In the coming year, we’ll see continuing tension between the public and the press over what’s “real” and what’s not. With the president calling journalists in the mainstream media “a stain on America,” it’s safe to say that the “fake news” conversation will persist — and that attacks on the press will, too. It all means that news organizations will have to keep fighting for the trust of a skeptical public, coming up with ways to demonstrate our credibility across all of the platforms on which we publish our journalism.
At Frontline, we believe that one such way is through journalistic transparency. It’s something we’ve long practiced — but now more than ever, we’ve been cracking open our reporting process and offering new, self-directed opportunities to explore, search, and share what goes into building our journalism. As part of our broader Transparency Project initiative, this fall we launched The Putin Files — which made available 56 full-length interviews from the making of Michael Kirk and his team’s documentary, Putin’s Revenge. We published 32 interviews in video alongside transcripts, and 24 interviews in transcript form only — all fully navigable by person, theme, or highlight.
Our goal was not only to make our source material accessible to audiences, but to make it useful. We developed interactive tools that enable readers and viewers to explore annotated transcripts, compare versions of events, and share quotes via social media.
Poynter’s Jim Warren called this endeavor “an admirable move towards transparency.” And while a video and transcript effort like this is unique, there are different efforts at transparency underway at other news organizations — and we hope more will flourish in the year to come. I’m on a new Knight Commission that’s charged with developing ways to deepen public trust in the press and other democratic institutions. Thinking seriously about transparency will be an important part of the equation.
It’s important to note, though, that the burden (and opportunity) of trust-building doesn’t just fall on news organizations, but also on the platforms where people consume our stories. As Emily Bell said earlier this year, “Fake news has become a meaningless and rather dangerous phrase. But the problem of feeling unsure of what to believe and what not to believe, the obliteration of credible brands and the squeezing of all types of content into the same un-delineated window, is very real.” We’ve seen Facebook make moves towards differentiating between verified and unverified stories. Twitter and Google, too. But the problem is massive, and these are just first steps. I hope that in the year to come, media outlets and tech platforms alike will take bigger ones.
Raney Aronson-Rath is executive producer of the PBS investigative documentary series Frontline.
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Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
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Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
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Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
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Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
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Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
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Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
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Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
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Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
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Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
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Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
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Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
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Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
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Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
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Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
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Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
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Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
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Pia Frey Address users as individuals
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Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
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Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
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Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
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Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
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