ASNE - Handbook offers foundation for newsroom credibility

Published Thursday, April 5, 2001
Handbook offers foundation for newsroom credibility

BY CICELY K. DYSON
ASNE Reporter

Credibility tips

ASNE’s Newspaper Credibility Handbook is divided into four areas: Reader Connections, Community Connections, Accuracy and Ethics. A resources and discussion guide is at the end. Each chapter suggests tips for newspapers. Here are a few suggestions:

Reader Connections: Assume anyone who calls to complain about the newspaper is at least 10 percent right. Your job is to identify that part and think about how to improve, not to argue with the other 90 percent.

CommunityConnections: Think twice before you use racial labels … use terms that portray people with disabilities as victims… use labels to describe groups that are younger than most of your staff.

Accuracy: Ask readers for help in accuracy efforts, and make it easy for them to report the mistakes.

Ethics: Reduce reliance on unidentified sources by developing guidelines, explaining those guidelines in print and holding all copy in the paper to the same standard.

Source: “The Newspaper Credibility Handbook”

Should newspaper editors bury the unrelated criminal history of an accident victim? What about providing a list of upcoming features to an advertising manager in order to sell a section better?

These cases studies, taken from ASNE’s new handbook on credibility, were examples posed to panelists at Wednesday’s session “Credibility: Bring the Conversation Back to the Newsroom.”

The release of “The Newspaper Credibility Handbook: Practical Ways to Build Reader Trust” was the end result of a four-year study into the subject of credibility.

“This handbook is meant to give you lots of practical information. It’s supposed to be a collaborative thing in the newsroom,” said Michele McLellan, special projects editor of The Oregonian, who wrote the handbook.

Ms. McLellan wrote the spiral-bound book as part of the ASNE Journalism Credibility Project for editors to share with their newsroom staffs. It was designed for “busy newsrooms so people can dip in and out of it,” she said.

Panelists Pamela J. Johnson, of The Poynter Institute; Rick Rodriguez, executive editor of The Sacramento Bee; and Lawrence Young, executive editor for the Arlington (Texas) Morning News, analyzed the scenarios.

Mr. Young described the case study about giving upcoming features to the advertising manager as problematic.

“There is a danger of stepping on the independence of the writer, and it leaves room for conflict of interest,” he said.

On the other side, however, Mr. Young acknowledged that “advertisers know a lot more about the community than reporters, in some cases.”

The credibility handbook is divided into six sections: reader connections, community connections, accuracy, ethics,

Pamela Johnson, left, of The Poynter Institute, Lawrence Young of the Arlington (Texas) Morning News and Rick Rodriguez of The Sacramento Bee address the issue of credibility in newsrooms. (Willie J. Allen Jr./ASNE Reporter)

resources and a discussion guide.

Robert M. Steele, director of The Ethics Program at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., wrote the discussion guide, which presents 17 case studies.

Mr. Steele said he wants the discussion guide to be used as an accessory to the content of the book, not as an afterthought.

The subject of credibility has been a long-term issue at ASNE conventions and was most recently formalized with the startup of the Journalism Credibility Project in 1997. The project focused on eight newspapers, each experimenting with ways to address credibility problems.

Mr. Young recently has had to focus on the issue of credibility at home, since The Dallas Morning News decided to stop the independent publishing of the Arlington Morning News this week and make it a section of The Dallas Morning News.

Mr. Young said the ongoing credibility of the paper depends on its ability to supply the readers with good editorial subject matter, which he said the paper has been able to do.

“We are still in the community,” he said. “We are still committed to providing the community with excellent journalism. We’ve changed our tactics, not our strategy.”

The Dallas Morning News started the publication in an effort to branch out in Arlington. Circulation had increased in Arlington after the paper’s startup but not enough to keep it as an independent newspaper.

Now, it is a section of The Dallas Morning News available Wednesday through Sunday with a downsized staff. Mr. Young said it is too soon to judge reader response.

“We will continue circulation if we turn out a first-rate product,” he said.