x
Breaking News
More () »

New study says journalists can restore trust by defending their profession and fact-checking

Researchers said they believe the data offers new hope that journalists can restore trust and make facts matter again in politics.
Credit: Pixabay

BATON ROUGE, La. — The best way for journalists to restore trust in the media is to explain their profession combined with more fact checking, according to a new study. 

Louisiana State University researchers at the Manship School of Mass Communication published a study called "Checking facts and fighting back: Why journalists should defend their profession" in December, LSU said in a news release. 

While traditionally journalists ignored attacks against the credibility of the media as a whole, this group of researchers discovered the combination of fact checking along with defending journalism as a whole had a positive effect. Just fact checking alone did not increase trust in mainstream news. 

But speaking out about the importance of journalism and responding to anti-media rhetoric as well as making sure the facts are right increased both trust and use of major media outlets as well as increasing public confidence in the idea that facts in politics exist and can be discovered, researchers said. 

The article, written by Ray Pingree, Ph.D and his research team, was published in an open access research journal called PLOS One. 

READ | Checking facts and fighting back: Why journalists should defend their profession

"This is the first time any study has analyzed what happens to trust in media when journalists defend their profession," LSU said in a statement. 

Pingree created a news portal environment using real news stories from Google News. Study participants were paid to use this portal as their main news source for one week, but they were allowed to read any articles they wanted. 

Half of the participants saw some editorials defending journalism. Another randomly chosen half of the participants would have seen fact-checking stories. 

Pingree and his team used this to measure how the participants' trust in the media changed during the week. Those who saw both defenses of journalism and fact-checking stories had more confidence in their ability to decide which political facts to believe, Pingree said. 

“We know from past research that attacks on the media decrease media trust, and until now, researchers had not looked at what would happen if journalists responded defending their profession, probably because until recently journalists almost never did that,” Pingree said. 

“Traditionally, journalists assume that ignoring attacks and just doing good journalism is the best way to prove the critics wrong. But when one side attacks over and over again and the other doesn’t respond, at some point people assume that journalists have conceded the point that they’re biased.”

Pingree said he believes his study offers real-world implications. He said the data offers new hope that journalists can restore trust and make facts matter again in politics.  

Readers sharing news on social media could help reverse the trend of media distrust by sometimes sharing editorials defending journalism and fact-checking stories, he said. 

“This innovative work underscores the importance and relevance of the public policy and media research underway today at the Manship School,” Martin Johnson, Ph.D., dean of the Manship School said. “We think of it as a public service, and we hope it informs not only journalists, but news consumers around the world.”

LSU said this study was funded by the George D. Nelson Professorship, an internal research grant for the Manship School. 

Before You Leave, Check This Out