Letter from the Editor: Transparency and Trust
Sometimes the “why” and “how” are just as important as the “what.”
Thanks to AI, Russian Bots and that one repost-happy relative everyone has, it’s becoming increasingly important to know how the news sausage gets made. As the editor of an online news outlet, I feel like our biggest competitor is misinformation, and our biggest weapon is our ability to bring receipts for the work our reporters do.
Up until now, those receipts took the form of linking to additional information and providing data and context within the article. But as part of our time as Solutions Journalism Advancing Democracy Fellows, we learned of another way we can help build additional transparency and trust into our reporting: process boxes.
From today on you’ll find a footer at the end of our more complex articles that explains what our sources are and why we’ve chosen to report on this story. We’ll also include information about how we cover the topic in general. This is a small way for us to be able to show you our work, so that you have a better understanding of why we’re sure about our information. It also helps our reporters identify places where they could dig further in future articles.
If you want to check out our first two process boxes, you can find them at the bottom of Angela Downs articles on the opioid crisis and on her district court reporting.
Now, for a little additional transparency. Last month I completed my Poynter Institute Editorial Certification. I started the Beacon having worked with a lot of editors I loved, and I’ve essentially been leaning on them for support whenever I felt out of my depth.
Now that I’m certified (insert dad joke here), each article is going through six separate passes for things like punctuation, flow and accuracy before I move on to fact-checking. Once I’ve finished with an article and the writer has accepted my changes, articles are handed to our proof reader Nigel O’Shea who does a final pass before publishing.
Will we still get things wrong? Absolutely. We’re only human after all, which is why we have a place where you can see all of our corrected articles. It’s one thing to make a mistake, but it’s another to try and hide it, and we owe you full transparency, otherwise we’re no better than your uncle on Nextdoor who believes aliens control doorbell cameras.
In community,
Nhatt Nichols
Editor
