Saving democracy is a slogan not a strategy

In the past four years, I’ve seen increasingly fervent articles, studies and op-eds declaring journalism’s essential role in a healthy democracy. As we’ve heard many times before, local news is critical to informing communities and promoting civic engagement. The very presence of a local news organization revives democracy, underpins democracy, sustains democracy, and yet these proclamations have been strikingly disconnected from reality.

A Trusting News analysis: What news consumers say they trust

Trusting News Project ReportDownload Fundamentally, news consumers trust journalism that they find to be balanced, in-depth, honest and reputable.  Those qualities appeared over and over in an analysis of 81 in-depth interviews our newsroom partners conducted with members of their communities. And when asked directly about what defines quality journalism, they were at the top … Continued

Newsrooms join Trusting News work

Originally published on Medium More than 30 newsrooms are making an investment in discovering how best to demonstrate credibility and earn trust by coming on board the Trusting News project. For four months, they’ll commit to regular experimentation across seven trust-building strateiges. A handful of newsrooms have been testing since November, and many more are … Continued

RiskMiner: An app for agribusiness

“Risk to the community, to people and to our food and fuel systems. We’re focusing strictly on agribusiness because that’s the focus of our news coverage and because it affects so much of our day to day lives.” said Pam Dempsey.

Gotta catch ’em all: Archiving digital content such as social media should include linked objects

In the digital media world, there’s no guarantee that material that appears one minute will be there the next. Take, for example, Twitter posts of Anthony Scaramucci, who began deleting old tweets after being named White House communications director. Many — but not all — of the former presidential aide’s postings had already been identified … Continued