Newsliteracy-transparency
Operation Open News
An idea proposed by the transparency working group gathered for the seminar, "News Literacy in the Digital Era," at the Poynter Institute, St. Petersburg, Fla., on Aug. 10-12, 2008. Group participants: David Scribman, executive editor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pamela Fine, professor, University of Kansas; Bill Densmore, director, the Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and David Ho, national correspondent, New York Bureau, Cox Newspapers.
Key objective
Create a set of guiding principles for transparency that can be used by news organizations to make coverage more responsible, responsive and less mysterious. These might be embodied in tenets, tools, questions or practices to achieve those principles. These might allow readers to judge whether the news organization is acting independently, honestly, fairly, compassionately and respectfully.
Goals of the project
- To provide guidelines that news organizations can use or adapt
- To give more prominence to the idea of transparency in the gathering and reporting of news
- To make the work of journalists less mysterious, more responsive and more responsible
- To make it easier for readers to exercise news literacy skills
Implementation steps
- A menu of suggested ideas for implementation tools
- Assistance to news organizations seeking to development means
Who is involved in making it work?
- News organization through consensus from the top (a customer-service mandate)
- Readers, users, audience
- News sources
- Civic organizations
Is this a partnership with other entities?
- Poynter/ASNE to help with drafting guiding principles
- SPJ for connection with reporters
- University of Kansas students to help seek input for drafting
- Community thought leaders who are not journalists but consumers might be invited into development process
How can you value diversity in this application?
- Diverse stakeholders -- news producers as well as consumers
- Develop Spanish-language tools on a parallel track
What kind of timeframe would be realistic?
- February for initial launch
Is the project scalable?
- Any news organization can adapt or adopt
- From a one-many blogging organization to large newsroom
What kind of resources, and in what quantity, required
- Almost none.
