles for Journalists consisted of three main concepts:

• Truthfulness
• be honest, fair and accurate
• hold the people in power accountable
• etc.
• Independence 
• find varying perspectives without influence from people who would use their power to do the opposite of what is in the public's interest
• avoid organizations and actions that could ruin your credibility
• etc.
• Minimize Harm
• treat everyone you encounter with respect
• to maximize truthfulness in an ethical way, choose less harmful ways to gather information
• etc.

Now –– because of the digital age –– the list of ethical principles has grown. This new list has added the concepts of:

• Transparency
• letting consumers know the process journalists are taking and what their motives are
• encourages journalists to constantly communicate and be open to their audience
• Community
• create and support communities
• know that there can be communities within communities 
• create content that your target community will value

The Digital Age

The digital age has made it easier for the community of consumers to fact check and comment on what news outlets choose to post. It has given journalists more of an incentive to make sure what they publish is accurate, and hold them accountable when it is not. 

The digital age has also made it easier for these communities to find moments where a news outlet has presented headlines or has gone after certain stories for motives other than to serve the public. 

These communities then share –– through their technology and social media –– these moments, creating a greater distrust in not just the news organization, but journalism altogether.

In a video on Youtube, a Hurricane Harvey survivor expressed how upset they were about the reporter and cameraman filming and questioning them on their experience of the hurricane.

This video spread to other social media outlets like Twitter, where people commented on how terrible those who work in media are for not caring about the survivors and only caring about getting a story.

Yes, journalists are trying to get stories. However, the stories journalists are trying to get are not for personal gain (at least, they are not supposed to be). 

The reporter who interviewed the Hurricane Harvey survivor was most likely trying to get the story from them to show people locally and nationally how this disaster has effected survivors on an individual level. 

This event was clearly valued by the public, so the reporter went to serve this interest like any journalist would.

Yet, the motive of the reporter might have been unclear or misinterpreted by the survivor.

That's where transparency comes in. 

Transparency

Transparency and community have been added onto the list to regain credibility and trust with consumers.

This need for news organizations and journalists to find ways to get their audience's trust has increased over the years due to the decrease of trust their audience have in media as a whole.

This graph from Gallup shows the trend of Americans' trust in mass media over the last twenty years.

Gallup's graph on Americans' Trust in the Mass Media

In the 21st century, communities not only demand transparency from news organizations –– they expect it. 

On Media Shift's website, they talk about the demand of greater transparency because of the emergence of technology.

This greater transparency is imperative to gaining back the trust that has been lost for journalists and journalism.

One way to help this would be to let the communities we serve know our motives and our procedures. Just be open.