Perspectives on Trust

Apr 17

How do Mississippians know what news to trust?

They judge fact versus opinion, and filter ‘truth’ through relationships.

Not all of our respondents specifically addressed this question. Those who did were generally either:

Judging how much the reporting was based on facts and not opinions.
Doing their own work to consume perspectives from both left- and right-leaning sources in order to judge what was true. This was especially true for coverage of the state legislature and government.

People’s ability to trust the news was also shaped by their historical experience, or by their own sophistication about the media and current events:

A tech entrepreneur and former consultant takes insights from primary sources only and wants no one's opinion or perspective.
People who felt less confident in their own understanding of current events described filtering the news through high-trust relationships like a spouse or parents.
The African-American minister, speaking for his community, said candidly: "The only news we trust is word of mouth."

It’s easier to trust reporters when you know them.

We didn’t specifically ask, but nearly half of our audience pointed to the value of reporting from inside a community. They noted a variety of reasons for this.

People said that reporting from inside a community meant that journalists would better understand the context, get closer to the truth, have more empathy and respect for local people, get better stories, and express to the audience: “We’re in it together.”

"It would be more objective if you got to know the people in the community before telling the story."
"You get a guy asking questions, but just being in touch with the community is the key thing. Someone who knows how to relate to people and talk to people."
"They'll have an online poll: 'Do you feel safe downtown?' You have to have people writing for these publications that really know the location."

Broader research by the nonprofit Trusting News has also shown how people’s ability to trust media reporting relates to their opportunity to interact with and be heard by reporters.

In 2022, through its Road to Pluralism initiative, the group partnered with newsrooms to help them learn how they could earn the trust of diverse audiences. Nine journalists interviewed 76 people for the project.

Among the insights, they learned:

People think the news is politically biased.
People think journalists are a cause of polarization.
Simply having conversations where they listened to skeptical people helped journalists build more trust with those people.

reporting from from an inside perspective

Crime in the community can't be told from the white businessperson who's just scared of their house getting broken into. It needs to go to the heart of where the crime is taking place to see why.

Are we talking about poverty? Jobs? Systemic racism? Some of these kids are literally [in court] because they are being raised by a single mother and trying to feed their brothers and sisters.

It's not that the person is a defendant or a perpetrator; sometimes they are victims themselves. You'll ask: "What services can we offer these families that will be of greater value?"

— Mayor Errick Simmons, Greenville

I do appreciate our local journalists who are active in the community. I think it plays a big part in how they give out the news. It's related to them at some point. There are some news people I've never seen out and about. You think, "Where did they get their information?"

I lived in [another city], and it was a little different there. When you did see them out and about, it was like they would pick and choose who they would talk to.

How they are active in their community plays a role in how they would infuse their opinions into the story. Journalists [should be] part of the community, not just reporting on the community.

— Misty McCraw, West Point