Transparency in Media

Questionable accounting and business practices brought down Enron and Arthur Andersen and cost investors tens of billions of dollars. Poor, and some contend manipulated, intelligence convinced Americans that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a danger to the United States, starting a war that continues four years later. It’s no wonder that transparency, with its goal of shedding light on how decisions are made, is one of the buzzwords of the early 21st century. Transparency has become a buzzword in business and government because it is seen as a way to safeguard investors in one and prevent, or minimize, corruption in the other. But the need for transparency, if not the use of the word itself, has been a part of journalism for a long time. Since their earliest days, American newspapers have carried some form of letters to the editor. Today, letters to the editor serve as a way to give voice to the reading public’s complaints and comments. In addition, daily corrections of mistakes in copy serve to reassure readers that the people and institutions they depend on for news are willing to admit their mistakes. But recent scandals – particularly the anonymous source reporting issues involved in the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller incidents at The New York Times – have made the need for transparency in news operations more acute. Newspapers, broadcasters and the now-ubiquitous new media all must depend on the trust and respect of their readers if they want to survive as serious providers of news and information. One of the best ways to earn that trust, along with consistently good performance, is the kind of transparency that lets consumers in on the often tightly held little secrets of journalism – how we do what we do, and why we do what we do.

How Transparency Fits in With Traditional Journalistic Values

Transparency is not just a way to measure how successful journalists and journalism organizations are at living up to their key values, it is a natural part of those values. Among the values that many journalists hold dear are balance, accountability, credibility, and openness or transparency. Some of these core values, such as balance and fairness, are typically thought of in terms of the coverage a journalist or organization provides. In other words, is the news coverage fair? Others, such as accountability and openness, can refer both to government and powerful private institutions covered by journalists, as well as to journalists and their organizations. In other words, it is not only important to demand accountability of the subjects of news coverage, it is also important to demand accountability from those who do the covering. That’s where media transparency comes in.
At its essence, modern-day news values call for journalism to be aggressive enough to hold the powerful accountable and serve its watchdog role, humble enough to admit when it has done wrong, and credible enough so that the public turns to it for questions and occasional answers about the vexing issues of the day. The recent public editor at The New York Times, Byron Calame, put it well when he said in a May 2007 column: ``Transparency -- explaining the newsroom process and how specific decisions were made -- can engage readers and offers accountability that can build credibility.’’

Measuring Transparency

Transparency can be measured in a number of ways. This study look at the following:

1. Openness to reader comments and criticism – Does the news organization publish letters to the editor or provide other forums for readers to express their feelings about news coverage?
2. Openness to discussions with readers – Does the news organization have forums (in person or on the web), blogs, chats with reporters and editors or other ways for the public to interact with the people who collect and disseminate the news?
3. Willingness to explain editorial decisions, including the values and ethics behind them – Does the news organization let its customers (ie – readers, viewers and listeners) know how it does what it does and why? Are reporting standards and ethical rules available for the public to examine?
4. Willingness to openly correct mistakes – Does the news organization publicly correct its mistakes, even when those mistakes are embarrassing?
5. Openness about ownership and conflicts of interest – Is it clear to the customers who owns the news organization and what business or other dealings might put the news organization in a position where its collective judgment could be clouded?

Transparency and Public Perception

Polls by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in a six-year period starting in 1999 consistently showed that half or more of  the American public believe media organizations are politically biased. The polls also showed that large numbers of the public believe the press hurts democracy. It is no longer news to hear that the public does not trust the providers of the news. But whether or not that trend can be reversed is unclear. It is clear, though, that news organizations that want to be seen as better and apart from the rest of the pack will have to convince a skeptical public. Such skepticism is probably healthy, and to be expected. After all, the reading, listening and viewing public will, and probably should, always be skeptical of the media in the same way that a good reporter should always be skeptical of her sources. That means news organizations need to be open about what they do, even when, as was the case recently with the reporting of the shootings at Virginia Tech, the public does not like what they do or their explanations for their actions. It also means being willing to review their procedures and even some of their values in response to public criticism. That is not a call for abdicating decision-making control or turning over the keys to the newsroom to focus groups and other marketing driven solutions. It is a call for being more humble and more open. It means journalists and the organizations they work for must be willing to let their audiences know how they do what they do, and why they do what they do.

Additional Resources

            www.poynter.org
            http://people-press.org/
            http://www.transparency.org/
            http://www.journalism.org/