How trust and transparency are a crucial part of a journalist's digital-first mindset

Over time, the role of journalism has always been for journalists to provide their audience with informative, credible and accurate news. However, while the role has stayed the same, the format that journalism is based in has shifted, in tandem with the digital age we currently live in.

“Audience worldwide continue to consume and value news from journalists,” Anthony Adornato writes in, ‘Mobile and Social Media Journalism’. “What has changed in how information flows from journalists and newsrooms to audiences.”

The change in flow has a large part to do with the role that social media now has in newsrooms across the country, as journalists work to meet their audiences where they are at, which in recent years, has been increasingly online.

A 2022 Pew Research study showed that 53% of Americans say they prefer to get their news on a digital device, compared to 7% who preferred radio and 5% who preferred print, with these numbers remaining relatively consistent from 2020.

As audience's needs shift to wanting fast-paced, digital news, journalists should be mindful of their need for trust and transparency as well.

As their audiences’ shift to digital, so have newsrooms and journalists, relying more on a digital-first mindset within their reporting and coverage. This mindset includes having a variety of platforms available for content, as an extension of the newsroom; emphasizing audience engagement and the two-way conversation between audiences and journalists; and finding new ways to create revenue, in order to continue to be able to provide audiences with high-quality, informative and engaging information.

While journalists work with this digital-first mindset, it’s crucial that they don’t stray away from credibility, accuracy and transparency in their work — these journalism tenets should never be sacrificed for clicks or in a rush to get a story up.

“The public hears claims of ‘fake news’ just as often as people who work in media,” The NYT Open Team wrote in a 2020 article. “When people understand the process and people involved in telling a story, they are more likely to trust it.”

Journalists should continue to rely on social media as an extension of their newsroom, but also as a valuable tool to cultivate relationships and trust with their audience and sources. A crucial part of a digital-first mindset is having your audience’s needs in mind, which also holds true to their needs for trust and transparency in our fast-paced, digital news cycle today.