Transparency: Reconnecting with Audiences

Alexis McCurdy
am447915@ohio.edu

Photo taken from mediaaudit.com

The media: an entity that has lately been regarded by the general public as an overpowering establishment, watching society with heavy eyes. The media is being treated as an evil creature, shoveling lies into the mouths of citizens, manipulating their minds so that it tastes of truth.

Through this viewpoint, consumers of media have lost an abundance of trust in their sources. When a story is put out that contains some error of fact, or some obvious bias, audiences are quick to shame the hideous creature again because they feel as though their leader has betrayed them. They begin to question what information they can trust when truth seems so shoddy.

It is in result of this question that forces the hand to yield a new era of journalism. The era is one in which journalists begin to let the idea of transparency overshadow the obsession with objectivity.

Journalists are not able to repair the past, but they can facilitate the future. The media needs to begin to reconnect with their audience through transparency. Through this, credibility may once again be retained.

What journalists discuss and what information they choose to provide needs to be discussed in the open. Traditionally, it was discussed behind closed doors, which in turn shut audiences out from the verification process. Actively engaging the community in conversations helps them to realize their own bias, the journalist's bias, and provides them the tools to analyze through that subjectivity.

In "The News Ethics of Journalism," published by Poynter Institute, Kelly McBride noted this link between transparency and trust.

"News organizations want to be trusted advisers," McBride said. "To do that, they need to embrace radical transparency, where they explain every decision they make."

An invitation into the newsroom is like an invitation into the home. It allows the audience to see reporters at their most powerful, as the show audiences how they effectively gather credible truth. It also affords the audience an opportunity to see journalists at their most vulnerable, whether it be when reporters are forced to admit a mistake, or recognize their biases.

"If journalists are truth seekers, it must follow that they be honest and truthful with their audiences, too- that they be truth presenters," Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel wrote in their book, "Elements of Journalism."

They continued to add,"If nothing else, this responsibility requires that journalists be as open and honest with audiences as they can about what they know and what they don't. How can you claim to be seeking truth when you're not truthful with the audience in the first place?"

This engagement of community also furthermore builds a sort of brand loyalty to the publication, as the community now feels as though they become a stakeholder in the story as well.

Going ahead, transparency is not something that should be regarded as a concrete action; it is, rather, an ongoing process. As Bill Kovach noted in a Nieman report, truth can sometimes be very muddled and subjective. Instead of trying to provide something that may never satisfy that need, journalists need transparency to continue to survive.

"The journalistic truth is also more than mere accuracy," Kovach said. "It is a sorting-out process that develops between the initial story and the interaction among the public, newsmakers and journalists over time."

Transparency is a way to start humanizing the media once again. After all, humanity is the overarching common denominator between the media and its consumers. Transparency is the first step in bridging the gap.